History journal 3 assignment for Witness

Galveston's Jack Johnson: Flourishing in the Dark Author(s): Randy Roberts Source: The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 87, No. 1 (Jul., 1983), pp. 37-56 Published by: Texas State Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30241079 . Accessed: 02/06/2013 22:32

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Galveston's Jack Johnson: Flourishing in the Dark

RANDY ROBERTS*

N THE LATE 1920S THE KING OF THE AFRICAN NATION OF SWAZILAND

told a friend that he knew the names of only two people in the western world-Marcus Garvey, the black nationalist, and Jack John- son, the boxer. This testimony illustrates the hold Johnson had on his

age. He held the heavyweight championship from 1908 until 1915, and he was arguably the greatest fighter ever to win that title. But to

say he was just a boxer would be quite misleading; Johnson exerted as much influence on his time as Booker T. Washington or W. E. B. Du Bois did. As a black man who dared to defeat white fighters and

marry white women, his life was well publicized. While other black leaders preached harmony and accommodation, his actions repre- sented conflict and disorder. Eventually the United States government misused the Mann Act against Johnson, and he was forced to flee the

country. But what he represented did not end when he fled to Europe. His emancipated life style influenced blacks from his day until our own. Indeed, black and white liberals in the 196os portrayed Johnson in plays and history books as the first truly free American black man. He was, to understate the case, an unusual man. Perhaps the most unusual aspect of his life was that he was not born and raised in the North. Rather, his entire early life was spent in the port city of Gal- veston. It was there that he learned to box; there that he learned about race relations, which would make him fight for the remainder of his life.'

No one thought of holding church services in Galveston that Sunday. The few churches left standing were empty. Even the priests and

ministers had better places to be. The winds that had swept along the

Texas Gulf Coast on Friday, September 7, 1900, hit Galveston Island in the early hours of Saturday. They blew with greater force as the day

*Randy Roberts is assistant professor of history at Sam Houston State University.

1David Cronon, Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Madison, Wisc., 1955), 207; Al-Tony Gilmore, Bad Nigger! The National Impact of Jack Johnson (Port Washington, N.Y., 1975); Howard Sackler, The Great White Hope (New York, 1968).

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38 Southwestern Historical Quarterly

progressed. By eight-thirty in the evening the hurricane winds ex- ceeded 1io miles an hour. Houses collapsed, shattering slate roofs. The slate fragments, sharp enough to decapitate a person, mixed with bricks and pieces of wood and acted like shrapnel in the high winds. The next day it was discovered that scores of people had been killed or mutilated by the flying objects. In the worst disaster ever to visit North America, over 6,ooo people were killed.

The loss of life was compounded by the destruction of property. The stately Victorian mansions of the town's commercial elite and the disease- and rat-ridden huts of the poor were treated alike by the storm that leveled everything in its path. Over two-thirds of the buildings in Galveston were destroyed. Pictures of the city taken in the days after the flood subsided have an eerie warlike quality: they resemble the

photographs of Dresden or Hiroshima snapped after the bombs ex-

ploded. Some objects or landmarks in the pictures are still recogniz- able, but the general impression is one of a landscape of rubble, where former life must be inferred from the fragments of wood and stone. In every manner, the inhabitants of Galveston and the Island suffered

greatly. The winds of that Saturday carried a grisly fame. They made the name Galveston synonymous with disaster.

In the wake of the tragedy, loss and suffering became relative terms. Some people lost their lives. Others lost members of their families or close relatives. Still others lost their homes. The ones who survived were considered fortunate, and those who lost only their homes were labeled lucky. The irony of the situation was not usually noted by the survivors. Joel Chandler Harris, journalist and famed author of the Uncle Remus stories, had traveled to Galveston to report on the storm: "The condition of thousands of those who have been spared is far more pitiable than that of the dead. Their resources have been swept away by wind and tide, and they are desolate in the midst of deso- lation."2

One of the desolate was Henry Johnson. Compared with others, in

physical and financial terms his losses were small. As far as can be

ascertained, he did not lose any of his immediate family and, in a storm that swept away more than $15,000,000 in property, his financial losses

hardly stand notice. Nevertheless, this old black crippled man lost all

of his possessions. He had worked for years to buy a plot of land and

2John Edward Weems, A Weekend in September (College Station, Tex., 1980), 135-151, 152 (quotation), 153-154, 167; Nathan C. Green, Story of the Galveston Flood (Baltimore, 1900), 3-45, and pictures.

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Galveston's Jack Johnson 39

build a house. According to the assessor's records, before the storm in

1900oo, he owned a lot worth $6oo and a house valued at $500. Then the storm came and took away his house. Afterwards Henry Johnson dropped out of all historical records. It is doubtful that he died in the storm, but nonetheless he was still lost in the winds and water of Sep- tember, 1900oo.

When Henry Johnson came to Galveston is unknown. He was born in Maryland in January, 1838. He was a slave, but some stories were told that he had once been a bare-knuckle fighter and had entertained

wealthy planters. It was also said that he had fought under Robert E. Lee in the Civil War. Such stories, however, are unverified by any written sources. Henry Johnson did not enter the historical records until the 187os, when he began to appear in the Galveston city direc- tories. In 1878 he was listed as a woodcutter, but that was the last year he practiced that trade.4

In 188o Henry Johnson comes into sharper historical focus. Appear- ing in the census report of that year, he was listed as a forty-five-year- old black man who could neither read nor write. He was labeled as a

laborer, but his health was not good. Under the general questions about his health, the census taker had scribbled a hurried "Paralyze." Neither the nature nor the extent of his infirmity was noted. Undoubtedly the

family income was augmented by his wife, Tina, nineteen years his

junior, who worked as a domestic servant. By 188o they had been married for twelve years and had three children, all under the age of ten."

In the 188os, Henry found a new job and a more permanent home.

Early in the decade, he acquired a small plot of land at 8o8 Broadway and started to build a house. The assessors offices in 1881 estimated the land to be worth $350 and valued the improvements at $50o. Over the next two decades the land value leveled at $6o0, and the house

3Assessors Abstract of City Lots in Galveston County, 1900oo-1904 (Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Tex.), 166; Weems, A Weekend in September, 153.

4United States Twelfth Census (1900o), Galveston County, Texas, Schedule i: Popula- tion (microfilm; Rosenberg Library); Denzil Stanley Batchelor, Jack Johnson and His Times (London, 1956), 9; Heller's Galveston Directory, 1878-1879 (Galveston, 1878). Be- fore 1878 it is impossible to determine which Henry Johnson was the one who fathered

Jack Johnson. See Heller's Galveston Directory for 1875-1876 and 1876-1877.

5United States Tenth Census (i88o), Galveston County, Texas, Schedule 1: Population, (microfilm; Rosenberg Library). This census report agrees with the 1900oo data in every- thing but the ages of Henry and Tina Johnson and the fact that Tina had learned to read. Although these census reports give Henry's wife's name as "Tina," many secondary sources refer to her by the name "Tiny."

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40 Southwestern Historical Quarterly

Henry built-a small one-story frame dwelling with a basement and an enclosed porch-was priced at $500. By the standards of the neigh- borhood neither figure was impressive; Henry's holdings were meager even in a poorer quarter of Galveston. But he did own the land and house outright, and for an ex-slave this in itself was a proud accom-

plishment. Along with the house, Henry had by the late 188os found a

job that did not unduly tax his strength. For a few years he worked as a porter at a saloon owned by Richard K. Lee, and in 1888 he became a

janitor for the Central Public School, a small two-story schoolhouse for black children. In the early 189os he became the janitor for the East School District. He remained at this job for the better part of the next decade. Again, by middle-class white standards, Henry was still a

poor man. Yet he had made the transition from slavery to freedom and had maintained the security of a steady job and a permanent home. In this he had every reason to be proud.6

Quietly he established roots and raised a family. He had married Tina when she was in her early teens. Soon afterward they started a

family: Lucy was born in 1872, Jennie in 1875, Arthur in 1878, Henry in 188o, Fannie in 1885, and Charles in 1887. They also had three children who died at birth. Both parents were pious and both re-

spected education; their children were raised in the shadows of church

and school. All six learned to read and write. The picture of the John- son family that emerges from the impersonal records is one of solid

respectability. Like most ex-slaves-in fact if not in fiction-Henry

Johnson got on well as a freedman. He settled with one woman and was a constant provider. He neither roamed from city to city nor

moved from job to job. If he could not enjoy all the rights of a free

man, he could and did accept a free man's responsibilities.7 It is only because of his first son that Henry is remembered at all.

Arthur John Johnson was born on March 31, 1878.8 Galveston, at that

6Assessors Abstract of City Lots in Galveston County, 1880-1884 (Rosenberg Library), 166. Also see the volumes for 1885-1889, 189go-1894, and 1895--1899. Sanborn Insurance Maps of Galveston, Texas, Published by Sanborn-Perris Map Co., Limited (New York,

1899), 51; Morrison and Fourmy's General Directory of the City of Galveston, 188o-1889 (Galveston, 1889). Also see volumes for 1886-1887, 1890-1891, 1891-1892, 1893-1894, 1895- 1896, 1896-1897, 1898, and 1899-19oo.

7Tenth Census (1880), Galveston County, Texas. Schedule i: Population; Twelfth Census (19o00), Galveston County, Texas, Schedule l: Population.

8In every secondary source Jack Johnson's real name is given as John Arthur Johnson. However, in both the 188o and 90oo census reports he is listed as Arthur Johnson. In

addition, the city directories for Galveston between 1896 and 1900 list him as Arthur

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Galveston's Jack Johnson 41

time, was the largest city in Texas and its port one of the finest in the United States. With a population of around 25,000, Galveston mixed small-town life with big-city optimism. Although the rest of the South struggled through a depression, the Galveston Weehly News

boldly proclaimed that there was money to be made. It saw hope for the cotton market and believed that investment in land would yield large profits. If the front pages of the paper indexed Galvestonians' ambitions, the advertisements catalogued their interests: Warwick Wind Wheels, Durham Smoking Tobacco, English Breech Loaders,

gold plated watches, and Parsons' Purgative Pills, "WARRANTED to cure all diseases originating in the stomach, liver and bowels." Water, cotton, tobacco, guns, gold, and medical panaceas-in Galves- ton the interests of both the South and the West converged.9

There was money to be made in Galveston, opportunities fresh and

exciting, but for the most part the riches and rewards were reserved for the city's white citizens. For blacks on the Island, freedom and

opportunity were vague concepts. During the years of slavery, free blacks enjoyed fewer legal rights than slaves, and since emancipation, the material plight of blacks had not improved significantly. Even the most ambitious and talented black Galvestonians faced almost insur- mountable odds. For example, Norris Wright Cuney, the Island's most successful black politician of the last half of the nineteenth cen-

tury, had to associate himself with houses of prostitution and gam- bling in order to advance his political career. He was very light- skinned, educated, energetic, and friendly-yet his color was dark

enough to cause him continual problems. For darker-skinned, unedu- cated blacks, real opportunity was beyond even dreams.'0

But Henry Johnson lived in the shadows of the optimism, and Arthur John ("Jack") Johnson was born into a race of laborers, men who picked cotton they did not sell, plowed fields they did not own, and unloaded ships they could not ride. They did not become famous, write letters, keep diaries, or preserve the records of their existence.

They worked, they died, and except by their family and a few friends

Johnson. This small point is illustrative of just how little is known of his early life. Finis Farr, Black Champion: The Life and Times of Jack Johnson (London, 1965), 4.

9Morrison and Fourmy's General Directory of the City of Galveston, 1888-I889; Gal- veston Weekly News, Apr. 1, 1878 (quotation).

10Earl Wesley Fornell, The Galveston Era: The Texas Crescent on the Eve of Seces- sion (Austin, 1961), 118; Lawrence D. Rice, The Negro in Texas: 1847-1goo (Baton Rouge, 1971), 36-40; Virginia Neal Hinze, "Norris Wright Cuney" (M.A. thesis, Rice University, 1965).

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42 Southwestern Historical Quarterly

and enemies, they were not remembered. When, rarely, one of them became famous, his life became a fitting subject for all sorts of myths, most of which were invented for some didactic purpose. In Jack John- son's background what has been recorded is more what people chose to believe than what actually happened.

Important to the Johnson legend was his mother, Tina, a short,

squat woman with broad features, who was always working. She over- shadows Johnson's father as an influence in his life. It was she who was credited with teaching Jack the need to fight. She insisted that as a

youth her son was the rankest of cowards, that he had to be defended in schoolyard scraps by his sister Lucy. Many a time, she remembered,

Jack would return home bruised and crying. Finally she told her son that if he were beaten again a worse whipping would be waiting for him at home. The lesson was learned instantly; never again did Jack lose a schoolboy fight. The same sort of story is told about most men who become champion fighters. It makes them more human, softens character lines made hard by poverty and casual violence. This act of transformation must be accomplished by the mother, who traditionally represents humanity, gentleness, and sympathy."

Too little is known about Henry Johnson to judge the psychological impact he had upon his son. However, in his son's autobiography Henry Johnson appears to represent the very values Jack Johnson challenged. His father, Johnson wrote, was "a man of pious turn of

mind," who had "served faithfully" as a school janitor. He was a

cripple who was attached to home and job. He was a man whose reach never exceeded his grasp. By contrast, Jack was physically quick where Henry was slow, geographically mobile rather than rooted, and

challenging instead of accepting. He was the reverse image of his father. If Henry resembled Uncle Tom, Jack was a combination of Brer Rabbit and Stagolee.12

Jack Johnson's first idol was Steve Brodie. In his largely fictional

autobiography, Johnson claimed that for a period of time as a youth his ambition was to meet Brodie, who had become famous as the first

person to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and survive. According to

Brodie, and several of his friends who said they had witnessed the leap, in mid-July, 1886, he had jumped and had been picked out of the river by a passing barge. Brodie's claim was supported mostly by his

11San Francisco Call, Dec. 27, 1908.

12[Jack Johnson], Jack Johnson Is a Dandy: An Autobiography (New York, 1970), 33 (quotation).

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Galveston's Jack Johnson 43

Irish charm, and more than a few skeptics claimed that a dummy had been thrown off the bridge and that Brodie had merely swum to the

barge. In any case, Brodie parlayed the fame he acquired into riches, first as a saloon-keeper, then as an actor in the play On the Bowery, in which he reinacted his historic leap.13

On another undocumented-and perhaps imaginary-occasion, Jack Johnson said he had run away from home to New York City to meet Brodie. Only twelve at the time, Johnson rode the rails and traveled as a stowaway on ships until he arrived in New York. He then walked to the Bowery and became friends with Brodie. Or, at least, this is what Johnson wanted his readers to believe. The importance of the assertion lies not in its accuracy but in the subconscious wish be- hind it. Like many writers of autobiographies, Johnson reveals more about himself when he invents than when he tells the truth. Johnson, like Brodie, refused to recognize limitations, either on his actions or on his imagination. Brodie tempted fate-he cheated death-he

jumped and lived. Instead of being swept under by the swift current and drowned in the muddy waters, he survived to open a saloon and become famous. Johnson also challenged the currents. Booker T.

Washington advised fellow blacks to swim with the currents of racial

prejudice and injustice and move along faster toward the goal. For

Johnson, the goal was in the other direction. From his earliest memories, he struggled mightily against the flow.

Johnson was a member of the first generation of American blacks to be born free. Because of the nature of the authorship of historical sources, more is known about the effect this state of affairs had on whites than on blacks. For most southern whites, it was a fact worth

brooding over. Beliefs that blacks would be unable to cope with free- dom were often voiced. The Negro race, Southerners reasoned, was

notoriously carefree, prone to laziness, drunkenness, and disease. Without white supervision, the race would surely decline. Census re-

ports in 1870 and 1890 were interpreted as scientific proof of these dire

predictions. Not all whites, however, subscribed to such opinions. Some believed the black population would grow more rapidly than the white. Noting "the remarkable fecundity of the African," Edward W. Gilliam projected that in 1980 the black population would be 192 million. The result would be frightful. Eventually, Gilliam predicted, "mere numbers must prevail over wealth, intelligence, and prestige,"

13Ibid., 27-31; David McCullough, The Great Bridge (New York, 1972), 546-547.

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44 Southwestern Historical Quarterly

and the "dark, swelling, muttering mass along the social horizon, gathering strength with education, and ambitious to rise, will grow increasingly restless and sullen under repression, until at length, con- scious, through numbers, of superior power, it will assert that power destructively, and, bursting forth like an angry furious cloud, avenge, in tumult and disorder, the social law broken against it."14

Scientific theories aside, only a minority of white southerners could view black advancement as anything less than a threat. Freedom had erased the lines of caste; black codes, which had been designed for race control, were legally banned. Avenues of social and economic advancement, at least in theory, were opened to blacks. The most far-

sighted of southern leaders knew that once cracks in their social sys- tem appeared, they could never be totally mended, and that theoreti- cal freedoms would in time become actual ones. Some feared that when this occurred, there would be a racial war. Writing in the North American Review, Senator John T. Morgan of Alabama warned that the further blacks progressed from slavery, the closer they moved to- ward a racial showdown: "The greater their personal success may be[,] the more they will feel the pressure of caste, . . . so that the race-

prejudice will forever remain as an incubus on all their individual or

aggregated efforts." More to the point, as E. W. Gilliam wrote, "The advancement of the blacks . . . becomes a menace to the whites." Thus

any social, educational, or economic gains made by blacks were inter-

preted as steps toward a final collision.15 More than any other black of his generation, Johnson was the man

who gave flesh to the white's jeremiads. He was the one who, freed from the restraints of slavery, would go forward toward the ultimate confrontation. Other black leaders such as Booker T. Washington and even W. E. B. Du Bois would disguise their progress with cautious words and curry white opinion. Not so Johnson. He moved boldly forward, not out of control but locked in only one direction. He would not maneuver around obstacles or alter his speed. He would live

by his own rules or not at all. In doing so, Johnson threatened order. He was the white man's nightmare of racial anarchy and chaos. It was

14George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro- American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York, 1971), 228-255; E. W. Gilliam, "The African in the United States," Popular Science Monthly, XXII (Feb., 1883), 436 (Ist quotation), 441 (2nd quotation).

1SGilliam, "The African in the United States," 440 (2nd quotation); Frederickson, The Black Image, 228-229; John T. Morgan et al., "The Future of the Negro," North American Review, CXXXIX (July, 1884), 83 (ist quotation).

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Galveston's Jack Johnson 45

for this reason that reaction against Johnson was so hysterical. The influences and events that shaped Johnson's character are un-

known. He attended five years of elementary school, where he learned to read and write. After school he helped his invalid father sweep the floors and clean the grounds of the school. Finishing his years of formal education, he took what work he could find. By his own ac-

counts, he trained horses, painted wagons, baked bread, and unloaded

ships. Seldom did he last long at any job, for he favored the life of a drifter to that of a dependable laborer. He was not his father's son.16

Johnson's real education was absorbed during his endless hours of

drifting in Galveston and South Texas. He learned that he was physi- cally superior to other youths, that he was quicker and that he could

punch harder. Before he chose the ring as a career, he fought because he enjoyed it and because it helped to define him as a man. His first taste of organized fighting came in Battle Royals. This form of boxing contest was more ritual than sport; it served to debase black youths before the white enforcers of the southern racial system. Battle Royals had only one theme but a number of variations. The single theme in- volved black youth fighting black youth in front of white spectators who threw pennies and nickles to the victor. The lesson was obvious: rewards came from defeating your brother, not from joining him. Only rarely did a Battle Royal entail a single man-on-man confrontation.

Usually eight or more black youths were told to get into the ring and

fight a free-for-all in which only the last person left standing won any money. Occasionally, to add to the amusement of the spectators, the

youths were blindfolded. Then the fighting became directionless, with

spindly black kids striking out wildly at unseen opponents and being hit by unanticipated punches.

When the dignity of a one-on-one battle was permitted, some other twist was often added to subtract from the fighters' self-respect. For

example, as a preliminary to the Johnson-Joe Choynski fight in 1901 in Galveston, two one-legged "colored boys" fought each other. To entertain the all-white audience, the two fighters, Jack Byrd and Bob

McGee, hopped around the ring as if fighting on pogo sticks. One re-

porter noted that McGee had improved substantially since the last time he fought.'7 Other one-on-one contests saw fighters tied together

16San Francisco Call, Dec. 27, 1908; Farr, Black Champion, 4-13; [Johnson], Jack Johnson Is a Dandy, 20-35.

17Atlanta Constitution, July 6, 7, 1918; Galveston Daily News, Feb. 26, 1901 (quotation).

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46 Southwestern Historical Quarterly

by the arms or the ankles, or forced to take turns hitting each other, or even to fight nude.

Most accounts of Battle Royals were written by white reporters who saw only the amusement the contests gave to the other white specta- tors. The description that most closely reveals the truth of the affairs, however, is the fictional one written by Ralph Ellison: "Blindfolded, I could no longer control my motions. I had no dignity. I stumbled about like a baby or a drunken man .... My saliva became like hot bitter glue. A glove connected with my head, filling my mouth with warm blood." And through the sightless horror the voices: "Let me at those black sonsabitches! . . . Get going, black boy! Mix it up! .

Uppercut him! Kill him! Kill that big boy!" s

Ultimately these were events without winners, only losers. The

pennies did not pay for the lost dignity. Their sole function was to re- inforce racial stereotypes. Like the blacks in minstrel shows, blacks in Battle Royals conformed to white expectations. Blindfolded or tied

together or in some other way placed in an awkward position, blacks were made to look more comical and less dangerous. It was difficult to take seriously one whose masculinity and dignity were so totally compromised. Symbolically, the black youths were emasculated before each other and the white audience, and they were given painful les- sons about the nature of caste. In a way, the contests can be likened to the World War II movies that stereotyped Japanese soldiers as

bumbling, near-sighted dolts, more apt to shoot themselves than to kill an enemy. Battle Royals simply put boxing gloves on Sambo.

By his own account, Johnson was proficient in the Battle Royals. Even when his opponents joined forces against him, Johnson usually won. He taunted his foes, and, backing into a corner, fought them one at a time. As much as possible he tried to maintain his dignity under circumstances that tended toward humiliation. Yet total dignity was an unreachable goal, and there were times when he was forced to wear a Sambo mask. One time he was matched against a relative in a

fight staged in Galveston. The fight was dull, and the promoter, an old-time heavyweight named Jim Hall, told Johnson to fight harder or to get ready for a real beating. Johnson replied, in the patois all blacks were assumed to use, "You see, Marse Hall, dis nigger ah mah brother- in-law and ah can't hit him hard, cause if ah tries it de whole tribe will

18Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (New York, 1952), 14-17, 18-19 (quotation), 20, 21.

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Galveston's Jack Johnson 47

jes beat me to death when ah gets home." Hall replied he did not care what happened to Johnson when he returned home, but he bet- ter fight.'"

The story, though told and reported in 1909, could have been taken from a number of nineteenth-century descriptions of the typical slave.

Johnson assumed the role of the slave who believed he could trick the master, but of course he could not, for the master understood his

naturally lazy and shiftless nature. In the eyes of white society, no slave was as intelligent as a master. Johnson was caught in his de-

ception and forced to work. He was made by a symbol of absolute

authority-in this case a white referee-to perform as he was ex-

pected to. But Jack Johnson rarely behaved as he was supposed to. As he grew

older, signs of rebellion began to surface. He left home more fre-

quently, roaming around the country, taking jobs as a sparring part- ner or laborer. Seldom did he last long at any job. When he was at home, his tendency toward changing jobs was just as evident. Between

1896 and 1898, Johnson held at least three different jobs. He worked as a porter, a barber's helper, and a stevedore. However, as he re-

ported, he was more fond of fighting and shooting craps.20 When Johnson was in Galveston he lived with his family. By 1900oo

the small Johnson dwelling and an even smaller house in the rear of the lot were occupied by eleven people. Besides Henry and Tina John- son, five of their children still lived at home, including one who was married and had three children of her own. Henry no longer worked, but Henry, Jr., and Augustus Rhodes, the son-in-law, worked as laborers. And by then Jack was fighting professionally at private clubs in the Galveston area. Although none of the males made much money, the house was paid for and expenses were few. Then came the storm, and the family bonds of the Johnson household dissolved.21

The great flood ended Jack Johnson's family life. Johnson's biogra- phers insist that he was married by that time to a light-skinned black

girl from Galveston named Mary Austin. Their source for this mar-

riage is Johnson himself. Jack said they married in 1898, traveled to-

19San Francisco Call, Jan. 18, 1909; [Johnson], Jack Johnson Is a Dandy, 28.

20Morrison and Fourmy's General Directory of the City of Galveston, 1896-1897; [John- son], Jack Johnson Is a Dandy, 25-27.

21Twelfth Census (19oo), Galveston County, Texas, Schedule 1: Population; Morrison and Fourny's General Directory of the City of Galveston, 1891-1892 (Galveston, 1892). Also see volumes for 1893-1894, 1895-1896, 1896-1897, and 1898.

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48 uthwestern Historical Quiarterly

gether in Colorado, split up, reconciled for a trip to the West Coast, and permanently separated in Denver in 19go01. "Mary was a splendid woman," he remembered, "and I recall my life with her as one of the

happy periods of my existence." Certainly a woman named Mary Aus- tin did travel with Johnson for a few years, and he did introduce her as his wife. But they were never legally married. In the 1900oo census

reports, Johnson is listed as a single male living at home with his

parents, and no female named Mary lived there. In addition, when

Johnson applied for a marriage license in 1911 he asserted that he had never been married. The confusion probably originated in John- son's habit of introducing his female traveling companion as his wife. Whomever he was living with at a given time became "Mrs. Jack Johnson," and in his championship years this caused considerable confusion. At various times, two or three "Mrs. Jack Johnsons" might be found in the city where Johnson was staying. Mary Austin may very well have been the first official unofficial "Mrs. Jack Johnson."22

Just as Johnson distorted his exact relationship with Mary Austin, he invented stories of his travels in the late 189os. The tales read well, drama always being more important to Johnson than mere fact. Until the end of his life, he had a tendency to view his career as an un- finished novel, a thing to be tinkered with, a fact to be changed here or an event to be added there. He had an eye for consistency in the whole of his life-he longed for a moral to his story-and so was not above using a procrustean hand in molding individual episodes. Such was his story of his wanderings in the West. In the late 189os, Johnson wrote, he left Galveston with "no particular destination in mind."

Thereupon began a series of conflicts with symbols of white authority. He clashed with "hard-boiled train crews" and "police officers and

constables," with "road detectives and watchman" and small-town

judges. He spent nights in jail and days in hobo jungles. He rode the rods through the Midwest and the Rocky Mountain states. When he needed money, he got a job as a sparring partner or fought in a pro- fessional match.23

In truth, most of Johnson's trips and adventures were imaginary. The 1898 city directory, the 1900 census report, and the boxing record

22[Johnson], Jack Johnson Is a Dandy, 51; Twelfth Census (1900), Galveston County, Texas, Schedule 1: Population; application and marriage certificate of John A. Johnson and Etta Duryea, Jan. 18, 1911, Orphan's Court, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

23[Johnson], Jack Johnson Is a Dandy, 27-36, 37 (Ist and 2nd quotations), 38 (3rd and 4th quotations).

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Galveston's Jack Johnson 49

books place him in Galveston for most of the time during those years. The importance of Johnson's testimony rests not in its factual honesty but in its psychological truthfulness. It seems he interpreted even his

early career in terms of a conspiratorial racial conflict. His every physi- cal movement, he believed, was curtailed by white authorities. They booted him off trains, chased him from boxcars, beat him with clubs, arrested him, jailed him, sentenced him. They attempted, in short, to restrict his mobility and lock him away. These early conflicts illumi- nate the duality that governed Johnson's life. Authority represented repression and mobility symbolized freedom. This is why the police and automobiles were always present in Johnson's mind. He rebelled

against any symbol of authority and often said he enjoyed nothing more than a fast car. Confinement was slavery for him, just as move- ment was emancipation.24

By the time Johnson reached his late teens, he was locked into an

occupation. He was a fighter. He started as a sparring partner for better fighters, and sometimes fought circus boxers who roamed the

country taking on all challengers. On a less organized, but often more serious, level, he battled other black men in alleys and on the docks.

Though slender, he was well muscled and quick, and he usually won the street fights that came his way. Recognizing his aptitude in the

profession, and looking for a way to make more than a laborer's

wage, Johnson turned to professional boxing in the closing years of the nineteenth century.

Prizefighting in Texas-as in almost every other state-existed in a curious limbo. It was widely followed, generally encouraged, nor-

mally tolerated-and totally forbidden by law. It was a subculture that was scorned by reformers but admired immensely by millions of men who had never seen a professional fight but who had the vague notion that prizefighters were a special breed of men. In 1893 The Nation, an organ of respectable America, remarked that the clientele of prizefighting "consists almost always of the offscourings of human

society-gamblers, thieves, drunkards, and bullies. . . . The pugilists themselves . . . are generally persons whose manners and morals are a disgrace to our civilization. .. ." Existing along with this opinion was another that whispered the name of the great John L. Sullivan as if it

24Morrison and Fourmy's General Directory of the City of Galveston, 1896-1897, 1898; Twelfth Census (900oo), Galveston County, Texas, Schedule 1: Population; Bert Randolph Sugar (ed.), The Ring: I98i Record Book and Boxing Encyclopedia (New York, 1981), 474; San Francisco Call, Feb. 6, 1911; San Francisco Bulletin, Feb. io, 1911.

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50 Southwestern Historical Quarterly

were a religious invocation. Indeed, Professor William Lyon Phelps of Yale remembered reading the newspaper to his saintly Baptist min- ister father the day after the Sullivan-Corbett fight: "When I came to the headline CORBETT DEFEATS SULLIVAN I read that aloud and turned the page. My father leaned forward and said earnestly 'Read it by rounds.' "25

Texas law first took note of prizefighting in 1889, when a statute was enacted that lumped boxing together with dogfighting, bullfight- ing, bullbaiting and bearbaiting. All contests were permitted but a tax

of $500 was levied for each performance. In 1891 the law was changed and boxing was prohibited. Now those involved "in a pugilistic en- counter between man and man, or fight between man and bull or be- tween man and other animal" were guilty of a felony punishable by a fine between $5oo and $i,ooo and by a jail term between sixty days and one year. Because the 1889 law was never specifically repealed, there was a period of general confusion about the status of boxing, but this was settled in 1895 when Dallas sportsmen arranged to have the Corbett-Fitzsimmons heavyweight championship fight staged in their

city. The way for this bout was seemingly cleared when Judge J. M. Hurt ruled that the 1889 law was still in effect. However, Governor Charles A. Culberson held another opinion, and he was, after all, gov- ernor of Texas, and therefore a man to be listened to. Spurred on by a personal controversy with several members of the Dallas sporting fra-

ternity, he saw as his gubernatorial duty the defending of the 1891 law. In the end the governor prevailed, and in September of 1895 a new law was passed that was essentially the same as the 1891 statute

except that it provided for a penitentiary sentence of between two to five years for those who engaged in prizefighting.26

Of course, the law did not actually stop prizefighting. No matter how tightly it was worded, the statute always left room for a certain amount of local interpretation. For example, prizefighting was legally defined as any encounter "for money or other thing of value, or upon the result of which any money or anything of value is bet or wagered, or to see which any admission fee is charged." For many turn-of-the-

century sports fans, this definition did not rule out exhibitions for

25"A Point in Journalism," The Nation, Mar. 23, 1893, p. 210 (ist quotation); Dale A. Somers, The Rise of Sports in New Orleans, 1850-1900 (Baton Rouge, 1972), 185 (2nd quotation).

26Elmer M. Million, "History of the Texas Prize Fight Statute," Texas Law Review, XVII (Feb., 1939), 152, 153 (quotation), 154-159.

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Galveston's Jack Johnson 51

which no money was paid, on which no money was bet, and to which no admission fee was charged. Working under this set of assumptions, the Galveston Athletic Club in 1899 invited Joe Choynski, a nationally prominent boxer, to come to Galveston to act as the club's physical training instructor. The members of the club agreed to pay Choynski $500 a month for his services, and the famous boxer agreed to give as one of his duties a "scientific demonstration" of his trade against the local heavyweight Jim Hall. Of course, neither Choynski nor Hall would be paid for the exhibition, nor would any of the club members either bet on the outcome of the exhibition or be charged for watch-

ing the demonstration. That, after all, would make the exhibition a

prizefight, and in Texas prizefighting was strictly forbidden.27 In this Alice-in-Wonderland world of professional, but technically

nonprofessional, boxing, Johnson entered in 1897. Johnson's record for the first several years of his career is sketchy. Because boxing was

illegal, club fights were not normally reported in the local newspapers, and even on the rare occasions that they were covered, only the main attractions were mentioned. But a main attraction, Johnson was not. He fought in obscurity. The Ring Record Books listed five fights for

Johnson for 1897 and 1898, but he probably fought more. Mostly these were years of learning his trade, and at this stage education was more

important than results.28

By 1899 he began to move up. He now fought and defeated the best of the local fighters. Although his relaxed fighting style struck some

spectators as lazy, it was effective. He appeared to win without extend-

ing himself. After defeating a local favorite named Jim McCormick in March, Johnson decided his talents had outgrown Galveston. He went to Chicago, a national center for boxers. There, good and great fighters like Jack Root, Peter Maher, Billy Still, Frank Childs, Marvin Hart, and Tom Sharkey trained and fought. From men of this quality, John- son began his graduate education in pugilism. As a sparring partner, he learned to slip punches, hook to the kidney, and perform other tricks of the trade.29

He learned but he did not prosper. The money he made as Jack Root's sparring partner was negligible, and without a reputation he was not in demand for real fights. He ate poorly and slept irregularly.

27Ibid., 153 (ist quotation); Galveston Daily News, Mar. 9, 190go

281981 Record Book, 474-

29Farr, Black Champion, 38-40; Batchelor, Jack Johnson and His Times, 31-34-

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52 Soiuthwestern Historical Quarterly

Then his chance came. On May 6, 1899, he was matched against a

good black boxer whose nom de guerre was Klondike Haynes. John- son, it was alleged, was "nearly starved" when he entered the ring, but for the first few rounds he outboxed Klondike. Then he started to weaken under Klondike's body attack. In the fifth round Johnson decided that he had fought enough and abruptly quit. Chicago was

unimpressed with the debut. Johnson went back to Galveston for another season in the minor leagues.30

Nineteen Hundred. A bad year for Johnson and a worse one for Galveston. Along with houses and stores, the flood washed away facili- ties for local boxing events. Johnson is credited with only one fight for that year, a twelve-round win against Josh Mills in a match that was staged in Memphis. If Johnson's autobiography is to be believed, he also traveled throughout the Rocky Mountain states with a boxing troupe that included Tom Sharkey and Mexican Pete Everette. In

1900, however, Sharkey fought on the East Coast and Everette battled on the West Coast. In truth, Jack Johnson was as much obscured by the storm as his father was. Like so many other Galvestonians, he was lost in the flood.31

He resurfaced early in 1901. On February 25 of that year he was matched against Joe Choynski, one of the greatest fighters of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His father, Isador Nathan Choyn- ski, published Public Opinion, a muckraking San Francisco newspaper that exposed anti-Semitism in American society. Like his father, Joe also was a fighter. In 1889 he fought future heavyweight champion Jim Corbett on a grain barge anchored in the San Pablo Bay close to Bernicke. Corbett won in twenty-seven savage and bloody rounds.

Thereafter, Choynski fought and defeated many of the best fighters of his era. He battled John L. Sullivan and Bob Fitzsimmons, Kid McCoy and Tom Sharkey, Jim Jeffries and Joe Walcott. He fought the greats and the near-greats, from lightweights to heavyweights. Yet by 1901, when he fought Johnson, his skills were declining.32

In 1900oo Choynski was knocked out by Kid McCoy, Joe Walcott, and Tom Sharkey. He was old but still had a reputation; Johnson had no

reputation but possessed what A. J. Liebling has called "the out-

3soChicago Daily Tribune, July 3, 1910 (quotation), May 7, 1899; 1981 Record Book, 474.

311981 Record Book, 474; [Johnson], Jack Johnson Is a Dandy, 31-33- 32William M. Kramer and Norton B. Stern, "San Francisco's Fighting Jew," California

Historical Quarterly, LIII (Winter, 1974), 333-344.

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Galveston's Jack Johnson 53

rageous fortunes of chronology." A victory over Choynski would vault

Johnson into the national heavyweight scene and allow him to return to Chicago in style. Johnson was anxious for the match and had full confidence that he would win.33

The fight was something of a social occasion for Galveston. Although the wet night air seeped through the cracks in the walls of Harmony Hall, no "political meeting or a more ordinary entertainment" ever attracted such a large crowd. Before the main event black minstrels and a quartette from Houston sang a few songs; then two one-legged "colored boys" boxed. Finally, referee Herman Bernau gave a short talk on the necessity of maintaining order during the bout. This done, the two fighters entered the ring and the fight started.

If Choynski could no longer defeat champions, he could still handle newcomers. For two rounds Johnson looked good; he moved well and landed as often as he was hit. Early in the third round, Choynski feinted with a left, which pulled down Johnson's guard, and crossed with a right. Johnson fell forward into Choynski's arms and then

gradually sank to the floor, face downward. Everyone expected John- son to rise; reporters did not believe that the punch had carried knock- out power. But at the count of ten Johnson was still stretched out on the canvas.34

But the action was just beginning. As soon as the referee finished his count, Captain Brooks and four other Texas Rangers climbed into the ring and arrested Choynski and Johnson. The arrest was orderly, but Johnson, still groggy from Choynski's right cross, was confused and had to be helped out of the ring. Afterward, Brooks announced that he had acted on orders of the governor. It was later revealed that he was told to allow Galveston authorities to prevent the fight, but if

they failed to do so, he was to stop it. And, faithful to his duty, stop it he did. When the first real punch was landed-the knockout blow- and the count completed, Brooks arrested the offenders.35

The issues behind the arrests were more political than pugilistic. Governor Joseph D. Sayers was a genteel, high-minded man who be- lieved in the enforcement of state laws. He had seen Galveston over- come the effects of the flood and saw boxing as a small barrier to the

general progress of the community. Publicly, he stated that the people

33A. J. Leibling, The Sweet Science (New York, 1956), 252. 34Galveston Daily News, Feb. 26, igo1 (quotations). 35Ibid., Feb. 26, 27, Mar. 9, 1901.

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54 Southwestern Historical Quarterly

of Galveston could decide whether or not to enforce the statute against prizefighting, but the governor's actions spoke otherwise. He em-

ployed a forceful attorney, John Lovejoy, to prosecute the case and made sure that the bench was sympathetic to the state's position.36

Prominent Galvestonians, however, were determined to protect their many enjoyments. Alderman Robert Webber said the $5,000 bond under which Johnson and Choynski were held was higher than that required in a murder case. Is it "a greater crime against the great State of Texas to engage in a friendly boxing contest than to shoot

your neighbor down without notice?" Webber demanded. He knew

boxing was criticized as brutal, degrading, and demoralizing; he knew the argument that it attracted the rowdier sorts of people. But in Gal- veston the sport was good clean fun that was followed by the "best

citizens" of the community. Charles L. Davis, president of the Galves- ton Athletic Club, agreed. Neither the fighters nor the promoters were

guilty of anything more than staging a wholesome "scientific exhibi-

tion" of self-defense, one whose purpose was moral uplift and physical improvement.37

In jail Johnson and Choynski were told that their bond would be reduced and that they would be released as soon as the court heard the charges. One week after the fight, Judge Allen was presented with the writ. His reaction was not what the fighters expected. In presenting the case to the grand jury, he emphasized that Texas had abolished

prizefighting for salutary reasons. The sport, he said, was a "species of

brutality" before which most Americans blanched. Prizefights "ac- custom people to cruelty and beget a taste for brutal pastimes"; they "dull men's ordinarily sympathetic natures." Addressing the grand jury, he added, "But with the reason of the law you have nothing to

do; it is sufficient that the law is on the statute book and your sworn

duty is to act under it. And it seems the law of Texas has been de-

liberately and openly violated and defied." As Allen spoke, Johnson and Choynski's faces registered their concern. They expected to leave the courtroom free men, or at least free on bond. Instead they were re- turned to jail.38

In jail both were well treated. They were celebrities of sorts, and

36Ibid., Feb. 27, 1901; Rupert Richardson, Ernest Wallace, and Adrian Anderson, Texas: The Lone Star State (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1981), 346-350.

37Galveston Daily News, Mar. 1 (1st and 2nd quotations), Mar. 3 (3rd quotation), 1901.

38Ibid., Feb. 28, Mar. 1, 3, 5 (quotations), 1901.

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Galveston's Jack Johnson 55

their case was a special one. Sometimes they were allowed to spar for the amusement of jail authorities and the inmates. In these sessions,

Johnson learned the subtle moves of the profession that only a master could teach. Professionally, for Johnson the time spent in jail was like a summer camp. The two even posed for a picture, looking out from behind bars as their captors held rifles and handguns as if they had

just bagged a pair of prize elk. In truth, their time in jail resembled a charade that had gone sour but could not be ended. Jail life was not bad, but after a few weeks it began to pall.39

Yet Judge Allen showed no desire to end the charade. While the

grand jury reviewed the evidence, Allen went to Austin and conferred with the governer. He returned more convinced than ever that law- breakers must not go unpunished. The grand jury, however, was not so

outraged. After a leisurely four-day review of the evidence it failed to find grounds for an indictment. Allen was shocked and angry. After some discussion, Allen said that the grand jury had not understood his instructions; he therefore overruled the motion to dismiss the case and asked the grand jury to reconsider their findings.40

Choynski was irritated. He told the court that his only reason for

coming to Galveston was to take a job as athletic instructor for the Galveston Athletic Club. Calling himself a "has been," he said his exhibition with Johnson was purely for the purpose of instruction. When asked if he knocked out Johnson, he replied: "No sir, he just found a soft spot and laid down. I have given exhibitions with other

people and had them do the same thing.... Johnson just got tired and

quit." Judge Allen was unimpressed. He sent Johnson and Choynski back to jail, although he did reduce their bond by one-half.4"

As determined as Judge Allen was to keep Choynski and Johnson locked away, the grand jury was just as determined that they should

go free. Finally a truce was reached. On March 20 the fighters' bond was further reduced to $i,ooo. Two days later the bonds were paid and the boxers freed. They had spent twenty-four days in jail, and

Choynski at least was bitter over the experience. Choynski told re-

porters he was through with boxing; he would return to his wife in La Grange, Illinois, and devote himself to other pursuits. Johnson,

39Ibid., Feb. 28, 1901; Rex Lardner, The Legendary Champions (New York, 1972), 191; Farr, Black Champion, 20-21.

40Galveston Daily News, Mar. 8, 9, 1901. 41Ibid., Mar. 9, 1901 (quotations).

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56 Southwestern Historical Quarterly

too, was through-but only with Galveston. He left for St. Louis where he expected to engage in other "scientific exhibitions." Both said they would return to Texas when their case came to trial. It never did.42

The emotions of the day soon calmed. Choynski returned to boxing and fought for another three years. Johnson was back in Galveston within a month, as were "scientific exhibitions" of pugilism. Boxing was returned to the de facto local-option basis that it had enjoyed before the Johnson-Choynski affair. Before the year was over, Johnson fought at least eight more times in Galveston, all of which matches were as ignored by the newspapers as they were enjoyed by the specta- tors. By the summer of 19go01 it was clear that Johnson was far better than any of the other local fighters. Before, Jim McCormick, a top Galveston boxer, had fought to draws with Johnson; now Jack toyed with him.43

In Galveston, Johnson had flourished in the dark. His successes went unobserved and unnoticed. He was a good fighter and knew it, but as long as he stayed in Galveston no one else would know it. He had made tentative forays into the boxing world beyond Galveston, but always he returned. Galveston meant home-his family, a house at 8o8 Broadway, and Mary Austin. It meant familiar surroundings and security. After the flood proved security an illusion, it was easier for Johnson to break his ties with Galveston. Late in 19o01, when he was twenty-three years old, he left the city. Galveston would never

again be his home. But Galveston never left Jack Johnson. The bitter- ness of his later years was largely the product of his youth. The hu-

miliation, the pain, the difficulties of growing up black in the deep South had molded Johnson into a rebellious and defiant man.

42Ibid., Mar. 21, 23, 1901.

431981 Record Book, 474.

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