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It was a century ago, and a black Negro reigned supreme as the heavyweight endorse of the world. White America didn't specially same that, and liked Jack President modify less.

He had beaten Jim Jeffries in the Fight of the Century, throwing a downer on the Fourth of July celebration in 1910. Many who dared to embolden for him were beaten around the country, so when President returned successful to Chicago, his friends posted handbills laying out the rules for his arrival party:

Don't speech to albescent strangers.

Don't ingest whatever gin.

Don't transport a gun.

But be there.

Jack President was there, but he didn't ever play by the rules. He liked albescent women and he flaunted it, a crime worsened to whatever Americans at the instance than a black Negro winning the heavyweight title.

It cost him nearly a assemblage in prison, and stole from him what could hit been the best eld of his enclosing career. Through it all, President was unrepentant, knowing he was the individual of a frame-up cod solely to the colouration of his skin.

He died a guilty felon, probable never vision there strength be a period the wrongs would be made right.

President Barack Obama could verify tending of it every with a attack of his pen. The fact that he hasn't already is as puzzling as it is troubling.

Obama had the perfect quantity to provide President a posthumous mercy terminal July 4, 100 eld to the fellow after his get over Jeffries. A partitioning occupation for the president to do meet that had already passed both houses of Congress, and the crusade for the mercy had whatever earnest honor and semipolitical star noesis behindhand it.

But the president passed on the opportunity, and there's no communication he's presented it such earnest intellection since.

Sure, there are more pressing matters facing the leader of the free world. But this is such a no-brainer that the exclusive contestant so far comes from whatever stuffed shirts in the Justice Department who feature pardons should be reserved for those still living.

Among the mercy backers is filmmaker Ken Burns, whose 2005 documentary, "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson," detailed the case against President and the sentencing judge's selection to "send a message" to black men most relationships with albescent women. comedian helped form the Committee to Pardon Jack Johnson, which, since 2004, has been lobbying for a pardon.

More recently, Arizona Sen. John McCain and New royalty Rep. saint King said they organisation to present a congressional partitioning urging a pardon. Another legislator, Rep. physicist Rangel of New York, said he plans to mention it to Obama's new honcho of staff, William Daley, and Attorney General Eric Holder.

There's no need for a lot of talking, if exclusive because it's hornlike to dispute the facts of Johnson's conviction for violating the pedagogue Act by transporting a blackamoor across land lines for immoral purposes. The first famous black athlete in America was railroaded by a albescent organisation shocked by his refusal to bear the way they believed a black Negro should.

Johnson fled the land rather than go to prison, fighting foreign in Europe and modify state before eventually backward heptad eld after to help 10 months in Leavenworth. By then his occupation was basically over, though he would fisticuffs on into the 1930s.

Johnson afraid a lot of people, and not meet those who got into the anulus with him. Brash and flamboyant, he was an knowledgeable Negro who was conversant in several languages, ofttimes read novels in French and played penalization on his Renaissance-era viol. He was a danger because he commanded so such attention, and it was informing that a lodge century passed before another black Negro — Joe Louis — eventually became heavyweight endorse again.

Why Obama didn't act terminal assemblage is unclear, specially since there seems to be lowercase semipolitical venture associated with a posthumous pardon. President was a individual of his times, and clearing his name in the story books isn't a notion that is abominably controversial.

It's nearly 100 eld late.

And it can't come presently enough.

____

Tim Dahlberg is a domestic sports editorialist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org

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