Healthy & Beautiful

In Fighters & Writers I mention several of the countless writers who expressed interest in, and were inspired by, boxing, such as Lord Byron, Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Budd Schulberg and George Plimpton. I could have, but didn’t, name another literary connoisseur of the fight game, Vladimir Nabokov. In a 1925 essay on the sport published in English for the first time this month by The Times Literary Supplement, the author of Laughter in the Dark and Lolita says “there are few spectacles as healthy and beautiful as a boxing-match.”

 

Clearly writing for a non-expert audience, Nabokov points out some salient facts that should be widely know but, even decades later, still are not. For example, it was not “commonplace humanity that led to the appearance of boxing gloves,” he points out, but instead a wish to protect fighters’ hands. He astutely observes that calling Jim Jeffries the “great white hope” hinted that “black boxers were already becoming unbeatable.” He’s a little shaky on dates, estimating that the championship fight between Jeffries and Jack Johnson occurred “twenty-five or more years” before he was writing (when it was 15), but he gets something essential right, something that gets to the heart of what Nabokov call “the art of boxing” and its appeal for writers. Recounting the crowd dispersing after a heavyweight bout, he states his conviction that within the witnesses “there existed one and the same beautiful feeling, for the sake of which it was worth bringing together two great boxers, – a feeling of dauntless, flaring strength, vitality, manliness, inspired by the play in boxing. And this playful feeling is, perhaps, more valuable and purer than many so-called “elevated pleasures.” Even if not everyone who saw the fight Nabokov took in at the Sports Palace in Berlin walked away with this “beautiful feeling,” he and many scribblers before and since certainly did.

 

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Jack Johnson-Jim Jeffries 101

Modern American boxing writing began with coverage of Jack Johnson’s defense of his heavyweight title against Jim Jeffries in 1910, or so George Kimball asserts in At the Fights, the Library of America anthology he edited with John Schulian. In the single selection concerning that bout, novelist Jack London says Johnson “played and fought a white man in a white man’s country, before a white man’s crowd.” Thus, from its beginning 101 years ago, boxing writing has never been exclusively about sports. Like many others in the rapidly constructed arena in Reno, Nevada, where Johnson and Jeffries fought, London thought the contest expressed something about racial politics, although as Kimball and Schulian point out in a head note, London’s most infamous line about a Johnson bout – “Naturally, I wanted to see the white man win” – occurs in an earlier article, one on Johnson’s ascension to the championship via victory over Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia, in 1908. In still another piece, London urged Jeffries to return from retirement and retrieve the title for “the White Man.”

Johnson’s success did reveal something about racial identity, though not in the way London wanted. Though he preferred not to view himself as a representative of a race or a cause, Johnson did topple the myths of racial superiority harbored by the likes of London.

Kimball and I both spoke at events commemorating the centennial of Johnson-Jeffries and both contributed to the literature about it. In his collection Manly Art, Kimball includes an article about efforts to pardon Johnson for a bogus 1913 “white slavery” conviction. My Reno talk about the resonant symbolism of Johnson beating Jeffries on the Fourth of July, subsequently appeared in fall 2010 edition of The Nevada Review, and on their website the editors of that journal direct readers to some related works. Further, I write about At the Fights and Manly Art (as well as Johnson-Jeffries) in the May/June 2011 issue of The American Interest.

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Boxing & Black History

Boxing history affords many fascinating ways to consider twentieth-century American history, including the evolution of attitudes about race, numerous boxers’ indirect and direct challenges to racist structures, and, of course, many remarkable achievements against the odds.

In acknowledgement of Black History Month, here are several recommendations of books about boxers and much, much more.

Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion and a defiant disregarder of racial stereotypes, is the subject of at least two exceptional biographies, Papa Jack by Randy Roberts and Unforgivable Blackness by Geoffrey C. Ward. (I relied on both of these, among other sources, when readying my presentation at the 100^th anniversary commemoration of Johnson’s 1910 fight with Jim Jeffries, which appears in the fall 2010 edition of The Nevada Review.) By the way, this month would be a great time to renew the call for a posthumous pardon for Johnson, who suffered a patently unjust 1913 conviction for violating the so-called White Slave Traffic Act (a.k.a. the Mann Act). Senator John McCain unsuccessfully pushed multiple times for such a pardon, which should be granted before the centennial of this miscarriage of justice arrives.

Thirty years after his death, it’s hard to imagine a boxer having the social impact that Joe Louis did. During his climb up the heavyweight ranks and his long, record-breaking (and still record-holding) reign as champion (1937-1949), he inspired pride in millions of people. His defeat of Max Schmeling, a boxer popularly associated with the Nazis, soon before World War II (in which Louis served as a soldier) became an event of profound national and international importance. David Margolick offers an exhaustive account of Louis’s two fights with Schmeling in Beyond Glory. Chris Mead and Roberts, among others, penned solid biographies of Louis. (I write at length about these and other books about Louis in an essay disseminated by Americana: The Institute for the Study of American Popular Culture.)

Sugar Ray Robinson, who like Louis grew up in Detroit, garnered much admiration for his style both in and out of the ring during the 1940s and 1950s, when he won titles as both a welterweight and a middleweight. In Sweet Thunder, Wil Haygood looks at Robinson’s life, along with the lives of peers such as trumpeter Miles Davis, poet Langston Hughes and singer Lena Horne. Looking back on the 1940s, Davis notes in his autobiography that “Joe Louis had been heavyweight champion of the world for a long time by then, and he was every black person’s hero – and a lot of white people’s, too. Sugar Ray Robinson wasn’t far behind him in popularity.” The jazz giant takes these boxers’ eminence as indication that “things were beginning to happen for black people in this country.”

Though usually regarded as an anti-hero rather than a hero, Charles “Sonny” Liston, the mob-backed devastating puncher who preceded then-Cassius Clay on the heavyweight throne, has a story worth telling, and Nick Tosches tells it in colorful fashion in The Devil and Sonny Liston. (Looks like this one is out of print, but it’s worth seeking out.)

I’ve heard it said that more has been written about Abraham Lincoln than any other president, and I would not be surprised if Muhammad Ali generated more ink than any other boxer. This makes it difficult to name just a few worthy books, but The Muhammad Ali Reader, edited by Gerald Early, gives a good sampling of numerous authors’ take on the man and his significance, and Thomas Hauser’s Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times remains the unbeaten biography.

Of course, many more boxers and many more books deserve attention, this month and year round. In the list of sources in the back of Fighters & Writers, I name more essential works of literature and history.

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Joe Louis and Detroit

A tribute to Joe Louis in Detroit, Michigan

When I was in Detroit for a Fighters & Writers reading, someone asked me how I became interested in boxing. I’d just read portions of an essay about the often-overlooked positive aspects of the sport, but the person wanted a more personal explanation. I talked a bit about Joe Louis, who learned to box in the city where I grew up and who is commemorated with sculptures and a sporting arena there. I knew Louis’s name since childhood, and in some mysterious way that influenced writing I would do as an adult, I explained.

I made use of that unplanned reflection in “So Long, Joe,” an essay about the fighter that Americana: The Institute for the Study of American Popular Culture published in its Magazine Americana.

In the piece, I don’t just express my own thoughts about Louis. I also survey some of the many books about him, such as biographies by Chris Mead, Barney Nagler and Randy Roberts, among others. (Roberts also authored a book about Jack Johnson that came in handy when I was preparing my talk about Johnson’s fight with Jim Jeffries in Reno.)

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Jack Johnson in “The Nevada Review”

The 1910 fight between Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries was far more than just an athletic event. The contest between the first black heavyweight champion and a former titlist who’d previously refused to confront black challengers spotlighted and enflamed the volatile attitudes concerning race, identity, meritocracy and manhood not only of the two athletes but of the nation as a whole. The staunchly individualistic Johnson was a polarizing figure, and the racism of those supporting the Great White Hope Jeffries was sickeningly commonplace. Clearly, the struggle involved much more than just two men.

As I’ve mentioned before, I gave a talk called “Jack Johnson’s Fourth of July” at the centennial celebration of the Johnson-Jeffries bout in Reno, where the fight was held. The Nevada Review, a multidisciplinary journal that examines Nevada’s role in the political and historical development of the United States, has printed my remarks. The fall 2010 edition (Vol. 2, No. 2) is available from selected bookstores as well as Amazon.

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Jack Johnson and The Ring in Reno

The October 2010 issue of The Ring includes a story about the Independence Day celebration of the Jack Johnson-Jim Jeffries fight. Joseph Santoliquito’s article focuses on the happy meeting of relatives of two fighters who didn’t shake hands either before or after their bout – something I also reported after returning from the centennial events in Reno.

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Remembering Johnson-Jeffries in Reno

It was quite an honor to be a part of the Johnson-Jeffries Centennial Celebration in Reno, Nevada, where boxers, commentators, writers, fight fans and descendants of Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries, among others, congregated to look back at the “Fight of the Century” and its impact on American culture.

With Al Bernstein at the Johnson-Jeffries Centennial Gala

A century before, Jeffries’s corner men rebuffed heavyweight champion Johnson when he sought to shake his vanquished opponent’s hand, but the fighters’ relatives happily embraced at the gala emceed by announcers Al Bernstein and Rich Marotta at the Grand Sierra Resort on Friday, July 2. Wayne Rozen, author of America on the Ropes: A Pictorial History of the Johnson-Jeffries Fight (who also wrote about the fight’s anniversary for the New York Times), gave a great multimedia presentation. Super middleweight champion Andre Ward and referee Kenny Bayless were among those gathered in the Grand Theatre, where bouts were held the following night.

With Andre Ward at the Grand Sierra Resort

The good people at Our Story Inc. organized events for Independence Day weekend and throughout the month of July. I delivered a talk called “Jack Johnson’s Fourth of July” at the Bethel African American Cultural Center on July 3, after which I signed copies of Fighters & Writers. George Kimball, author of Four Kings, also spoke. The organization has scheduled screenings of the documentaries Unforgivable Blackness and No Neutral Corner as well as exhibits of archival photographs, boxing memorabilia and paintings by Demetrice Dalton, Ed Shepherd and other artists.

Delivering "Jack Johnson's Fourth of July" in Reno

Approximately one hundred people stood under the high desert sun on the Fourth to witness a ceremonial bell ringing at the original fight site on the corner of Fourth Street and Toano, after which a party was held at the spot where Johnson trained and where Tim and Joan Elam now tend an enchanting garden.

Linda Haywood (great granddaughter of Jack Johnson's sister) and Gary Wurst (great-great nephew of Jim Jeffries) at the site of the 1910 fight

Plaque marking the site where Jack Johnson trained in Reno

For my wife and me, the weekend wasn’t only about boxing. It also included an excursion with Reno Gazette-Journal reporter Geralda Miller to Virginia City, where historian Guy Rocha showed us the sights and we watched the Independence Day parade.

With Geralda Miller and Guy Rocha in Virginia City, Nevada

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Jack Johnson in Reno

The best boxing stories are never about athletics alone. If the fight between Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries in 1910 had been just another boxing match, just a contest between two professional sportsmen, no one would remember it a century later. But some fights – and that’s certainly one of them – have great historical significance and profound symbolic resonance. Quite frequently, in the United States, talking about boxing means talking about race. And there’s plenty to say…

Information about “Jack Johnson’s Fourth of July,” the talk I’m giving in Reno next month, has been posted on the Johnson-Jeffries Centennial website’s events page.

[UPDATE: For a recap of the centennial events, see “Remembering Johnson-Jeffries in Reno.”]

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Jack Johnson & me

In 1910, Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, defended his title by defeating former champion and “great white hope” Jim Jeffries.

I’ve been invited to speak at events in Reno, Nevada, commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the fight there. (An essay I wrote about music inspired by the boxer appeared around the bout’s 99^th anniversary.)

Details to follow…

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