Community | April 01, 2009 | 6 comments

McCain seeks pardon for Jack Johnson, first black heavyweight boxing champ

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090401/ap_on_go_co/boxing_pardon

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bansheewail
Sen. John McCain wants a presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, who became the nation's first black heavyweight boxing champion 100 years before Barack Obama became its first black president.

McCain feels Johnson was wronged by a 1913 conviction of violating the Mann Act by having a consensual relationship with a white woman — a conviction widely seen as racially motivated.

"I've been a very big fight fan, I was a mediocre boxer myself," McCain, R-Ariz., said in a telephone interview. "I had admired Jack Johnson's prowess in the ring. And the more I found out about him, the more I thought a grave injustice was done."

On Wednesday, McCain will join Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., filmmaker Ken Burns and Johnson's great niece, Linda Haywood, at a Capitol Hill news conference to unveil a resolution urging a presidential pardon for Johnson. Similar legislation offered in 2004 and last year failed to pass both chambers of Congress.

King, a recreational boxer, said a pardon would "remove a cloud that's been over the American sporting scene ever since (Johnson) was convicted on these trumped-up charges."
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6 comments // McCain seeks pardon for Jack Johnson, first black heavyweight boxing champ

  • Eleganza
    • 0
      Eleganza  

    • ironic isn't it ...the interest the GOP has suddenly developed in regards to people of color...it's motives are so transparent I actually feel embarrassed for them.

    • 3 years ago
  • Scarabus
    • 0
      Scarabus  

    • This is a nice gesture. How about supplementing it by tying Johnson's name to a law addressing the continuing racial imbalance in the administration of U.S. justice.

    • 3 years ago
  • Bren589
  • yonie
  • bansheewail
    • 0
      bansheewail  

    • This is a great idea. But, I have to ask McCain and the GOP , WHY NOW! This is a long overdue pardon for an American hero, an icon. I think the GOP would do well to spend a little time putting some numbers into their budget proposal and leave these "gestures" for less dire times. They could stop all the obstructionist tactics and let Obama move us forward instead of holding irresponsibly tight to the failed fiscal policies of the Reagan/Bush ideaologies. Note to Republicans: A pardon for Jack Johnson and electing punk Richard Steele to chair the RNC will not make black people like you. Get to work!!

    • 3 years ago
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