White Superiority, Jack Johnson Says Hell No To That!

In 1964 a black boxer from Louisville, Kentucky defeated a seemingly unbeatable heavyweight champion Sonny Liston in Miami, Florida. That fighter went to become the iconic Muhammad Ali. After the fight in the ring he shouted that he shook up the world. Well, in reality a black boxer from Galveston, Texas in 1910 beat the former undefeated heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries and in reality did indeed shake up a nation dripping in racism, and soaked in Jim Crow oppression. Jack Johnson did what every white person thought was impossible for a black man prove that white superiority was a joke, a fantasy, an illusion. He did it by being bold, brash, and cocky. He threw his color and his personality in the faces of his opponents and the entire nation. Today, I look back to that day July 4, 1910, a day that so alarmed white Americans that they attempted to censor the entire event and happening from the history books.