Jack Johnson

John Arthur "Jack" Johnson became the first Black heavyweight boxing champion of the world on December 26, 1908, when he destroyed Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia — and in doing so, set off a firestorm of racial terror and fascination that revealed the depths of white America's investment in supremacy. His victory prompted a frantic search for a "Great White Hope" to reclaim the title, and when he defeated Jim Jeffries in 1910, race riots broke out across the country.

Born in Galveston, Texas, in 1878, the son of formerly enslaved parents, Johnson was a self-taught fighter who developed a defensive style so sophisticated that opponents often couldn't land a clean punch. He was also flamboyant, defiant, and unapologetically himself — he drove fast cars, wore expensive clothes, dated white women, and refused to perform the humility that white America demanded of Black men.

The federal government prosecuted Johnson under the Mann Act in 1913 — a law prohibiting transporting women across state lines for "immoral purposes" — in a politically motivated case designed to punish him for his relationships with white women. He was convicted, fled the country, and eventually served a year in prison. In 2018, President Trump posthumously pardoned him. Johnson's refusal to diminish himself made him one of the most important figures in the history of American resistance.