Jack Johnson: Black activist, no; boxing champ, yes

By ROBERT PRICE

If you were still trudging back from the outhouse and missed it, I'll fill you in. As revealed Monday and Tuesday night in PBS' outstanding new documentary by Ken Burns, Bakersfield was once home to the best-known athlete in the world -- the heavyweight boxing champ. And not just any champ: a groundbreaking, polarizing, bigger-than-life scoundrel-slash-hero.

Jack Johnson, the world's first African-American heavyweight boxing champion, didn't consider himself an activist, but few others in those days -- if indeed anyone -- stirred dreams of social justice and equality in the hearts of U.S. blacks more than he.

Johnson, who was champion from 1908 to 1915, lived in Bakersfield off and on (but mostly off) from 1901 until perhaps 1911. Records aren't clear.

But, as suggested in "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson," a four-hour PBS documentary that made its debut this week, his stay was a memorable one.

Johnson was born in Galveston, Texas, in 1878, and started boxing at the age of 16. Kicked out of town for staging an illegal fight in 1901, Johnson hopped a freight train for Denver and eventually landed in Stockton, according to Geoffrey C. Ward's book, upon which the documentary of the same name is based.

That autumn, a squat, tough-talking Bakersfield saloon owner named Frank Carillo convinced him to move to this city.

Carillo, his toughness underscored by the knife scar across his cheek, had quite an operation. He staged illegal cockfights and then tipped off accommodating police officers, who would raid the events, arrest the spectators and step aside while Carillo lent them bail money at exorbitant rates. So it went in Bakersfield, a tough, semi-lawless remnant of the Old West.

Bakersfield's blacks lived in a small, clearly defined section of the town, but Johnson managed to rent himself a room in the white neighborhood. And soon enough, he was keeping the company of white women, further inflaming things.

Carillo arranged a Nov. 4 fight between Johnson, then billed as "Jack Johnson of Denver," and Hank Griffin, the son of a runaway slave and his American-Indian wife, at New Harmony Hall on lively Cottonwood Road in Bakersfield.

"The fight was one of the cleanest ... ever witnessed in this city," wrote The Californian. "... Both men (were) breaking nicely from the clinches. ... Griffin landed many hard punches during the evening, but so did Johnson."

Griffin, a good defensive fighter known as "Mummy" Griffin for his skeletal build, won the 20-round bout on points, although Johnson later claimed they'd fought to a draw. He also claimed that he'd gone into the ring despite a fever, and that he'd knocked Griffin down twice. No one else seemed to recall the knockdowns.

The men fought three times more in later years -- a draw each time.

Johnson never fought in Bakersfield again, but he did fight for Carillo. In 1902, he faced George Gardner in San Francisco. Carillo, working in Johnson's corner, had bet on the outcome. Halfway through, apparently unsure about the safety of his money, he waved a pistol in Johnson's face, hoping to convince Johnson to try a little harder. Johnson won on points and, apparently unfazed by the gun, retained Carillo as his manager.

But not for long. Johnson fought Fred Russell in Los Angeles on Dec. 4, 1902, and was winning handily after seven rounds. But in the eighth Russell kneed him three times in the groin and Johnson, doubled over in pain, could not continue. Johnson won the fight -- and most of the purse -- by forfeit.

As soon as word got out back in Bakersfield that Johnson had collected a paycheck, several shopkeepers got a warrant for Johnson's arrest, claiming he'd failed to pay his bills. Johnson did tend to have trouble keeping up on his accounts payable, but Bakersfield merchants didn't cut him any slack, either.

According to The Californian: "It is said that Jack has made himself somewhat obnoxious to the various persons ... who made the charge, claiming that he is living in the forbidden district and beating bills."

Carillo promised the court that his client would pay whatever he legitimately owed. But shortly afterward, Johnson fired Carillo, charging that his manager had made off with his thousand-dollar purse from the Russell fight. Johnson chose to stay in Bakersfield, however, where he lived with a succession of "wives," some of them white.

It's not clear how long Johnson maintained a home here. He criss-crossed the country -- and the world -- during his reign as champ.

In 1911, according to the late, great Bakersfield historian Bill Rintoul, Al Thackery, who ran the Green Store on Main Street in Taft, dangled a "bankroll as big as your arm" to bring the Jack Johnson-Jim Flynn heavyweight championship bout to Taft. He failed, for reasons unknown, but Johnson's local connection must have remained strong all those years for Thackery to have been so emboldened.

And Bakersfield evidently got into Johnson's head sufficiently for him to conjure it up in his 1927 memoirs.

Of Al Kaufmann, his opponent in San Francisco on Sept. 9, 1909, Johnson wrote, "Kaufmann had no more chance of blocking my left than a turtle has of running down a Bakersfield jack rabbit."

That was Johnson. Confident to the point of arrogance -- but, as Kaufmann learned that day, a good judge of his own considerable physical skills.

Originally published 1/19/2005