A tribute to Jack Johnson

I spent two very worthwhile hours last evening watching the first half of Ken Burns' four-hour film Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson. The first installment portrays Johnson's struggle for an opportunity to fight for the heavyweight championship during the arguable nadir of black America's post-bellum circumstance, and characterizes Johnson as stylish, terrifying, beautiful and unbeatable. The fighter is also shown taking criticism from all sides while doing exactly what he wanted -- for example, "justifying" his predilection for white women with the memorable words "I am not a slave."

Burns remains prone to colossal overstatement at times -- was John L. Sullivan's mustachioed portrait really in "every saloon in America"? -- but the copious film footage is riveting, the narrative is engaging and the commentary from historians, writers and other figures fleshes out Burns's story nicely. As with Burns' Jazz a couple of years ago, there's almost nothing Burns could say that would make me not want to watch his awesome archival footage. I only hope that when Part Two drops tonight, it's better than Side Two of Miles Davis's album with the same title as this posting. Davis's sidelong "Yesternow" is an unfortunate letdown after the brilliance of Side One's "Right Off."

Check this out: the Los Angeles Times expresses regret for its 1910 coverage (pdf) of the Johnson-Jeffries title fight in Reno. The editorial also supports Burns's drive to obtain a Presidential pardon for Johnson.