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A re-match is on, according to United States Senator John McCain and Representative Peter King, to secure a Congressional pardon for the first black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson.
The first resolution was introduced in 2009 but President Barack Obama refused to pass the act that would pardon Johnson from his criminal conviction.
There is great significance here as Johnson became the first black heavyweight champion a century before Obama was elected the nation’s first black president.
Johnson was convicted of violating the Mann Act, a law that made it illegal to transport women across state lines for the purposes of immoral acts. His flamboyant lifestyle, his world heavyweight title and his marriage to a white woman made Johnson the perfect target for a white population of the times, boiling with racial resentment.
In a written statement, Arizona Senator McCain said that he and New York Representative King, would be reintroducing the resolution to rectify this historical injustice.
McCain believes that only a full pardon would help future generations fully grasp what Johnson was able to accomplish in the face of bigotry and prejudice.
There was no comment issued by the White House.
