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Over nine years ago, Senator John McCain and Representative Peter King began a campaign for a posthumous Presidential pardon for the legendary heavyweight pugilist Jack Johnson.
During that time, the resolution, though it has gained some publicity, has not garnered the attention of either American presidents it has gone before.
Mike Tyson, along with Senator Harry Reid, are now working together in an effort to change that.
Tyson has recently launched and cosigned a petition to pardon Jack Johnson on the website Change.org and announced his efforts via Twitter. “Sign my petition to the @barackobama,” Tyson tweeted. “We can make a difference.”
Jack Johnson was born in Texas, he was the first African-American boxing champion and held the title for seven years. He defeated many fighters that were white. The most memorable fight of Johnson’s career came in 1910 against Jim Jeffries in a bout called “The Fight of the Century.” Johnson retained the title and his win set off deadly race riots in 50 cities around the country.
Later on in his life, Johnson was convicted under the Mann Act of “transporting a white woman across state lines for immoral purposes,” based on the testimony of a former girlfriend of Johnson’s who worked as a prostitute.
But then and since, many have argued that prosecutors were looking for any excuse to drum up charges against Johnson, a famous, charismatic black man who publicly dated white women during the height of the Jim Crow era.
It is not yet clear if Mike Tyson’s star power in and beyond the world of boxing will add the much needed momentum to the campaign to pardon Johnson.
Last month, Senator Reid and several other senators relaunched an intra-governmental effort to secure a pardon for Johnson; in the past, such efforts have been widely supported in Congress but have failed to secure a presidential pardon.
