In a March 25, 1921 letter to Attorney General Harry Daugherty, Johnson said the prosecutor in his trial made “flagrant appeals to passion, race hatred and moral infamies.”
During his 10 months in prison, Johnson sought parole, filed an application with the president seeking clemency, and wrote letters to the attorney general seeking early release. And he almost pulled it off. Daugherty publicly raised the possibility of letting Johnson out a couple of weeks early, before announcing on June 28, 1921 — 90 years ago on Tuesday — that Johnson would have to complete his sentence.
Now, under a black president and black attorney general, the Justice Department is against pardoning Johnson. In the last session of Congress, both houses of Congress passed a resolution urging a pardon pushed by Senator John McCain and congressman Peter King, “to expunge a racially motivated abuse of the prosecutorial authority of the federal government.” But President Barack Obama has not acted on it.
While Obama hasn’t commented publicly on the matter, the Justice Department’s pardon attorney told McCain and King that the DOJ’s resources are best used for pardoning the living. Still, the lawmakers are making another run at the pardon this year.
On June 23, 1921, The Associated Press reported that Daugherty was considering a pardon for the boxer in time for a heavyweight fight between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier the following month. Eyeing a comeback, Johnson wanted to attend the fight, which would become the first $1 million gate in boxing history.
“Mr. Daugherty said Johnson had been a model prisoner and a ‘liberty bonus’ has been suggested,” the story reported.
“The Attorney General declared he would not consider pardoning Johnson to enable him to attend the championship fight, but that, of course, if any clemency was extended, Johnson’s time would be his own.” But he changed his tune five days later. According to an AP account, the AG said that “considering the crime he did not feel that the parole privileges should be extended merely to allow Johnson to witness the world’s title fight Saturday,” even though he had said just a few days earlier that wasn’t the reason he was considering letting Johnson out.
Johnson was hated by many white Americans, especially after retaining his title by defeating white boxer Jim Jeffries in the 1910 “Fight of the Century.” Jeffries had come out of retirement for the bout, and Johnson’s victory infuriated whites, setting off deadly race riots across the country.
Three years later, Johnson was convicted of violating the Mann Act, which made it illegal to transport women across state lines for immoral purposes. But the flamboyant boxer’s real crime had been flaunting white society by having romantic relationships with white women.
Authorities first targeted his relationship with Lucille Cameron, who later became his wife, but she refused to cooperate. They then turned to Johnson’s former mistress, a prostitute named Belle Schreiber, to testify that Johnson had paid her train fare from Pittsburgh to Chicago, for immoral purposes. An all-white jury convicted Johnson in 1913, and he skipped bail and fled the country. But in 1920 Johnson agreed to return and serve his sentence.
Johnson was still in prison when Dempsey knocked out Carpentier in the fourth round in front of 80,183 fans on July 2. One week later, Johnson, 43, walked out of prison and told reporters he wanted to challenge Dempsey for the heavyweight title, brushing aside Dempsey’s vow to fight only white boxers.
“It doesn’t make any difference what Dempsey says about drawing the color line: The public wants Dempsey whipped,” Johnson said. “And the public knows I am the one to do it.” But Johnson, who died in 1946, never got his shot at Dempsey.
