Unforgivable blackness : the rise and fall of Jack Johnson / by Geoffrey C. Ward.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Ward, Geoffrey C.

Contributor:

• Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Johnson, Jack, 1878-1946.
• Boxers (Sports)--United States--Biography.
• Boxers (Sports).
• United States.

Genre:

• Biographies.

Penn Provenance:

• Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xi, 492 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Rise and fall of Jack Johnson

Place of Publication:

New York : A.A. Knopf, 2004.

Summary:

Prizewinning biographer Geoffrey C. Ward brings to life the real Jack Johnson, a figure far more complex and compelling than the newspaper headlines he inspired could ever convey. Johnson battled his way from obscurity to the top of the heavyweight ranks and in 1908 won the greatest prize in American sports--one that had always been the private preserve of white boxers. At a time when whites ran everything in America, he took orders from no one and resolved to live as if color did not exist. While most blacks struggled just to survive, he reveled in his riches and his fame. And at a time when the mere suspicion that a black man had flirted with a white woman could cost him his life, he insisted on sleeping with whomever he pleased, and married three. Because he did so the federal government set out to destroy him, and he was forced to endure a year of prison and seven years of exile. Ward points out that to most whites (and to some African Americans as well) he was seen as a perpetual threat--profligate, arrogant, amoral, a dark menace, and a danger to the natural order of things.--From publisher description.

Contents:

• pt. 1. The rise
• The pure-blooded American
• The good man
• The sport
• The man they all dodge
• The man with the golden smile
• The champion
• The greatest colored man that ever lived
• pt. 2. The fall
• The brunette in a blond town
• The black man garbed in black
• The accused
• The fugitive
• The stepper.

Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 453-478) and index.
• Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards - Nonfiction, Winner, 2005

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

Other Format:

Online version: Ward, Geoffrey C. Unforgivable blackness.

ISBN:

• 0375415327
• 9780375415326
• 0375710043
• 9780375710049

OCLC:

55518397

Online:

• Contributor biographical information
• Publisher description