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Showing posts with the label boxing

Joseph S. Gant (1874-1910)

Joseph Saifus Gant became the first African American, for that matter the first American to ever hold a world boxing title when he defeated Frank Erne in Fort Erie, Canada, in 1902 to take the World Lightweight Boxing Championship. Gant was born Joseph Saifus Butts on November 25, 1874, in Baltimore, Maryland. The names of his parents are unknown, he was orphaned at age four and raised by his foster mother, Maria Gant. Gant's professional boxing career began in 1891 when he was seventeen. He was a self-taught fighter, learning his craft by studying other boxers’ moves and competing in the then-popular Battle Royal contests where he and a dozen other fighters boxed blindfolded until only one contestant was left standing. These contests helped him develop strong boxing fundamentals and strategic ways to endure long bouts in the ring. His scientific approach to boxing and his famous left jab eventually earned him the title “The Old Master.” On Labor Day, 1906, in Goldfield, Nev...

John Arthur "Jack" Johnson (March 31, 1878 – June 10, 1946)

Jack Johnson's was nicknamed the "Galveston Giant."   He was an American  boxer , who—at the height of the  Jim Crow era —became the first  African American   world heavyweight boxing champion  (1908–1915). Johnson was faced with much controversy when he was charged with violating the  Mann Act  in 1912, even though there was an obvious lack of evidence and the charge was largely racially biased. In a documentary about his life,  Ken Burns  notes that "for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African-American on Earth". Johnson was born the third child of nine, and the first son, of Henry and Tina "Tiny" Johnson, two former slaves who worked blue collar jobs as a janitor and a dishwasher to support their children and put them through school. His father Henry served as a civilian teamster of the Union’s 38th Colored Infantry, and was a role model for his son. As Jack once sai...