Jack Johnson and the Great White Hope Pt. II

THE ringside gong sounded, shushing the crowd. It was 2:45 p.m. on July 4, 1910, in Reno, Nevada, and the fight of the century was about to begin. In the sudden silence, the two gladiators, Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries, shuffled to the center of the ring and circled each other, warily. Jeffries was chewing gum, and Johnson was smiling. Around and around they went, moving clockwise and then counterclockwise. This continued for fully 10 seconds, and then Johnson landed the first blow, a straight left to the mouth. The two men clinched, and Jeffries pumped furiously on the inside. Almost casually Johnson blocked the blows and, resting his head on Jeffries' shoulder, smiled and nodded to friends at ringside. When the round ended, Johnson patted Jeffries on the shoulder with the palm of his glove and told him to cheer up.

The action in this and succeeding rounds was speedily relayed by telegraph to millions gathered in bars, coliseums and private clubs from one end of the world to the other. In every city of any consequence, bulletins were being flashed to yelling multitudes who crowded around bulletin boards or strained to hear blow-by-blow accounts read over megaphones.

This mania was not confined to America. It was past midnight now in London and Berlin, but excited crowds were milling around newspaper offices and fashionable hotels.

There were few Blacks in these crowds, which were hostile to Johnson and resented any demonstration on his behalf. In New Orleans, a Black man--the newspapers said he was "demented"--couldn't resist a liberating shout for Johnson and was manhandled and driven from the crowd. There were no "unpleasant" incidents in Times Square, we are told, for the "few Negroes" there were "not demonstrative."

This was not the case in Chicago, Johnson's adopted hometown, where Blacks were for Johnson and didn't care who knew it. When a White woman in the Tribune crowd made an uncomplimentary remark about Johnson, a Black woman grabbed a handful of hair and swung on her.

To prevent hassles of this kind, many Blacks had arranged for special telegraph connections to bars and theaters where they could give vent to their true emotions. More than 2,000 Blacks, including Johnson's mother, Tina Johnson, were crammed into the PekinTheater in Chicago. There was a telegrapher in the wings, and after each round the proprietor, Robert Motts, came onstage and read the results to wildly cheering men and women.

The Pekin crowd had something to cheer about in the second round, which was, in some respects, a replay of the first. Jeffries came out in his famous crouch, with his left arm extended before him like an antennae. In the old days, this pose had struck terror into the hearts of his opponents. But if he thought he could bluff his way through this fight, he was sadly mistaken, a point Johnson underlined by leading again with a hard uppercut to the chin. Jeffries countered with a left to the body and took another blow in the face.

They sparred around for a while and clinched again. After the break, Jeffries waded in, and Johnson landed a wicked left hook to the eye, causing it to flush. At the end of the round, Johnson threw his head back and laughed out loud. This puzzled ringsiders, who wondered why he was happy. It was the consensus of the experts that the round was dull and that neither fighter had struck a good blow. In fact, the round had decided the fight, which was almost over. For one of his blows, the little-noted left hook to the eye, had done irreparable damage to Jeffries' face and psyche. The blow did not travel far, but it landed with such force that it paralyzed the right side of Jeffries' face and sent needles of pain through his body. Jeffries would say later that the blow "affected the vision to my right eye and I could see two colored men in the ring before me."

There were moments in succeeding rounds when it seemed to Jeffries that he was fighting four "colored men." For in the third round, Johnson seized the initiative and imposed a new rhythm on the fight. Jeffries continued to charge, flailing his arms and punching the air. But his blows lacked steam, and Johnson sidestepped and counterattacked with deadly efficiency. Puzzled, feeling vaguely that something had gone wrong, Jeffries rushed around the ring like a bull, but Johnson led him like a clever matador, sidestepping his charges and stabbing him with lefts and rights. As Johnson worked, he chatted with friends and reporters at ringside and joshed Jeffries, telling him at one point: "Let me see what you got. Do something, man. This is for the cham-peen-ship."

After the third round, Johnson treated Jeffries, the Associated Press reported, "almost as a joke. He smiled and blocked playfully, warding off the rushes with a marvelous science, now tucking a blow under his arm, again plucking it out of the air as a man stops a baseball."

At the end of the fifth round, Johnson leaned over the ropes and spoke to John L. Sullivan, the former heavyweight champion.