There were two members of Congress who were among the happiest to hear Thursday that President Trump posthumously pardoned legendary boxing champion Jack Johnson: Rep. Peter King (R-NY) and ailing Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).
Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion, was convicted by an all-white jury in 1913 of transporting a white woman (Lucille Cameron, who later became his wife). After skipping bail, Johnson spent seven years in South America, Mexico and France.
In 1920, Johnson returned to the U.S. and surrendered to authorities. He subsequently served 10 months in a federal penitentiary.
In 2008, a bill requesting President George W. Bush pardon the boxer (who died in a car crash in 1946) passed the House.
“I have been pushing for eight years for a Jack Johnson pardon,” King told Newsmax in the fall of 2016, “I talked about it with President Obama a few times and hoped he would do it because of the obvious racial motivation that was involved in his prosecution and conviction.”
In 2009, King, whose attributes his interest in Johnson’s life to his own passion for professional boxing, and McCain finally secured congressional approval for a call on Obama to pardon Johnson.
Obama, however, never signed a pardon.
In recalling his work on behalf of Johnson, King told us in 2016, he had hoped that if Trump became President the dream of a pardon would finally be achieved.
It was.
On Thursday, flanked by Sylvester Stallone (famed as boxer Rocky Balboa in the “Rocky” series of films) and several boxers joined the President at the White House as he officially pardoned Johnson.
In calling the heavyweight “a truly great fighter [who] had a tough life, Trump observed that Johnson was convicted “for what many view as a racially-motivated injustice.”
Like Muhammad Ali a half-century later, the young Johnson soaked up publicity before every fight, boasted how he would win, and became a hero among black Americans. His win over former undefeated boxing champion James Jeffries in 1910 was one of the most controversial decisions in the history of the sport, and prompted race riots in 25 states and 50 cities.
Johnson's life was the subject of the hit 1971 film "The Great White Hope," starring James Earl Jones as the boxing champ.
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