Muhammad Ali and Jack Johnson are linked by more than both having held the title of heavyweight champion of the world. They were both outspoken champions, unwilling to conform with the expectations that society had of them. Despite their reigns as champions coming half a century apart, both men lived in the furnace of a combustible climate in the US where violence was commonplace. In some ways they were very different men living in very different times, but there are echoes down the decades that bind the legendary champions together.
In November 1963, Muhammad Ali was still known as Cassius Clay, and he had not yet publicly declared his allegiance to Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam. He was in training for the biggest fight of his life, and one which most people expected him to lose. In just three months, he would be facing the formidable Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship of the world. Privately, Ali had developed a close relationship with Malcolm X, and Malcolm was a key influence in Ali’s conversion to Islam.
In Dallas, on 22 November, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. As a result of the murder of suspect Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, no one was ever tried for the slaying of JFK. Whoever the guilty party was, or were, they never had to face justice.
Not long after the assassination of the President, Malcolm X was asked for his response, and many were shocked by the words he chose.
“Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad.”
Malcolm later tried to explain his comments by saying that in a violent society, no one should be surprised if the violence is turned upon the establishment. Those may be understandable sentiments, but the majority of Americans were not ready to hear this in the immediate aftermath of Kennedy’s murder.
Malcolm was becoming disillusioned by Elijah Muhammad’s leadership of the Nation of Islam and the differences between the two led to Malcolm being completely ostracised from the organisation, despite having been one of its most prominent and powerful figure heads. Along with all other members of the Nation, Ali was forced to choose. Remain with Elijah and the Nation and have no contact with Malcolm, or side with Malcolm. There was no choice. Fear was a forceful tool in the Nation and anyone wishing to leave by betraying the leadership could face consequences. Ali remained under the guidance of Elijah Muhammad while Malcolm was isolated and then assassinated less than two years later, on 21 February 1965.
When Ali “shook up the world” by beating Sonny Liston three months after the assassination of Kennedy, he had dethroned an unpopular champion. Liston was considered surly, and mob connected. The young Cassius Clay had not shown anything in his fights prior to his title challenge that suggested to most observers that he had what it took to get the better of Liston. However, in becoming champion, Ali proved that he was more than just a loudmouth braggart. The shock caused by Ali’s win over Liston was nothing compared to that of his almost immediate announcement that he had become a member of the Nation of Islam and wanted to be known as Muhammad Ali. The Nation of Islam, often referred to at the time as the Black Muslims, was a militant organisation that used rhetoric which made many people, both black and white, deeply uncomfortable. They espoused the view that white people were “devils”, and that the idea of desegregation was folly.
Ali had raised the profile of the Nation of Islam, and his conversion had the unexpected impact of improving the popularity of Sonny Liston. The greatest PR men in the world would have struggled to enhance the image of Liston given his history and demeanour, but now, compared to Ali he was seen by some as a kind of sentimental favourite. Just a few years earlier, one reporter had described the arrival of Liston as heavyweight champion to be like finding a live bat hanging from your Christmas tree.
Now Ali was well and truly in the conversation for the title of the most unpopular heavyweight champion in history. Which brings us back to Jack Johnson, the previous holder of that distinction. He was the first black world heavyweight champion, and that fact was simply too much to bear for those that believed in the supremacy of white men. Johnson’s series of very public relationships with white women only served to add fuel to the fire of the those who wanted rid of him. During the era of Jack Johnson’s pomp, for a black man to not “know his place” could land him in very real danger. Sometimes, just being in the wrong place at the wrong time would be enough.
In March 1910, Jack Johnson was in training for the biggest fight of HIS career; a fight billed as the fight of the century. James J. Jeffries had been summoned out of retirement on behalf of white America to wipe the smile off Johnson’s face and reclaim the heavyweight title for the white race. Johnson had grown up in Galveston, Texas, but was training in San Francisco. At this point, his fight with former champion Jeffries was scheduled to take place in California. The fight would ultimately end up in Reno, Nevada, after the Governor of California decided very late in the day that he did not want the contest to take place in his state. Huge expectations were placed on Jeffries’ broad shoulders, despite him having been retired for six years. He had spent the intervening period farming and gaining weight.
Johnson was relaxed about Jeffries’ challenge. A group of newspaper men turned up one day to watch him spar in preparation for the title defence. Johnson, however, was not in the mood for sparring at that time, but instead invited the reporters up to his hotel suite to listen to music. The writers went along but did not get what they expected.
“Once in his private quarters the negro became a changed man. He ordered one of his assistants to load the phonograph, and for an hour the hotel was filled with the strains of operatic music, vocal selections rendered by Caruso, Sembrich, the Nordics, Mary Garden and others. Not once did a ‘ragtime’ piece appear…”
The writer from the Baltimore American went on to say that Johnson then followed this up by giving a demonstration of his own musical prowess. One reporter noted a bass viol standing in the corner of the room and asked who it belonged to. The champion replied that it was, of course, his. He then put another record on the turntable and “played along, eyes closed, lost in music.”
Without saying a word, in his own way he was foreshadowing Muhammad Ali’s quote from over half a century later.
“I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.”
While Johnson played his music in breaks from training and white America waited for Jeffries to reclaim the world heavyweight title on their behalf, down in Dallas the life of another Texan Black man was brought to a violent end.
The assassination of JFK is not the only shocking murder to take place in Dallas where the perpetrators were never brought to justice. Incredibly, 53 years before the murder of the President, another man was brutally killed not far from the spot where Kennedy was shot.
On 27 February 1910, Allen Brooks was accused of the attempted rape of a two-year-old girl. The child was the daughter of Brooks’ employer. The little girl had been missing for several hours before being found in the loft of a barn with Brooks, who worked as a handyman. Brooks and the child were both examined by the little girl’s family physician who gave his opinion that the crime had been committed and Brooks was the perpetrator.
Brooks was taken into custody and held in the Dallas County Courthouse. From the west facing windows of the courthouse, one can see Dealey Plaza, just the other side of Commerce Street. Dealey Plaza would go on to become the scene of probably the most famous unsolved crime of the 20th century.
On 3 March, a mob gathered outside the courthouse and proceeded to storm the building, in the process overwhelming the officials present. The mob found Brooks and threw him from a second storey window. He was beaten and stabbed and then hung from a telephone pole. It is not entirely clear at what point Allen Brooks died. Pieces of his clothing were cut from his body and taken by some of those present as souvenirs. Photos were taken of him hanging, to be used for lynching postcards. Law enforcement officials insisted that they did not recognise any of the men who stormed the courthouse, so no charges could be brought against any of the perpetrators. What is it about Dallas and conspiracies? Allen Brooks was one of five Black men lynched in Texas that year.
The Johnson-Jeffries fight took place that summer, on, of all dates, 4 July. The contest was a mismatch with Johnson playing with, and taunting, Jeffries throughout, before the fight was stopped in the fifteenth of a scheduled 45 rounds. Johnson was still champion, and Jeffries went back to his farm. Onlookers felt that Johnson could have ended the fight much earlier if he had wanted to. What could Johnson be thinking as he administered his beating, all the while smiling down at ringsiders. As word of Johnson’s win spread around the country, rioting broke out in many cities leading to several deaths.
Shortly after the fight, the Los Angeles Times published an editorial which included a section entitled, “A Word to the Black Man.” The message to its Black readers could not be clearer.
“Do not point your nose too high. Do not swell your chest too much. Do not boast too loudly. Do not be puffed up. Let not your ambitions be inordinate or take a wrong direction. Let no treasured resentments rise up and spill over. Remember you have done nothing at all. You are just the same member of society today you were last week. Your place in the world is just what it was. You are on no higher plane, deserve no new consideration, and will get none.”
Muhammad Ali and Jack Johnson may be linked by history, but so are John F. Kennedy and Allen Brooks. Their murders took place in almost exactly the same location but were separated by more than fifty years. Both were the victims of a violent society and those responsible for their untimely deaths were never brought to justice. While they share that in common, in other respects the lives of Kennedy and Allen could not have been more different. One crime will be spoken about for eternity, one is already long forgotten. To reflect on the mob vigilante killing of Brooks, once again brings to mind the words of Malcolm X and his feeling that the shooting of Kennedy was “the chickens coming home to roost.” Malcolm would have been aware of the story of Allen Brooks and others who suffered similar fates.
Muhammad Ali and Jack Johnson are a part of the lineage of the world heavyweight title, during a period of history when that title really mattered. Given the eras in which they lived, it would have been no surprise if they have been the victims of violent deaths alongside Kennedy, Malcolm X and Allen Brooks. They each faced struggles in getting to the top and then trying to stay there, both inside the ring and out. Making history and shaping history. Products of their times and reflecting their times. There had to be a Johnson for there to be an Ali. And where would we be without having had Ali?
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