In his heyday as heavyweight champion, which began in 1908 and ended in 1915, it wasn’t enough for promoters to find opponents for Jack Johnson. They needed white ones. The search for the “Great White Hope,” a movement started by noted author Jack London, who found Johnson’s position as heavyweight champ insufferable, began in 1910, with Jim Jeffries, the first of a string of white challengers to challenge Johnson for his title. It wasn’t until 1915, when Jess Willard, in the 26th round of a scheduled 45-round fight, that one finally succeeded.
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Born in Galveston, Texas, the son of former slaves, Johnson was a dock worker in his teenage years. He left home at 16, making it as far as New York, surviving by working as a janitor or stable boy. A shop owner in Dallas introduced Johnson to boxing in the late 1800s—like many things of that era, details are sketchy—and Johnson took to it. Blessed with superior size (a shade over 6 feet, in the neighborhood of 220 pounds) and cat-like reflexes, Johnson was a natural. After a couple of years of beating up locals, Johnson moved to Chicago, where he linked up with a local promoter. In 1899, Johnson took his first defeat, a knockout loss to Klondike Haynes. A year later he stopped Haynes in Memphis, a win that established Johnson as a contender—and earned him his first $1,000 purse. In 1901, back in Galveston, Johnson lost to Joe Choynski. Because prizefighting was illegal in Texas, both men were arrested. The two spent 23 days in jail together; locked up, Choynski spent that time teaching Johnson defensive technique.
