Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

Jack Johnson was given speeding tickets scores of times over the years, sometimes because he really was driving too fast — and sometimes simply because white policemen couldn’t stand to see a black man behind the wheel of a costly racing car. He also later joined a vaudeville troupe, where he made good money under tough working conditions.

Jack Johnson became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion in the height of the Jim Crow era — a time in which slavery was abolished, but African Americans were not yet truly free.