Читать книгу Jacobs Beach. The Mob, the Garden and the Golden Age of Boxing онлайн

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But Jim, thirty-five, was too slow and Jack was too good. Johnson, who self-mockingly described himself as “the brunette in a blond town,” tormented Jeffries before putting him out of his misery in the fifteenth round in front of an audience of cowboys, hookers, and thieves.

For a taste of the evil of the times, Johnson himself is as reliable a source as many. He says this in his autobiography:

More than 25,000 people had gathered to watch the fight and, as I looked about me and scanned that sea of white faces, I felt the auspiciousness of the occasion. There were few men of my own race among the spectators. I realized that my victory in this event meant more than on any previous occasion. It wasn't just the championship that was at stake: it was my own honor, and in a degree the honor of my own race. The “White Hope” had failed.

Hysteria greeted Jack's deed. Blacks were murdered in race riots across America—nobody is sure how many—lynched and humiliated by the Klan and other white supremacists. The color bar went up just as Jack was trying to tear it down, albeit for his own purposes.