Colored girls and boys' inspiring United States history / and a heart to heart talk about white folks

IN ATHLETICS

Some Man.

THE main thing every boy and girl should have or begin to acquire in early life, and then continue to keep during his manhood or her womanhood, is a clean, healthy, supple and well-developed muscular body that is guided and governed by a pure thinking and self-controlling mind. And such a body is mainly built up and preserved by taking plenty of out-door playful exercises in early childhood; by taking frequent parts in athletics games played in a fair and honest way against friendly rivals while in young manhood and womanhood; and by regularly and systematically going through a good drill of setting-up exercises, gymnastics or calisthenics throughout both middle and old age. These same childhood games and youthful athletic sports have their good effects upon the young and tender minds by early teaching them courage in times of facing big odds and developing self-control during the angry moments of an exciting game when temptations so often come up to strike an unfair blow or say some mean and rude thing. And these same out-door activities have their purifying results upon those minds in that they are nearer to Nature and thereby prompt more Godly thoughts, words and deeds among such minds than do certain in-door pastimes that are not so wholesome. No country in the world surpasses America in the general suppleness in movement, gracefulness of carriage and all-round muscular development and physical prowess of the bodies belonging to its people. And the following named records show that American Colored youths have played large and valuable parts in helping to build up the physical reputation of the United States that is today recognized as the leading country in international athletic sports.

In Football

W. H. Lewis (one of the ablest Colored lawyers in America today) before graduating from Harvard proved to be the greatest football center, Colored or white, in his college and of his time. Every fall when Harvard now faces her, Brown University heaves a loud sigh of regret that Fritz Pollard, a Colored All-American Half-back, is not on her football team to again and mostly alone carry the brown and white pennant to a crushing victory over the almost unbeatable crimson and white colors. Williams has since made such a football record at Brown that he was given a place on an All-American team by the New York World. It was Johnny Shelbourne, All-American Fullback, who was one of the four stars on Dartmouth football team that so smoothly steam-rollered the team of the University of Pa., with a score of 44 to 7 on Franklin Field, at Philadelphia, Pa., November 13, 1920. Shelbourne is also such a sprinter that he is able to “fade-away” over a 40 yard stretch in 4 4-5 seconds. Calloway not only made the Varsity team of Columbia but has proved one of its most valuable men. All football teams that have recently played against Northwestern University have felt the brawn and held the weight of “Buddy” Turner. Washington & Jefferson in their latest football games have fully relied upon the punting toe of their Colored player, West. Athletic writers and critics on the staffs of both the Chicago Tribune and Colliers Weekly have given Duke Slater, the Iowa tackle, a place on an All-Western football team. Leon Taylor was made All-Ohio Conferee fullback at Oberlin, Ohio. Smith’s tricks of going completely wild when turned loose on the gridiron of Michigan Agr. College caused them to put him on an All-American team for safe keeping. When knocking men right and left on the field of Minnesota University, Marshall acted so much like a Minnesota Indian on the war path that they had to do something to sort of tame him down, so they put him on an All-American team. Beside winning his letters in baseball, basketball and track athletics, A. Hamblin of Knox College was made captain of his 1918 football team. M. Richmond, on account of his excellent defensive and offensive playings was made captain of the Des Moines College 1917 football team. Sol Butler, when playing on the Dubuque College football team, came in such close contact with and made such lasting impressions on his opponents that they will until their dying days remember having met a Sol Butler at some time and at some place. W. E. Morrison and W. Brown were two of the outstanding stars who played on the Tuft College varsity eleven at the times it beat Harvard and gave Princeton one of the toughest battles and one of the worse heart-stop-beating scares it has ever had on a football field. In New England, the names and pigskin deeds of those two charging warriors, especially that of Morrison are still fondly remembered and always referred to with admiration and pride. Paul Robeson of Rutgers College was made an All-American End. Walter Camp (white) of Yale University in selecting his All-American Football Team of 1918 said, “There never was a more serviceable end, both in attack and defense than Robeson—the 200 pound giant of Rutgers. Defensively this team is remarkably strong with Robeson and Alexander backing up the line as secondary defense; Taking turns at this they would be employed in a line of work to which they are thoroughly accustomed and in which they have had no peers in many years.” (quotation from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, page 44). Other Colored youths who have won distinction as football players in white universities and colleges are; Taylor at the University of Pa., Bullock at Dartmouth, Gray and Pinkett at Amherst, Ayler at Brown, Chadwell at Williams, Craighead at Massachusetts Agri. College, Jones at Harvard, Ransom at Belout, Young and Wheeler at Illinois, Johnson and Ross at Nebraska, Tibbs at Syracuse, Green at Western Reserve and Roberts at Colorado Reserve, Niles at Colby.

On The Track and Field

Howard P. Drew, the present holder of the Official A. A. U. world record of 9 3-5 seconds for 100 yds, was selected in 1918 as a member of the All-American Athletic Team and in 1919 as a member of the All-American Track Team. In writing of Drew in the Philadelphia North American of July 17, 1920, Lawson Roberston (white) Coach of Athletics at the University of Pa., said: “Just before Drew broke down eight years ago in Stockholm he showed enough speed in his trial heat to warrant the belief that he could beat any man in the final by 3 yards. In the semifinal heat he “pulled” his tendon when he had covered about 80 yards and limped in the remainder of the distance. Even at that he won his semi-final heat by about eight yards from Thomas of Princeton, the 1912 intercollegiate champion.” The following quotation on Drew is extracted from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919, page 44: “At the 1918 Western Conference College Outdoor Track and Field Championship Events, Howard Drew, the world’s famous sprinter staged a comeback by winning against a very fast field the 100 and 220 yard dashes. A comment on Drews’ performance said: “By winning the 100 and 220 yard dashes from the fastest fields that the middle western colleges could boast, Drew demonstrated that his victories were not due to accident or lack of formidable opponents. If any further proof were needed, the time would amply attest the high standard of Drew’s sprinting as he ran the 100 in 10 seconds. When it is taken into consideration that Drew is 28 years of age and has been competing for thirteen years, during which time he has won numerous victories and equalled the world’s record time in both of these events, it can be seen that his latest triumphs are little short of athletic marvels.”

Beside being one of its best football players, Sol Butler was also one of the best all-round athletes Dubuque College ever turned out, and was holder of the American A. A. U. broad jump record of twenty-four feet and eight inches. In July 1919 Butler (now of Drake College) won the broad jump in the Inter-Allied Games at Pershing Stadium, France. He was one of the athletes selected to represent the United States in those games. Butler also won the broad jump event at the Relay Carnival of the University of Pa., by leaping 23 feet 5 3-4 inches. Even in his youngster frolics while attending the Hutchinson, Kan. High School, Butler showed his unusual speed by getting loose at Evanston, Ill., on March 28, 1914, and pushing 60 yards of air out of the way in 6 2-5 seconds. When he finally slowed down at the end of that affair and kept still long enough to listen he learned those boyhood runaway wild steps had established the best United States Inter-Scholastic Track Record for that event.

Edward Orval Gourdin

The field sensation among the white colleges during the past two years has been E. O. Gourdin, the Harvard all-round star athlete. This Colored athlete is at this writing unquestionably the backbone and mainstay of the Harvard track team, and throughout their competitions with other colleges, Gourdin has been in the majority of cases the highest individual point scorer for his college. And yet, his victories have been under the most trying conditions and circumstances. Being a star in many events and the chief one upon whom Harvard depended, in numerous meets he has repeatedly been called upon to skip from one event to another and back again without stopping to catch his breath or get a rest: even fates, especially during the spring of 1921 seeming to be against him, for it usually rained the day before or the day he had to perform. As his best work is done on dry ground, and he fully knows it, his wet, muddy and slippery events were of course entered with a certain amount of mental depression, but his courage never faltered nor his willingness halted. During the spring of 1921 when Harvard and Yale met in their annual track meet, the track was soaked from a former rain; yet, Gourdin won the 100 yard dash from Yale in 10 2-5 seconds. Although the runway was uncertain from dampness, the take-off risky for the same reason and the pit wet from holding rain, he won the broad jump from Yale by hurling himself through the air 24 feet and 4 inches. In the shot-put under favorable conditions he clears 41 feet and in the 220 yard dash he hugs 22 seconds so tight that it can’t get away from him.

Extra! Extra! Extra! Special Delivery Red Rush Telegram!

At last, fates and the atmospheric elements smiled down upon the Colored athletic world wonder and marvel, “Ned” Gourdin, by giving him “A Perfect Day” (no drizzling rains, no wet slippery grounds, no damp heavy airs) on July 23, 1921. On this date, that hilariously kissed the sun “good night” and joyously embraced the moon “good morning”, was held a dual track meet between the Harvard-Yale teams and the Oxford-Cambridge teams of England, at the Harvard Stadium. Regarding the results of that meet, the writer quotes the following extracts as part of an article that, according to the Chicago Defender of July 30, 1921, appeared in the July 25, 1921 issue of the Boston Daily Post:

“By Wilton Vaugh”

“Edward Orval Gourdin now goes down in the Harvard annals as the greatest track athlete ever to represent the Crimson.

“His record-breaking jump of 25 feet 3 inches in the running broad jump last Saturday at the stadium international college meet was just a climax to his amazing achievements on the cinders.

“Amazing Record”

“But that particular feat alone would have been enough to rank “Ned” with the elite of Cambridge, because the world has been waiting twenty years for a man capable of matching Peter O’Connor’s leap of 24 feet 11¾ inches. The Harvard idol accomplished it, and with such a margin that it now seems hopeless of developing a greater jumper for a number of years, anyway.

“His all-round prowess on the track would have been sufficient to rate him with the best. Had he chosen to specialize in any one of the eight events it is not beyond the scope of human thought to see him shatter different marks. His best winning records in the matches he has already tried are:

During his athletic career, the late J. B. Taylor of the University of Pa., was a track wonder in both America and Europe. When in action he had the easiest and prettiest carriage of body and the smoothest clocklike movement of limbs of any sprinter seen on the cinder path for years. When making his 440 yard and other records he used a remarkable sprinting stride of nine feet—about two feet longer than the average sprinter takes.

While at Harvard, T. Cable won fame as a hammer thrower; L. V. Alexis was a star trackman, and E. L. Davidson won the 125 pound-class wrestling Collegiate Championship in competing against the best white wrestlers of his class from the other six big colleges that had entered the match. A. L. Jackson was one of the best hurdlers Harvard ever turned out. B. Dismond of the University of Chicago and Lee Umble of Colorado University made records for their schools, and Umble is today one of the best wrestlers of his class in the West. J. T. Carter has won recognition as a crack sprinter on the Brown track team, Dewey Rogers is a star trackman on the University of Pa. track team and his ability to push 440 yards back of him in 50 2-5 seconds shows he has a pair of heels that must be closely watched or they may some day on some cinder path get fast ideas to elope from their owner. Rogers in one of his 440 yards sprints defeated the captain of his own track team—Earl Eby.

Roy Morris has won a national reputation as a sprinter of note. R. E. Johnson of Pittsburgh, is one of the best 5,000 and 10,000 meter runners in the country. Little Charley Mitchell of the St. Christopher Club, New York, is one of the pluckiest and ablest marathon runners in the land and has finished eighth out of a string of sixty. G. L. Brashear, now coach of Straight University, New Orleans, La., was at one time one of the best all-round athletes in California. E. Niles has repeatedly shown that he is one of the best 440 and 880 yard sprinters in New England.

“The New York Athletic Club games saw another promising Negro athlete come into prominence. Billy Parker, representing the St. Christopher Club, raced to an easy victory in the 1,000 yard run. He won about as he pleased in 2:10. Parker is one of the best-looking runners that the Colored clubs have developed in years. He is big, rangy, and a good strider.” The above is what Howard Valentine, a sport writer, had to say in a white paper, the New York Globe, about Wm. S. (Billy) Parker who so easily defeated some of the fastest Colored and white runners in the East. Parker is also one of the foremost basketball players in the East. Young men who are interested in bicycle riding might be encouraged to learn here that little Major Taylor, a Colored man, during the year 1900 held the championship as the fastest bicycle rider in America.

Track and Field Records Held by Colored Youths

Track Amateur World Records

100 Yards, 9- 3-4 seconds by H. P. Drew at Berkley, California, March 28, 1914.
130 Yards, 12 4-5 seconds, H. P. Drew at Brooklyn, N. Y., Nov. 22, 1913.
220 Yards, 21 1-5 seconds, H. P. Drew at Clearmont, California, Feb. 28. 1914.

Colored Youths Who Have Won Unusual Distinctions in Track and Field Work in White Colleges.

Howard and Lincoln at the University of Pennsylvania

At the University of Pa., Relay Games held April 29 and 30, 1921, on Franklin Field, Phila., Pa., the Howard University track team took a one mile relay race away from Bowdoin College, Carnegie School of Technology, Tufts College and several other white colleges of that stamp. The Lincoln University track team in a one mile relay race also romped away from the teams of George Washington University and a number of other such white institutions.

Beside gaining honors in winning those only two events in which they were entered, each of these two Colored teams was presented with a banner and each member of the teams was given a gold watch. The outcome of those two events not only brought encouragements to athletes in all Negro schools and pride to members of the Race throughout the country, but it convinced the athletic world of two truths. First, the brotherhood and true sportsmanship feelings between white and Colored schools in America are slowly but surely increasing and becoming closer and more friendly. Secondly, Negro universities, colleges and schools are today turning out athletes who can hold their own when competing with athletes developed by white schools of the same class.

Colored Athletes in Colored Universities and Colleges.

Those Colored youths mentioned in the preceding chapter are but a few of the Colored athletes who while attending white schools successfully matched the stamina, endurance and strength of their muscles, bones and will powers against those of Caucasian youths. The following named Colored athletes are those who studied and competed among themselves in Colored Universities, colleges and schools under instructions of their college trained Colored Athletic coaches, and who would have carried away many athletic first honors had they attended white schools and taken parts in sports:

BASEBALL

“Play Ball.”

Now, if that same baseball critic had entered the United States Army as either a volunteer or a draftee in the World War and had been dying of thirst on the bloodsoaked and bone-strewn plains of “No Man’s Land”, it is wondered if he would have thought it necessary to “indelibly white-wash” Colored soldiers before accepting from their black lips, and greedily pressing to his own parched white lips, the begged-for water canteens of the Colored soldiers? For such exchanges of canteens between generous Colored and dying white soldiers occurred thousands of times and in not one instance did those famished white men allow color prejudice to stand between them and a few mouthsfuls of left-over Colored water that meant the saving of their lives. Nevertheless, a majority of those soldiers whose lives had been saved by the timely swallows of water from the canteens of black soldiers, immediately resumed their persecution of and discriminations against the Negro race even before they got back home to America.

Thus while history shows that the majority of white people, when in the jaws of threatened or actual death, become too “color-blind” and “near-sighted” to see the hue of the hand or the shape of the face that comes to its help and vital rescue; history also shows that a great many white people, while in the pink of life, health and prosperity, allow their visions to become so magnified and their minds to become so overrun and soaked with vile race prejudice that they constantly see imaginary color-lines that really do not exist. They also are constantly building up before law-abiding, clean-living and progressive classes of Colored people certain racial barriers that are not only proving a stain but also a shame (in the eyes of the rest of the onlooking world) upon this land of freedom, civilization and Christianity. But at this time and place the writer will not go further into this particular phase of this color-line subject, as it is being more fully dealt with in the writing of one of his other books.

Fair-minded white people are justly ashamed of the words and actions of such members of their race as the above mentioned reporter, and already bright rays of hope are beginning to shine in the Big League for Colored baseball players. In this direction The Continental League with headquarters at Boston, Mass. and formed by the white baseball magnate, Andrew Lawson, has really wedged the first opening. At the formation of this league, Lawson admitted two Colored teams, one from Providence, R. I. and the other from Boston, the latter team having both Colored and white players. This is the greatest bit of encouragement Colored professional baseball players in America have ever received. The chairman of the Board of Directors of The Continental League is R. T. Murray, a Colored man. This league’s influence for the spreading of broad-mindedness and fair-play is already being noticed among the officials of other white Big Leagues. At the end of the baseball season of 1920, Colored teams were allowed to play against many of the big white league teams on their barn-storming tours.

During that season Bolden’s Hilldale team played against Connie Mack’s team of All-Stars at the National League Park, Phila., Pa., in which game Bolden’s team lost by a score of 2 to 1.

Bolden’s team also played against the famous “Babe” Ruth and his All-Stars at the National League Park, Phila., Pa., in which game Bolden’s team won by a score of 5 to 0. In this game, Flourney the Hilldale pitcher not only kept “Babe” Ruth from getting one of his famous home-runs but struck him out twice. “Babe” Ruth was also struck out at Shibe Park, Phila., Pa., during the same season by “Cannon Ball” Redding, star pitcher on the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants team.

Tesreau’s Bears played against Carl May’s All Stars at Dyckman Oval at which place the Yankees defeated the Colored team on both ends of a double-header by scores of 10 to 0 and 5 to 3.

The Lincoln Colored Giants played and defeated the New York Giants (white) in New York by a score of 4 to 1. Williams the Colored pitcher struck out thirteen men on the white team.

As far back as the early eighties, M. F. Walker proved himself such a good pitcher that he played on a white league ball team in Toledo, Ohio, and a Frank Grant also played on big white league teams in Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania. William B. Matthews, during his college days at Harvard caused quite a sensation throughout the country by his unexcelled ball playing and mainly through his star playing his college nine won sweeping victories all down the line of their engagements.

In taking hurried glances over past performances of present day Colored baseball players, the following named are but a few picked from among those who think, dream, talk and act so much over the diamond that baseball has become their middle names:

T. Brown of American Giants, Cockerell and Flourney of Hilldale, Holland of Detroit Stars, Leblanc of Cuban Stars Redding of Bacharach Giants, Rogan of St. Louis Giants and J. Williams of Lincoln Giants put forth the same kind of energy and earnestness in making moundmen fan the wind and think holes are in their bats as did Mathewson, Shawkey and Alexander, the great white pitchers, against their players.

Duncan of Chicago Giants, Ray of Kansas City Monarchs, Rodguez of Cincinnati Stars, Rojo of Bacharach Giants, Santop of Hilldale Quakers and Webster of Detroit Stars use the same kind of stickability in freezing onto hot balls as the white past masters in backstop, Schalk and O’Neill.

Bost of Oakland Braves, Grant of American Giants, Jeffries of Chicago Giants, Pettus of Bacharach Giants and Richards of Godfrey’s California All-Stars go through the same kind of successful limber-jointed jumping-jack antics on first base as McInnis and Kelly in the big white leagues.

Crowell of Tesreau Bears, Holloway of Indianapolis A. B. C’s. Holtz of St. Louis Giants and Thomas of Columbus Buckeyes have the same love for and show just as much jealously over the second bag as the crack second basemen, Collins and Hornsby don’t try to hide.

Day of Indianapolis A. B. C’s, Dinan of Tesraeu Bears, Fial of Lincoln Giants, Francis of Hilldale Quakers, Brown of Norfolk Giants and F. Hill of Detroit Stars are just as busy nailing and crucifying the last hopes of runners at third base as Groh and Gardner, who are about the best among white third basemen.

Dobbins of Hilldale Quakers, Hewitt of St. Louis Giants, Lloyd of Columbus Buckeyes and Lundy of Bacharach Giants while panning the same kind of red-hot frying sizzlers at shortstop as the celebrated Wagner and Bancroft, also usually salt and pepper those frying sizzlers with most amusing capers and comedian stage acts.

Briggs of Hilldale Quakers, Gans of Lincoln Giants, P. Hill of Detroit Stars, Jenkins of Chicago Giants, Kemp of Norfolk Giants, Thomas of Baltimore Black Sox, and Weeks of Pittsburgh Stars have that same knack of vamping the sun straight in the face without blinking an eye while pulling down a twenty-two story sky-scrapping fly, like the rangy outfielders Speaker and Burns.

Meadows of Godfrey’s California All-Stars, Santop of Hilldale Quakers and Torrenti of American Giants are just as much interested in astronomy and scientific research as “Babe” Ruth and Sisler when they start a message to the planet Mars by way of a home-run baseball.

While big Jeff Tesreau has tried so hard and done so well, he has not yet become so big a thief as Ty Cobb in stealing bases and pawning runs at home-plate.

All of the other players, on these Colored teams, whose names have not been mentioned are also A-1 baseball jugglers and would make good showing to their credits in any of the white Big Leagues that would give them a fair and square chance to play on their teams.

And Colored boys who are talented and aspire to become great ball players should not lose ambition and hang back because of their race or color: They should take on new courage by reading here; that the most youthful and hopeful things (the grass and leaves) in the world, are Colored, and no one who looks “green” with hate and envy is able to stop Dame Nature each spring from stepping boldly out and, without apologies to men of any race, drapping the woods and fields with her colored shades of green.

BASKETBALL

George Gilmore.

In several large cities Colored athletes have organized and wonderfully developed some of the swiftest and most efficient basketball teams in America. Among the leading teams are: Dr. Johnson’s Forty Club of Chicago, Cum Posey’s Loendi Club of Pittsburgh, Chas. Bradford’s St. Christopher Club of New York, Manager Accoe’s A. C. Lightning Five of Brooklyn, C. Cain’s Vandals, of Atlantic City, “Babe” Thomas’ Alpha Big Five of New York, Douglas’ Spartan Braves of New York, Moss’ Center Five of Toledo, Ohio, All-Scholastics of Harrisburg, the Alcoes of Washington, D.C., the Athenians of Baltimore and the Pioneers of Cleveland, Ohio.

Among those players on these teams whose names, through observation and information, the writer was able to get are: Betts, Blueitt, Sol Butler, Brown, Bundy, Capers, Cooper, Duff, Fial, Fields, Forbes, Gumbs, Howard, Hubbard, Jenkins, Moss Posey, Ricks, Sessons, Slocum, Young and Winters. The other players on these teams were always doing such tricky feinting dizzy ducking, dazzling dodging, sudden blocking, slippery sliding, magic dribbling, lightning shooting and bull’s eye caging that the writer was not able to corner them in, so as to trip them up and hold them down long enough to get their names.

PRIZE FIGHTING.

“Jack” Johnson.

Peter Jackson, although an Australian by birth, spent his best fighting years in America. He fought with, came out even or on top of all the best men of his days. It was he who fought a 61 round draw with James J. Corbett, who is known as the most scientific heavyweight champion boxer the world has ever seen. Jackson was considered by many as the quickest heavyweight foot worker in the game. It is said that he was so uncanny quick on his feet that many times when an opponent made a lunge at him, Jackson would dodge the blow, circle to the rear of the fighter and pin him one back of the ear before the opponent could regain his balance, face around and throw up his guard to block off the blow. During all the time he was meeting the best heavyweights, Jackson held out a standing challenge to John L. Sullivan, who never would meet him in the ring. But John L. was always truthful enough to admit that he did not consider himself champion of the world because he had never whipped Peter Jackson. (for proof of this statement write to the Editor of Everybody’s Column, Philadelphia Inquirer, Phila., Pa.) According to an article that appeared in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin of January 26, 1921, and which was written by Hughey Fullerton a white sport critic, John L. Sullivan also side stepped another Colored heavyweight prize fighter, who was known in Louisiana as “Black Zeke”. This “Zeke” who weighed 220 pounds and was six feet two inches tall, could lift a bale of cotton weighing five hundred pounds. In reference to this fighter a paragraph in the above mentioned article read as follows: “After the Sullivan-Kilrain fight Mr. Carrol tried to arrange a bout between “Zeke” and John L. The latter refused and the planter followed Sullivan over the country, but to no avail.” So while Sullivan was truthfully champion over the world of white fighters, there were at least three Colored fighters, George Godfrey, Peter Jackson and “Black Zeke” over whom John L. never was champion, because he had never whipped any one of them although all three had repeatedly followed and challenged him after they had met and held their own with the other best men of their times.

Of all prize fighters, Colored or white, the world has ever known, George Dixon was declared the most wonderful of them all. Being a little over four feet tall, weighing less then 130 pounds, with small tapering legs that seemed to sweat tears of pain under the weight of his gigantic chest and unusually broad shoulders from which dangled muscular arms of such thickness and length that they looked unnatural, Dixon presented a most uncanny and formidable foe when stripped in the ring waiting for action. He always proved just as formidable as he looked; for when he warmed up and got into real action, it seemed to his opponent that Mr. & Mrs. Satan and their entire brood of little Satan imps from Hades had been turned loose in the ring. During a period of ten years (1890-1900) Dixon at different times held both the Bantamweight and Featherweight championships of the world. And one of the main reasons why his name will ever go down in ring history as the “Wonder of Wonders” is that he did something no other world champion has ever done—he “came back” three times and regained his lost championship. It is said that he made a record of over a thousand clean knockouts during his fighting career. His three “Come backs” were staged as follows: Benny Jordan took the title from him and he regained it from Eddie Santry; Frankie Erne gave Dixon a good spanking one year and the next year he thrashed that same Frankie Erne; Sol Smith gave him a good lacing, and the same year, Dixon in a return battle took back his title and in doing so (to use a frequent and amusing expression of one “Tommy” Howard, a jolly fellow and Virginia old-time friend of the writer’s) “nearly shook the living life out of him.”

Because Dixon always went into the squared-circle to give his best in manhood fighting and not his worse in childhood playing and faking, he was respected and beloved by fight fans of all classes and colors, which was proved by the most celebrated sport followers of the day, including ex-Heavy-weight Champion James J. Corbett, acting as pallbearers at his funeral.

Joe Walcott and Dixie Kid were two other great little fighters and they both became Welterweight world Champions, Walcott from 1901 to 1904 and Dixie Kid from 1904 to 1908. It is said of these two fighters, that, like Dixon, they became famous in their readiness to meet top-notch fighters who were nearly twice their height and weight. When they could get such big men in the ring with them, they usually jumped clear off the floor to land a mighty crushing paw upon some rival’s tempting jaw that then and there felt nothing more.

But the “Old Master” of them all, who even today is conceded to have been one of if not the cleanest hitting, quickest moving, gamest staying and most scientific boxers, Colored or white, big or little, who ever one-stepped, two-stepped, waltzed and Virginia-reeled into and around a roped-circle, was the ring’s national favorite, Joe Cans of Baltimore, Md. This great little fighter, who was as much a pet of the white sporting faction as of the Colored element, took the Lightweight championship away from Frank Erne in 1892 and kept it for six years. During that time he defeated all the best men in his field and jumped over the fence into the Welterweight pastures where he gored and tossed into the air several human beings and caused many to climb up on the fence in order to keep out of his way, until they saw that his constant mad rushes had weakened his stamina and tore down his system. It was during the zenith of his fighting career that whenever Gans started from home to engage in a fight his mother would laughingly say, “Bring home the bacon, Joe.” The boy fully understood and appreciated his mother’s encouraging joke and never returned home, when in his prime, without bringing along the winner’s roll of money. Joe Gans was as game as any game rooster that ever threw defiant crows from a barnyard gate and when he was in great need of money, to get a fight he would make such vitality sapping and strength weakening weights that people wondered how he was able to stand up much less jump around and fight. And to the very last, poor, broken-bodied, but not broken spirited, Joe Gans put up one of the gamest losing battles ever fought against that greatest champion—of all times among all peoples—Death.

“Panama Joe Gans” a Colored fighter of today has added laurels to the name he has adopted by becoming Middleweight Champion. Like his late namesake he is willing at all times to give the best of them in and out of his class chances to win his title. Just because he is a champion he does not draw the “color line” against any white fighter but fights as often as four and five times a month with his championship at stake every time.

Other Colored fighters who were among the best in their times and who no doubt would have won championships in and out of their classes, had the “color lines” not been drawn around them, are; Bob Armstrong, Jack Blackburn, Bobbie Dobbs, Sam Hopkins, Young Peter Jackson, Joe Jeanette, Sam Langford, Sam McVey and Fred Morris.

Some of the present day Colored fighters who are most frequently heard about are Jeff Clark, Leo Johnson, Jamaica Kid, Kid Norfolk, Benny Ponteau, Bill Tate, Jack Thompson, Jack White and Harry Wills, challenger and dreaded foe of Dempsey.

From 1908 to 1914 the world heavyweight champion fighter was Jack Johnson, the only Colored man who ever wore that crown of ring glory and belt of fighting fame. Unlike any of the white heavyweight champions, Johnson won the title twice: first from Tommy Burns in 1908 and secondly on that memorial Fourth of July 1910, from Jim Jefferies, who along with the American public disputed Jack’s right to the title. After his complete whipping of Jefferies, the Colored fighter, proved to the entire world that he was not only the rightful holder of the title but that he was also one of the best champions the ring had ever seen. Because of his having the pantherlike movements and quickness of a Peter Jackson, the straight-arm punch of a John L. Sullivan, the scientific hit-and-get-away style of a James J. Corbett, the ring generalship and craftiness of a “Bob” Fitzsimmons and the gameness and stamina of a “Jim” Jefferies, plus his own level-headedness and cheerful fighting disposition, the best fight critics in America and Europe considered “Jack” Johnson when in his prime, as being the best all-round and equally balanced heavyweight fighter who ever crawled through the ropes to battle in a prize ring.

Regarding the Johnson-Willard fight in Havana, Cuba, at which time the heavyweight title passed from Johnson to Willard the writer quotes here an extract that is taken from the article, “Jack Johnson Tells The Truth” that was written by Juli Jones, Jr. in the August 6, 1921 issue of The Chicago Defender.

“The sporting editor of the New York Sun printed an article which stated that Jack Johnson said the Willard fight was on the level; that he did not lay down to Willard in Havana, Cuba. This statement coming from Johnson, printed in one of America’s first-class dailies, is the first good step that Johnson has taken to win the favor of the real sporting public. The present public will not stand for a crook or a bad loser. It killed Fred Fulton, a very likable man.

“Johnson in part made it quite plain when he stated if he was going to lay down to Willard he would have done so in the seventh or ninth round, and not wait until the twenty-sixth to flop. He also stated he had always fought square and that was the reason he got to the top. Johnson gives a good reason for his failure to whip Willard, a very good reason. First, he had underestimated Willard, hadn’t proper training, ran around on the ocean looking for a battle ground. These had their effects on the fight.”

Throughout his marvelous fighting career, Johnson was climbing to success under most unfavorable conditions. White fighters in winning championships have only to fight against and beat down the opponent in the ring before them. But before he even got a chance to fight for the titled belt, “Jack” had always to mentally fight race prejudice on the outside of the ring at the same time he was physically beating down his white opponent in the ring. It would be hard to find proper words to describe the great fistic career Johnson would have made for himself if he had received the same kind of unprejudiced encouragements and boostings all white champions receive. And if up to this date nearly one hundred million of white Americans consider it wonderful to have produced out of that number seven white heavyweight champion fighters—Sullivan, Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jefferies, Burns, Willard, and Dempsey; or in other words a champion for ever fourteen million of their population: then it must be most wonderful that less than thirteen million of Colored Americans, under most unfair and persecuting conditions, have produced one heavyweight champion fighter of the world—John Arthur (“Jack”) Johnson.

For the benefit of those people who, on account of their jealousy and envy of Johnson’s fighting ability, try to defame and lower his character to the lowest, the writer would suggest the reading of the logic article—“Jack Johnson, Self-Made Man” that was written in the May 15, 1920 issue of the Chicago Defender by the able sport scribe, Juli Jones, Jr. The following is an extract from that article:

“Both races got Jack wrong. His aim in life was not to be a doctor, preacher, lawyer or Race Leader. He set out to be the best man with his fists, which he did beyond all question of doubt. We cannot find one case where Jack ruined any young girl’s future or broke up any man’s happy home; neither was he mixed up in any barroom fights. Never was he found in the gutter drunk or making a disgraceful fellow of himself, throwing away his money. On the other hand, since Jack has been self-exiled from his country, press reports from England, France, Spain and Mexico tell us that he has conducted himself in the most gentlemanly way and is welcome back in their countries at any time. How many, men who have been born under any flag could have stood what Jack has stood for the past six or eight years and still be in the limelight, handing the world a golden smile, saying, “Good will to all men.”

Now, not for one moment is the writer, in dealing with this subject, attempting to shield or cover-up any short-comings that may have occured in the private life of Jack Johnson. But, if after reading the above quotation there still be those people who continue to sneer at and belittle the upward struggles and crowning success of this professional fighter, the writer would kindly suggest that each one of such people ask himself or herself the following question:

Have I (with all my good birth, pleasant and elevating home life, early encouragements, full privileges, unnumbered opportunities, unchecked enthusiasms, unshaken determinations, wide preparations, various abilities, friendly boostings and perfect living) ever stood for one whole day upon the top round of world recognized success in my chosen life work; as “Jack” Johnson stood for six years on the top round of world recognized success in his self-selected life calling?