There is a new Jack Johnson book out, compiled from interviews w/French sports journalists...
SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. - Jack Johnson, addicted to attention and craving a colorful legacy, loved to chronicle his rise from a restless Texas teen to the world's first black heavyweight boxing champion. Now, nearly a century after his most famous bout ?the 1910 defeat of "Great White Hope" Jim Jeffries ?and decades after his death, Johnson has more tales to tell.
His largely unknown 1911 musings to a French sports magazine, including candid observations on racism likely never intended for American readers, have been translated to English in their entirety for the first time. The result, "My Life & Battles," is 127-page book by and about the man considered by many to be one of history's most important athletes.
"To get new material and new stories from Jack Johnson is significant not just in sports, but sociologically as a look into that whole era," said Bert Sugar, a boxing historian and author of dozens of books on the sport.
His largely unknown 1911 musings to a French sports magazine, including candid observations on racism likely never intended for American readers, have been translated to English in their entirety for the first time. The result, "My Life & Battles," is 127-page book by and about the man considered by many to be one of history's most important athletes.
"To get new material and new stories from Jack Johnson is significant not just in sports, but sociologically as a look into that whole era," said Bert Sugar, a boxing historian and author of dozens of books on the sport.
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