Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

Geoffrey C. Ward

ISBN 10: 0375710043 / ISBN 13: 9780375710049

Published by Vintage Books, 2006

About this Item

Tight, clean, unmarked copy with minor wear to the edges and corners. A few pages have small corner creases. Firm binding.

Seller Inventory # BX94-UB

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson
• Publisher: Vintage Books
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375710043
• ISBN 13: 9780375710049
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Sports-Boxing
  • Biographies

About this title

Synopsis

In this vivid biography Geoffrey C. Ward brings back to life the most celebrated — and the most reviled — African American of his age.

Jack Johnson battled his way out of obscurity and poverty in the Jim Crow South to win the title of heavyweight champion of the world. At a time when whites ran everything in America, he took orders from no one and resolved to live as if color did not exist. While most blacks struggled simply to exist, he reveled in his riches and his fame, sleeping with whomever he pleased, to the consternation and anger of much of white America. Because he did so the federal government set out to destroy him, and he was forced to endure prison and seven years of exile. This definitive biography portrays Jack Johnson as he really was--a battler against the bigotry of his era and the embodiment of American individualism.

About the Author

Geoffrey C. Ward won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1989. With Ken Burns, he is coauthor of The Civil War and Jazz. He lives in New York City.