Johnson Defeats Jeffries 4 July 1910

I saw this interesting CNN article today about efforts to get a pardon for Jack Johnson, the first African-American world heavyweight boxing champion and did a quick search to learn a little more about Johnson.

He sounds like such a larger than life character.

Among many other things, the wikipedia article for Johnson talks about "the fight of the century" between Johnson and former undefeated heavyweight champion James J. Jeffries, who came out of retirement for the fight. This was one of those amazing moments when the whole country tuned in to one event.

Here's the Chicago Tribune recap of the fight:

And here it is in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Apparently the whole thing was filmed and made into a documentary. Here are a couple of YouTube clips of the documentary: