Family of boxer fights for pardon of 1913 racist conviction (Great White Hope)

[IndianaGreen]

For those that remember the film The Great White Hope, here is the real story of what is happening now. This is a topic relevant to those that believe that gays deserve the same marriage rights as heteros. The issue back then was interracial marriage.

Family of boxer fights for pardon of 1913 racist conviction

By Alan Silverleib
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- To this day, Linda Haywood recalls the shame she once felt for her great-uncle.

"I could see from the expression on my mother's face that it pained her to tell me about him," she recalled, "but it wasn't just her. The shame was there for all the members of my family."

Haywood's great-uncle, Jack Johnson, shocked the nation in 1908 by becoming the first African-American world heavyweight champion. Yet the boxer was arrested not long afterward for taking a white woman across state lines for "immoral" purposes.

That case fell apart and the woman later became his wife, but then investigators charged him with a similar offense involving a woman he had dated years earlier. An all-white jury's decision to convict him in that case has come to be widely viewed as a symbol of racial injustice.

Now Haywood is working with Sen. John McCain and others to try to clear her great-uncle's name. McCain wants the Senate to pass a resolution urging President Obama to grant Johnson a presidential pardon.

It would represent a final vindication for Haywood, a 53-year-old seamstress in Chicago who now views her great-uncle with pride.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/22/jack.johnson.pardon/index.html

[Rebubula]

1. Silly

It is embarrassing that this has not already been done.

I hope that someone finally has the guts to right this horrible wrong done to a good man