Unforgivable Blackness - The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

Zusatztext " Unforgivable Blackness is likely to be the definitive biography of Jack Johnson . . . A significant achievement. Geoffrey Ward provides an utterly convincing and frequently heartrending portrait of Jack Johnson." --Joyce Carol Oates! The New York Review of Books "A formidable accomplishment . . . Ward has successfully brought this deep and colorful personality! this insufficiently understood and altogether amazing man! back to life." --David Margolick! The New York Times Book Review "Brings [Johnson] to life in all his vulgar! splendid glory. Engrossing and definitive! Unforgivable Blackness is a great biography of a great and utterly fascinating subject." --Allen Barra! The Philadelphia Inquirer "An engaging and well-researched popular biography . . . Throughout the book! Johnson's energy never flags! and neither does our interest. [Ward] has drawn a portrait of a fascinating figure! whose oversized personality fills every page." --Bruce Schoenfeld! Washington Post Book World “This remarkable book is at one and the same time a rousing story! a terrific biography! and first-rate history. With immense skill! Geoffrey Ward has not only brought Jack Johnson back to life but has provided a telling window onto what it was like to be a great black athlete in early-twentieth-century America.” —Doris Kearns Goodwin “Geoffrey Ward’s Unforgivable Blackness is a stunning exploration in the unbelievable bigotry of whites in early-twentieth-century America.” —David Levering Lewis! Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the two-volume biography of W. E. B. Du Bois   Informationen zum Autor 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. Klappentext 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.The Pure-Blooded American In the spring of 1910, Halley’s comet returned to the heavens after an absence of seventy-five years. Some believed it a sign from God that the world was about to end. Nearly everyone saw it as a momentous event, and during the week of May 18, when astronomers predicted the earth would pass through the comet’s tail, adults and sleepy children all over the country stumbled out of their homes at night to see if they could get a glimpse of it. On the Lower East Side of New York, thousands of tenement dwellers, mostly immigrants and their families, filled the streets to peer up at the cloudy skies, while on the roof of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel uptown, Speaker of the House Joseph G. Cannon led two hundred tuxedoed guests attending the annual dinner of the National Association of Manufacturers in a champagne toast to the comet’s passing. In Memphis, Tennessee, separate all-night revivals were held for white and black believers awaiting Judgment Day. In Chicago, panicked householders blocked their doors and windows against deadly gases they believed the comet would release. And early one morning, at the fashionable Seal Rock House on Ocean Beach at S...

Product details

• Authors: Geoffrey C Ward, Geoffrey C. Ward
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 03.01.2006
• EAN: 9780375710049
• ISBN: 978-0-375-71004-9
• No. of pages: 544
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 203 mm x 36 mm
• Subject: Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Biographies, autobiographies