IT ALL STARTED WITH THIS MAN — JACK JOHNSON

The Jack Johnson syndrome? Do you know anyone that has this? I had never heard of it before so after doing a little research, here’s some info on Jack Johnson and what “The Jack Johnson Syndrome” means.

Jack Johnson was the first black heavyweight boxer of the world back in the in the early 1900’s. He had three white wives. He refused to date a black woman. He was arrested and jailed for marrying these women and was recommended to be lynched. By any means necessary right?

Johnson was married three times. All of his wives were white, a fact that caused considerable controversy at the time. In January 1911 Johnson married Etta Terry Duryea. A Brooklyn socialite and former wife of businessman Charles Duryea, she met Johnson at a car race in 1909. Their romantic involvement was turbulent. Beaten several times by Johnson and suffering from depression, she committed suicide in September 1912, shooting herself with a revolver. Less than three months later, on 4 December 1912, Johnson married Lucille Cameron, a young prostitute. After Johnson married Cameron, two ministers in the South recommended that Johnson be lynched. Cameron divorced him in 1924 on the grounds of infidelity. The next year Johnson married Irene Pineau; she outlived him. 

On October 18, 1912 Johnson was arrested on the grounds that his relationship with Lucille Cameron violated the Mann Act against “transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes.” Cameron, soon to become his second wife, refused to cooperate and the case fell apart. Less than a month later, Johnson was arrested again on similar charges. This time the woman, a prostitute named Belle Schreiber with whom he had been involved in 1909 and 1910, testified against him, and he was convicted by an all-white jury in June 1913. He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.

Johnson skipped bail, and left the country, joining Lucille in Montreal on June 25, before fleeing to France. For the next seven years, they lived in exile in Europe, South America and Mexico. Johnson returned to the U.S. on 20 July, 1920. He surrendered to Federal agents at the Mexican border and was sent to the United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth to serve his sentence. He was released on July 9, 1921.

They recommended him to be lynched, he fled America, he was arrested and jailed and he still wanted his white women.

So again we ask, do you know anyone with Jack Johnson syndrome?