Although his own record on civil rights has come under question, President Donald Trump of the United States on Thursday posthumously honoured Jack Johnson, the first undisputed heavyweight boxing champion of the world.

In pardoning Johnson, Trump found a way in one swoop of the pen to stake a claim on civil rights and rebuke his predecessor, Barack Obama, for not taking action on an issue that seemed to be in line with the principles of fighting injustice that he had championed.

Flanked by boxing champions and Sylvester Stallone, the actor who brought the case to his attention, President Trump signed an order pardoning Johnson, whose boxing legacy had been tarnished by a 1913 racially tainted criminal conviction.

Johnson, who won the heavyweight title in 1908 and was ostentatious and outspoken in a way black celebrities rarely were at the time, was convicted in 1913 of violating the Mann Act on charges that he had transported a white woman, Belle Screiber across state lines ‘for immoral purposes’.

Sitting with a large, ornate title belt from the World Boxing Council propped up in front of him, President Trump called Johnson a truly great fighter who “had a tough life” but served 10 months in federal prison “for what many view as a racially motivated injustice.” Mr. Trump said the conviction took place during a “period of tremendous racial tension in the United States”.

For more than 100 years, Jackson’s battles against white opponents, in the ring and outside of it, were seen through the play and movie titled ‘The Great White Hope’ and he came to be idolized as a barrier breaker.

Johnson’s cause had attracted a range of supporters, including Senator John McCain and the filmmaker, Ken Burns, who made a documentary about the case in 2005 called ‘Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson’.

Not only was Johnson the first black man to win the heavyweight world championship, but he also was the rare black man of his era who was brash and unapologetic about his wealth and success. He taunted his opponents in the ring and dated white women, which was taboo, and in some places illegal, at the time.

After Johnson had won the heavyweight title, many in white society advocated for a white fighter  – ‘The Great White Hope’ – to step up and win the title back.

James J. Jeffries, a former champion who had been in retirement, took up that challenge. But Johnson decimated Jeffries in a victory that sparked violent white backlash in the form of riots across the country.

 

Johnson was sentenced to a year in prison, but he fled the country for several years, returning in 1920 to serve a 10-month sentence.

The WBC, one of the world boxing’s sanctioning bodies, invited luminaries of the sport, including the current champion Deontay Wilder and a retired one, Lennox Lewis, to the ceremony.

Speaking shortly after the ceremony, Wilder said although he did not vote for Mr. Trump and that the president had not done enough to improve the lives of black people, Thursday’s events had improved his perception of him..