Sylvester Stallone phones Donald Trump to persuade him to pardon black boxer
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Donald Trump is considering pardoning a black boxer after he was telephoned by actor Sylverster Stallone.
The Rocky actor got in touch with the US President to persuade him to pardon Jack Johnson who was the first black world heavyweight champion.
Trump tweeted following their conversation: “Sylvester Stallone called me with the story of heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson,” Trump tweeted earlier today.
“His trials and tribulations were great, his life complex and controversial.
"Others have looked at this over the years, most thought it would be done, but yes, I am considering a Full Pardon!”
Stallone, the star of the Rocky movies, has been a guest at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
(Image: Getty Images North America)
He is the latest to champion the cause of Johnson who was arrested in 1913 and charged with transporting a prostitute across state lines, a violation of the Mann Act.
Johnson, who held the world heavyweight title from 1908 to 1915, shot to fame at a time when whites often killed blacks without fear of legal repercussions.
When he beat white fighter Jim Jefferies in a 1910 fight in Reno, Nevada which led to deadly race riots.
In defiance of the time he lived lavishly and dated white women.
When he was unsurprisingly convicted he said, “They crucified Christ. Why not me?”
The boxer skipped bail and went to Europe but when he returned to the US in 1920 he served almost a year in jail.
The British world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis told the Guardian in 2010 that though Muhammad Ali’s “contribution was profound, Jack Johnson’s was the first”.
“It was quite a story,” Lewis said. “I am a lover of history and it was good to look again at the sort of attitudes that were about back in those days, to see how far we have come.
“Even though black people were, in some ways, more accepted in American culture, the promoters’ dream became to look for controversy. And Jack Johnson was the first great showman. He gave them what they wanted. Look at the time he lived.
“It was remarkable that he was travelling the world, as a black man, getting arrested, leaving America, going to Europe. In the end he got old, like we all do, and he got knocked out by Jess Willard.”