Big Bill Tate: The Prizefighter and the Proletariat

Note: This is an ongoing project. Please share, but don't steal my ish.

“Big” Bill Tate hung up his gloves in 1928. During his 15-year career, Tate, who settled in Chicago’s Black Metropolis, became one of the most popular black fighters in America. His peak fighting years coincided with the development of Chicago’s political New Negro that battled exploitive capitalism. Armed with an understanding of economic exploitation he gleaned from prizefighting, and empowered by the rhetoric of the New Negro, Tate quit prizefighting to battle for black men on the killing floor. As a labor organizer Tate stood at the forefront of a black political movement linking civil and economic rights. Equally as important, he was the first black athlete to use his platform to advocate for labor rights.

            Born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1893, Tate used fighting to escape Jim Crow. He graduated from the state normal school (Alabama A&M) in Huntsville, where he learned the printing trade, but after college, like most black men, Tate could only find unskilled work. Tate’s formative years in Montgomery overlapped with legal Jim Crow, and white enforcement of such policies, that worked to violently and legally strip black men of their manhood rights. By March 1911, for example, of nearly 53,000 blacks in Montgomery County, only 1,000 had registered to vote.

 Tate’s lot in life changed, however, when Dr. F.C. Caffey discovered him in 1910. Dr. Caffey, the leading health and exercise advocate in black America, had just returned from assisting Jack Johnson with the Jim Jeffries battle. Like white managers who searched for white hopes to dethrone Jack Johnson, Caffey convinced the 6’7’ Tate, who reportedly had plans to attend Meharry Medical College, to enter prizefighting to win the championship. Caffey trained Tate for two years in Montgomery before sending him to New York in 1912.

As a fighter, Tate earned more money and had more mobility than his black southern brothers in the fields and northern brothers in the factories. Despite the freedom and economic mobility boxing provided black men, the politics and fears surrounding race and manhood reduced black fighters’ earnings. Simply put, interracial fights earned black men the most money, but the racial politics of that era restricted mixed bouts. As one white writer observed “the number of bouts between negroes, in fact, the recurrent bouts, they might be called, is due in no small measure to the feeling against so-called ‘mixed bouts’ throughout the country.” Black fighters had two choices, “fight among themselves or quit the ring.” Unfortunately, during his 15-year career, Tate’s fights against black opponents took a physical toll on him. Never great at defense, Tate suffered several vicious beatings by Harry Wills, Sam Langford, Joe Jeannette, Kid Norfolk, and George Godfrey.

Tate’s career coincided with the Great Migration of blacks who left the South for better opportunities in Chicago. Between 1910 and 1920 nearly 56,000 blacks moved to Chicago. The following decade the black population increased by 114%, and by 1930, 233,903 black people lived in the Black Metropolis. In Chicago, however, most blacks struggled to find adequate work. The onslaught of the Depression exacerbated the situation, as blacks were the last hired and first fired. After he retired in 1928, Tate, a leading soapbox orator, helped the Chicago Whip, a radical black newspaper; lead their “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work,” campaign. By 1930,Tate and the Whip helped 2,600 blacks find work.

In Tate’s most important battle, he fought for black unionization in the meatpacking industry. The meatpacking industry was the number one employer of blacks in Chicago, but the industry had a long history of discrimination and violence from white co-workers that made black workers wary of unions. Until WWI, when the factories needed cheap black labor, most blacks only worked at the slaughterhouses as strikebreakers. By 1930, however, blacks represented 30% of workers in the stockyards, but “the bottom rung on the ladder of success was the bloody, slippery floor of a killing room.”

Tate believed that “economic conditions” created “most of [blacks] ills” and the discriminatory job market—97% of blacks in the meatpacking industry had low-paying unskilled jobs—stood as the biggest barrier for black advancement. In his new fighting career, Tate led economic boycotts, parades, and organized black workers. To best serve black workers Tate took a job working as an international organizer for the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America. Tate organized workers in meatpacking centers including Omaha, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Kansas City and gave speeches trying to organize black and white workers. One study noted Tate’s “success in attracting men to the organization constitutes a brilliant record.” And a union leader from Omaha reflected, “We haven’t had much success organizing Negroes. The only one that helped us was Bill Tate.” Tate continued to organize black workers until his death in 1953. Although most blacks remained reluctant to join unions, Tate’s work laid the foundation for a labor movement that triggered the slow move of blacks factory workers into middle-class jobs.

Jackie Robinson and Police Brutality

As protests continue over the execution of Mike Brown, we are starting to see more Black athletes use their platform to challenge police brutality. The players' courage on Washington’s professional football team, for example, has been amazing to witness. I hope Black athletes and entertainers continue using their voices. In doing so, they are following a path blazed by Jackie Robinson, the first Black athlete to consistently protest police brutality.

Surprisingly, in Jackie’s lowest political moment, he first used his platform to publicly take a stand against police brutality. Looking for a way to attack Paul Robeson’s powerful protests against American racism—Robeson questioned if Blacks should fight against Russia—in July 1949, HUAC dragged Jackie Robinson to Washington D.C., to testify on behalf of Black America. Instead of passing Civil Rights legislation, Congress wanted a loyal Black face to reassure White Americans that America was a beacon of racial democracy. Jackie’s testimony, unfortunately, cut Robeson deep.  Regretfully, Robinson said “I can’t speak for any fifteen million people any more than any one person can, but I know that I’ve got too much invested for my wife and child and myself in the future of this country, and I and other Americans of many races and faiths have too much invested in our country’s welfare, for any of us to throw it away because of a siren song sung in bass.” Robeson was noticeably upset by Jackie’s attack and told a reporter, “The only other time Negroes were called on to publicly proclaim their loyalty was when Jeff Davis called them during the Civil War.” For his stance against the Black icon, White America praised Robinson. Robinson did more than just appease White America, however, he used his testimony to take a swing at racism. In one of his boldest statements, the baseball pioneer told HUAC, “because it is a Communist who denounces injustice in the courts, police brutality and lynching, when it happens, doesn’t change the truth of the charges.” Robinson added “Negroes were stirred up long before there was a Communist party, and they’ll stay stirred up long after the party has disappeared—unless Jim Crow has disappeared by then as well.” Jackie Robinson put Whites and the federal government on notice. If America truly wanted racial equality, police brutality had to end.

From that moment, Jackie joined a cadre of Black voices across the country and denounced police brutality. During the 1950s and 60s, he led marches, gave speeches, and used his newspaper column to attack injustice. He often linked Black rage as a response to police abuse, and warned of the potential problems if brutality went unchecked.  A month before the 1964 Harlem Uprising—the rebellion started after the police murdered an unarmed Black teenager—in an article entitled “Watch that Brutality,” Jackie urged, “I think our Police Commissioner must be warned that police brutality will not be tolerated by the Negro and Puerto Rican people of New York City. There has been too much of it and unless it is seriously curtailed, there can be serious and crucial times ahead for the city.” A week later at a rally to denounce violence—legendary catcher Roy Campanella, who Jackie called out for being silent on civil rights, also spoke—Jackie further warned about the brewing problems. He told the crowd “Harlem is the key to Negro areas throughout the country and efforts by Comm. Murphy or the Mayor to meet and ease problems here on police brutality will have an effect throughout the nation.”

The powers that be did not listen to Jackie Robinson and other Black leaders across the country demanding an end to abuse.  Between 1964 and 1968, hundreds of uprisings started in response to police brutality.  Predictably, a number of Americans, especially those on the Right, blamed the destruction on Black violence. In response to complaints, Robinson noted that so-called Black violence was a byproduct of police brutality. He argued “One cannot expect leaders to sell the non-violence cause when followers see violence erupting against them every day of their lives. Not even new civil rights bills or statesmanlike speeches can counteract this.” 

Jackie was right. Civil Rights legislation has failed to protect Blacks from the police. Since emancipation, Blacks have pleaded with local, state, and federal politicians to end police brutality. Let’s hope politicians finally listen to our complaints.  

Marcus Smart and Racist Fandom

“Neatly attired” in one of his many suits, on November 13, 1889 the ex-Colored Champion George Godfrey stormed into the Boston Globe’s building to protest an injustice. A week early Godfrey had knocked out the white heavyweight Jack Ashton, and now Ashton wanted a rematch. But that wasn’t the problem. Ashton was easy money. “If I received such a defeat as I administered to him, I think I would hold my peace,” Godfrey retorted. Plus, Godfrey would rather fight a white man, “they were easier whipped.” For a decade he tried to battle Heavyweight Champion John L. Sullivan, but the racist coward drew the color line. At one point Sullivan told Godfrey, “George, when I get ready to fight rats, dogs, pigs and niggers, I’ll give you the first chance.”

When they lifted the color line, white fighters could use racist fandom to their advantage and selected hostile environments to fight a black opponent. In order to duck the great black pugilist Peter Jackson, Heavyweight Champion Jim Corbett insisted on fighting in the South. Fearing for his life, Jackson turned down his only chance to fight for the championship. The great black champion George Dixon recalled that in Boston “it is not many years ago since I first stepped into a ring in this city, but even then a colored man would be considered crazy if he went to fight a white man outside of a club-room. He would surely have been killed, or brutally injured, if he made the least attempt to win.”  In 1888, Godfrey declined a $1,000 contest to fight a white opponent in New York, citing “I do not recall an instance of where a colored man went up against a white man in Gotham and was fairly treated. There is a prejudice there among the sporting people against the colored race, and I firmly believe that they would ‘kick’ against me on principle.” Godfrey fought for a living, but not for his life, so when he read that Ashton wanted to fight in Providence, Rhode Island, Godfrey asked, “How long is it since they had a good old-fashioned lynching down in Providence?” “Don’t you think they are itching for one now?” He claimed that even if he had a Gatling gun he wouldn’t fight Ashton in Providence. Instead, he insisted on battling in Boston or in the west, but Ashton declined another beating.

Unlike college athletes, as free labor the profession pugilist could dictate when and where he wanted to fight. The Marcus Smart incident highlights that on the one hand racist fandom still exists, and on the other hand the economic racket of the NCAA, the Big 12, and Oklahoma State restricts the rights and mobility of these students. For years, they’ve known that fans like Jeff Orr made Texas Tech an uncomfortable place to play, but they never did anything about him. Instead, they allowed Orr to purchase seats close to the floor where he could heckle opposing players. This time, he reportedly told Smart to “go back to Africa.” (NOTE: Orr claims he called Smart a piece of crap.) As free labor, these student-athletes should have an opportunity to dictate the terms of their working conditions, but as exploited commodities they have no say. If the NCAA and their institutions are really concerned about their students, then they need to use their power to create a better work environment instead of finding more ways how to exploit their labor.

John B. Bailey

Born free in 1815 in Baltimore, Maryland, John B. Bailey was one of the first black Americans to use sports to carve out a living and avoid drudgery. As a sparring master and an expert with pistols, Bailey had unique skills he could market.  He also had a practical reason to master the art of self-defense and pistol shooting. Physically defending himself could have been the difference between his freedom and bondage in Baltimore where free blacks had to worry about being kidnapped and sold into slavery. Like all free blacks in Baltimore, Bailey faced the threat of racism in a slave society that limited his rights, economic opportunities, and constantly put his life in danger.

When Bailey opened his first gymnasium in 1838, he was one of a few men in the nation that had their own gym. During the 1830s he taught sparring lessons in Baltimore and also traveled to Boston and Philadelphia for exhibitions. In Philadelphia, he sparred with the black sparring master Joseph Battis, who ran a sparring academy and barbershop. In 1846, Bailey opened “Bailey’s Gymnasium,” where taught sparring, gymnastics, and operated a pistol gallery. At the time it was illegal to sell “gunpowder, shot, or lead” to a free black person, mulatto, or slave.

Although he trained black men like Harry Sallars, who eventually became a boxing champion in Australia, Bailey’s success derived from that fact that he geared his business toward white middle-class anxieties and became a leader in the physical culture movement. The growth of the American physical culture movement started as an urban response to rapid industrial change. Health seekers believed industrialization weakened Americans, and they urged that individuals needed to transform their bodies to battle urbanization. Bailey only had one competitor. As a business owner, Bailey smartly used the language of health reform to attract customers. He ran ads offering sparring lessons and training in gymnastics, telling his readers about the “advantages which accrue from a course of Gymnastic exercise potential healthy qualities of exercise,” like a “promotion of a healthy and vigorous state of system,” “muscular powers,” and he suggested that working out could help fight off “diseases of a nervous and dyspeptic nature.” He also told his potential middle-class clients that fitness was essential for those who lived a “sedentary lifestyle.” Even though he thrived as a businessman, the tightening legal restrictions, the Fugitive Slave Law, and continuous oppressive racism pushed him out of Baltimore.

In 1851, he took his athletic and business skills to San Francisco, California. When he arrived in California he was only one of 2,000 free blacks to complete the journey voluntarily, and one of 18 blacks to open a barbershop in San Francisco. Along with his barbershop he also operated a pistol gallery and taught sparring lessons. For whatever reason, he left San Francisco, returned to Baltimore, and then took his family to Boston in 1853.

In Boston, along with black gymnasium owner Patton Stewart Jr., Bailey became a leading figure in the physical culture movement. He taught sparring lessons, operated a pistol gallery, bowling alley, and had one of the few facilities where men could lift heavy weights. For most of the 1850s Bailey and Stewart operated the only two middle-class gyms in Boston. In his book Colored Patriots of the Revolution, the black leader William C. Nell wrote “it may be noted, that the two most popular gymnasium galleries are in the proprietorship of J.B. Bailey and Peyton Stewart.” By the end of the decade Bailey’s real estate holdings jumped from $500 to $5000.

During the 1860s Bailey left the gymnasium and pistol business and opened up a sparring academy. He operated one of the most successful sparring academies in the nation until his death in 1886. As a sparring master he gave lessons and hosted numerous sparring exhibitions, including exhibitions with his friend Aaron Molienaux Hewlett, the first black teacher at Harvard. Molineaux taught physical culture and also owned a gymnasium with his wife in Cambridge. During his tenure in Boston, Bailey’s most successful student was the Colored Heavyweight Champion (1883-1888) George Godfrey.

Most importantly, Bailey was more than just an athlete. He was an activist who worked to integrate Boston’s schools, fought for abolition, and was part of the Underground Railroad.  According to his obituary, his “career has in it something to admire and something to praise. He was a race man in every sense of the word.” “He was deeply interested in all movements which tended to lift up his people.” As a black athlete-activist, Bailey set the bar high for others to follow. 

William C. Matthews: What Happened to the First Black Quarterback?

With two dynamic black quarterbacks starring in the BCS championship game, now is a good time to take a break from the hype (pre-game and post-game) to have a brief history lesson on the first black college quarterback, Harvard’s William Clarence Matthews who played his first game in 1901. His exploits on the baseball diamond are well documented, but little is known about his football career. The fact that he played professional baseball, and was almost signed by Boston’s National League baseball team in 1905, has trumped his football status.

To be clear, when I say the first black quarterback I am referring to players who played at predominately white institutions. Black schools that had football teams had black quarterbacks. Before starring at Harvard, Matthews, the Alabama native, helped organize the first team at Booker T. Washington’s famed Tuskegee Institute. According to Matthews, although players at black schools held the “same interests and excitement” for football that white students had, there was a major difference between the black institutions and white schools; “The Negro schools [had] the game minus the business of foot-ball.” “In Yale, Harvard or Princeton,” Matthews suggested, “the player [had] to undergo the strictest discipline, which comes under the general head of ‘training.’ This element, which by the way is very essential to the best development, is eliminated in the Negro schools and partly accounts for the lack of foot-ball ability.” In other words, the black colleges did not treat football like an exploitive business. Moreover, because of Jim Crow, black schools lacked the necessary funds for training, facilities, and equipment to compete with the top white institutions. They also didn’t have to deal with the overt racism from teammates and opponents, as Matthews found out.

 After starring at Tuskegee in both baseball and football, Matthews graduated in 1897 and transferred to Philips Andover, where he became a two -sport star and captain of the baseball team. Despite his success on the gridiron and the baseball diamond, Matthews could not escape racist teammates. One baseball teammate, a southern man, refused to eat at the same training table as Matthews. Because this teammate transferred to Yale to play baseball, Matthews chose to attend Harvard. He made the right decision. Although, Harvard was no bastion of integration, the school had a history of black athletic success and some tolerance. In 1859, for example, they hired the first physical culture teacher in the nation, a black man named Aaron Molineaux Hewlett.  From 1859-1871, Hewlett taught PE, sparring lessons, and coached baseball and rowing. Only one black student attended the school during Hewlett’s tenure.  During the 1890s, William Henry Lewis, the first black All-American, starred on the football team and coached the team. Lewis’s success paved the way for Matthews. In the fall of 1901, Matthews earned acclaim on campus when he became the first black college quarterback. Against Bates, Matthews “put up a good game at quarter… He jumped into popularity at once. His playing was applauded and his work was watched with the greatest interest for he is one of the smallest men that has ever played on a Crimson eleven.”

One report noted that Matthews, who weighed only 145 pounds, played with “wonderful quickness and pertinacity,” and that he was already one of the “most popular men at Harvard.”

While Harvard adored him, most schools hated the thought of competing against a black man. In his first baseball season, 1902, the University of Virginia refused to play Harvard if Matthews played. Unfortunately, Harvard cowardly sat their star infielder.  For the next fifty years, most northern schools sat their black stars when playing Southern teams. Fortunately, the Virginia contest was the last time Harvard backed down to racism during Matthews’s tenure. They forced teams like Georgetown and West Point to play them with Matthews or forfeit the game. Playing the game, however, put Matthews in danger. Plenty of opponents despised playing against a black man, especially players at Yale.

By 1904, Yale footballers had grown tired of having to face their black opponent and decided to teach Matthews a lesson. Yale, always known to have more southerners than Harvard, repeatedly asked Harvard to sit Matthews for their game on November 21. Despite pleads and warnings from the legendary Yale coach Walter Camp, the father of football, Matthews played. According to one report, with the headline that read “Yale Nearly Kills Negro,” the Yale players “hammered and slugged him so hard that he was knocked out and had to retire from the game. It is said that they would have killed him had he stayed.” Moreover, “one player grabbed him around the neck and twisted it so hard that Matthews’ life was in danger.” Yale was not the only team that hated Harvard for playing a black man. Princeton and Yale reportedly discussed forming a new football league excluding the integrated Harvard. Princeton, whose players’ viciously targeted black Dartmouth player Matthew Bullock the previous fall, told Harvard to get rid of Matthews too. In 1903, when Princeton played Dartmouth, the Princeton Inn refused to let Bullock stay in their hotel. On the field, Princeton players attacked Bullock, telling teammates “remember what you are to do with the nigger.” After the third play, a Princeton player jumped on Bullock and dislocated his shoulder. When confronted, the racist attacker said “We’ll teach you not to bring niggers down to play against us.” Bullock, a star end for four years, graduated from Dartmouth and eventually became the head football coach at Amherst.  In 1909, he left the north to coach at the black school Atlanta Baptist.

So what happened to Matthews? The two-sport star was more than just an athlete. Matthews was the true definition of scholar-athlete. “In addition to his being an athlete of the first rank,” one 1904 report stated, “Matthews is also a student of high standing and a man of positive exemplary character.” In fact, he was enrolled in the Harvard Law School when the Yale incident occurred. Matthews, the epitome of the scholar athlete, continued to succeed on the baseball diamond and in the classroom and played professional baseball while earning his law degree. In 1913, President Taft admitted Matthews to the Bar of Massachusetts. The ex-star athlete also involved himself in party politics and by 1924 he was head organizer of the “colored section” of the Republican National Committee. The following year President Coolidge rewarded him for his work and loyalty and appointed Matthews Special Assistance to the Attorney General of the United States. Unfortunately, the athletic star that made his way from Tuskegee to Harvard died in 1928 at the young age of 51 in San Francisco, California. 

Jack Johnson and Black Hopes

As the story has been told endless times, when Jack Johnson became the heavyweight champion after defeating Tommy Burns 105 years ago, the white press started a quest for a white hope to rescue the championship back. However, the press quickly learned that white heavyweights could not defeat Johnson, and the other top fighters, Sam McVey, Sam Langford, and Joe Jeannette, were black men. In 1911, one writer nervously reported “We [white people] don’t seem to have advanced much further in our investigations as to the identity of the white man who is to wrest the crown of supremacy from the colored race.”  The writer went on to declare, “We want a real good man, too and we want him badly. With Sam McVey making almost even break of it with Langford, the four top places must be conceded to the representatives of the colored race. . . .  Either could almost certainly have disposed, with ease, of the very best white man in the world, and the conclusion is not a very gratifying one.” Fearing that white fighters could not beat Johnson, and realizing that Johnson’s well-documented “bad Nigger” antics became increasingly more threatening to whites, the white press started to promote other “colored champions” to beat Johnson. In other words, they would settle for a black hope, as long as he was deemed a good black. As Lester A. Walton of the black newspaper the New York Age noted “After searching every nook and corner of the earth for a ‘white hope’ to give Champion Jack Johnson a serious argument at fisticuffs, and all to no good purpose, those most active in this world-wide search have hit upon another plan of attack—to try and recapture the championship title through a black hope.”

The two favorites were Joe Jeannette and Sam Langford. Jeannette had respectable qualities that whites could live with. “Although some people look down upon Negroes, no white man ever conducted himself better in any branch of the sport than Joe Jeannette,” reasoned one white writer. Jeannette had “the good will of the white people” and was a credit to his race. The white press also loved Sam Langford. His nickname, the “Boston Tarbaby,” conjured up images of the old plantation days of the docile Negro. At one point, Langford even went as far as suggesting “I may be colored, but I’ve got a white heart,” signifying that he was safe for whites unlike Johnson.

For the white press, the issue of sex and marriage was never far from the conversation in context of Johnson and the black hopes. The press clamored for a hope in the ring, because Johnson challenged white men’s claim to physical superiority and sexual power. On the subject marriage and family, a writer for the New Orleans Picayune noted “There has been more scandal connected with Jack Johnson since he became prominent in pugilism than there was with the names of all the other negro boxers put together. Take the case of Jeannette and Langford” the paper noted “they are both married men who follow fighting for the sake of earning enough to keep their families as comfortable as they can.” The writer finished by noting that Johnson, on the other hand, was a black man whose “private life has been such that it has often been wondered that any well-regulated community would stand for him, and he has done more to turn people against black fighters than all the men of his race put together.” In 1910, while promoting his client for the championship, Sam Langford’s manager told a southern newspaper that Langford and Johnson were two different types of blacks. Under the byline that read “Negroes but Different,” his manager tried to convince white southerners that Langford saved his money while Johnson would die a pauper, and he also noted that Langford bought a home for his wife in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Remarks like that played perfectly in the South, since white Southerners hated the nomad Johnson constantly parading around with white women.

Langford’s quest to unseat Johnson did not sit well with some black newspapermen. Even though he reportedly lived clean and harbored their middle-class values, they did not trust Langford as champion. In August 1910, after hearing a rumor that Langford would dope Johnson if they fought and then let a white man beat him, a writer remarked, “To think such a villainous plot should be hatched against our noble Jack, and for one of his own race to participate in it, gives us much pain.” The paper further suggested that Langford had a lot to learn about being a race man, and that “if he will but walk in the noble footsteps of the first colored champion of the world, he will teach these petty whites that the time for buying and selling a Negro has long since passed.” Four years later in 1914 after Johnson said he would fight Langford, a black reporter claimed blacks were afraid of Langford and would “have no particular love for him.” The paper added that rumors suggesting Langford would let a white fighter beat him “make even their [blacks] regard for him grow less.” This contempt only lasted until Jess Willard defeated Johnson in April 1915. Soon after Willard became the champion, the black press supported Langford as the next rightful champion. Unfortunately for Langford and other black fighters until 1937, white champions continued to draw the color line.  

Adrien Broner: Cautionary Tale or Trickster

The history of boxing is full of cautionary tales of fighters who have quickly achieved fame and fortune and lost it all just as fast. The attraction of the sporting culture, or living a fast life, did them in. As the great fighter George Dixon once indicated, “I lost my money by gambling, playing the races, leading a fast life and by lending my money to friends.” Dixon, who was the first black champion (1890,) and a hero in the black community, squandered nearly $250,000 in his career and died a broke in 1908. Like many boxers, then and today, he spent the last years of his career trying to catch that elusive payday. When he could no longer fight he died friendless and penniless. “No instance seems more pathetic than the career of George Dixon,” recounted one white writer. For his generation, Dixon became a poster child for white writers as a cautionary tale for the black prizefighter. For example, one writer observed that “it seems to be an unfortunate trait with the colored fighters that they have not sense enough to lay up a little of worldly goods against the coming of old age. Practically every one of them has been an object of charity at some time or other.” According to many observers, black fighters had a racial pathology that predisposed them to spending money on worthless items. The fact that these pugilists lacked manly responsibility fit into stereotypes of the child-like happy-go-lucky black minstrel character.
 
In many ways, the public still views the black athlete as the man-child waiting to lose it all. For example, in a recent Sports Illustrated article entitled “Problem Child,” writer Chris Mannix explores the quick rise to fame of black prizefighter Adrien Broner. Broner, who lost for the first time on Saturday, goes by the nickname “The Problem,” and is equally known for his skills in the ring as for his antics outside the squared circle. Broner once posted images of himself flushing $20 bills down the toilet. In his article, Mannix falls into the common trope of writing about Broner as a immature black man unprepared for the economic fortunes of a professional athlete. Mannix notes “many wonder: Are we witnessing the rise of boxing’s next big thing or the early rounds of another cautionary tale?” But is it possible Broner is playing us? After all, coming into his last fight Broner was one of the most marketable fighters in the game.

In his blog, the brilliant sportswriter Morgan Campbell wrote that Broner “is, depending on your perspective, a bad guy, a buffoon, or a coon. And it works for him — when he fights even mainstream sports fans tune in to see if somebody will knock that smirk off his face.” In other words, Broner has played the role of the trickster and used the historical contempt for the young black athlete and America’s belief in black pathology to sell more tickets. With his antics and braggadocios attitude, Broner tricked the public into hating him. According to Campbell, “It has everything to do with entertainment, and the entertainment value in a Broner bout is the hope that whoever they line up against him will give him the beating he’s been baiting. And that hope springs from Broner’s antics and arrogance, and the idea that he deserves to lose for disrespecting fans, opponents and the sport.” Whereas others see Broner’s antics as a cautionary tale, Campbell urges on the trickster and asks him to keep “trolling.”

I see both a cautionary tale and the trickster in Broner. He has brilliantly followed the path Floyd “Money” Mayweather blazed in selling a notion of so-called black pathology to stardom, but Broner has also had many brushes with the law and seems to like his drink a bit too much. As a person who studies the history of black fighters, as see parallels with Harry Woodson, the first black boxing star from Cincinnati.

Like Broner, Woodson, “The Black Diamond,” grew up in poverty. Born a slave in Kentucky in 1855, and raised by his mom in the notorious levee district in Cincinnati, Ohio, Woodson used boxing as his way out. His mother, Winnie, operated a bar and brothel and trouble frequently found the establishment. Both Woodson and his mother had their lives threatened, had been stabbed, and Woodson had been shot in a gambling dispute.  In 1882, he escaped the drudge work of a riverman and the hard world of the levee and turned his fighting propensities into a lucrative profession. A Cincinnati Enquirer writer noted he was a “fine specimen of manhood,” and “a well-scienced and powerful man…” Like Broner, he had a quick rise to the top of the pugilist rankings.  Within a year he had fought for the Colored Championship. Despite losing that title fight to Professor Charles Hadley of Connecticut he remained one of the more popular fighters in America. Unfortunately for Woodson, the sporting life style caught up to him. In September 1887, a porter from Chicago killed him for sleeping with his wife. Woodson, who had reportedly been drunk for 3 straight days, was in the city to provide muscle at his mom’s saloon.

In reality, a poor black man in the 1880s had very few options. Boxing was Woodson’s only way out. The sporting lifestyle gave the “Black Diamond” comfort from his hard life. Like Woodson, Broner seems to find escape and comfort in the sporting life, but Woodson’s story doesn’t have to be Broner’s reality. I don’t mind if Broner continues to play the role of the trickster, but for his case, I hope he avoids some of his self-destructive behavior of Woodson and George Dixon.