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Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

2005 • Documentary •

US • English

Director: Ken Burns

Writers: Geoffrey C. Ward

The story of Jack Johnson, the first African-American boxer to win a title and his struggle to live as a free man.

Cast

Samuel L. Jackson

as Narrator (voice)

Keith David

as Jack Johnson (voice)

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Jack Johnson

as Self (archive footage)

Stanley Crouch

as Self - writer

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James Earl Jones

as Self - actor

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Bert Sugar

as Self - boxing historian

Gerald Early

as Self - writer

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José Torres

as Self - Former Light Heavyweight Champion

Episodes

Part One

E1 111m

Follow Jack Johnson's journey from Texas to professional boxing, where, in Jim Crow America, the heavyweight champion was a "white title." In 1908 he became the first African American to earn the title Heavyweight Champion of the World.

Part Two

E2 102m

When no one could beat Johnson in the ring, the government set out to destroy him in the courts, using his relationships with white women as the excuse to prosecute and send him to jail. Johnson fled to Europe where he remained a fugitive.