Two Fighters One Family!  Linda Haywood- The Great Niece who fought to clear the name of Jack Johnson

Jack Johnson who was the first black heavyweight champion of the World was railroaded, persecuted and jailed for a crime he didn`t commit.

Jack died on March 10^th 1946, bereft of justice he so deserved.  It took until May 24^th  2018 for him to gain a Presidential Pardon from Donald Trump, who signed the Document of Clemency in the Oval Office of the White House.  His Great Niece Linda Haywood was there to receive that long overdue pardon. She had fought like a tigress over many years for her great uncle. Alongside her: Deontay Wilder, Lennox Lewis, Sylvester Stallone and Maurico Sulaiman, who had supported that tireless campaign.

Linda died on February 2^nd  2022. We will always remember her as a person undaunted, who refused to give up, persisting in her quest for vindication.  She once said: “My Uncle Jack is in Heaven watching me and smiling.” Now… they are together arm in arm amidst the sunbeams of eternity. Two truly great fighters who refused to buckle or give in, they fought in their individual ways, against all the odds… to win!

Jack was convicted under the preposterous terms of theso-called Mann Act. He was accused of transporting a white woman across State lines, for immoral purposes. That woman was his second Wife Lucille Cameron. What the Authorities really wanted to do was to take away his boxing license, crush his humanity and put him in his place in the odious era of “Jim Crow.”  He served his time, but at no time did they break Jack Johnson.

Linda recalled: “My Mama said Jack was defiant. I said he was just being a MAN and being himself. He didn`t allow anyone to treat him in an inferior manner. He carried himself with dignity and respect.  He was a man so far ahead of his time and his courage could have got him killed.”

That courage runs in the family. Linda says Jack`s Sister Lucy, who drank a shot of whisky daily, smoked a corn cob pipe and lived until she was a feisty ninety- two, inspired and emboldened him, when he was bullied as a child. And she also ordered him to stand his ground, warning: “If you don`t whip them, then I`ll whip you!”

Linda`s Uncle Sonny told her about Great Uncle Jack, and she learned more about him via Black History Week and finally Black History Month, plus a book she borrowed from the library.  When Linda heard the phrase/accusation… FOR IMMORAL PURPOSES, she said: “At my age at that time, I didn`t know what that meant, but it sounded really funky!” She later learned it was a hashed-up fudge of downright lies, to by-pass justice and she fought for many years until a grievous wrong was put right.

Jack had bought his mother a mansion, but in his absence, when he initially fled the United States, as he was relentlessly hounded, the family lost it and fell on hard times. He himself had to etch out a living and ended his last day on earth, refused access to a diner, which excluded him on the basis of his race. Many years later the journalist Jimmy Cannon wrote of the next black heavyweight champion Joe Louis: “Joe is a credit to his race. THE HUMAN RACE.”

“It`s been a year since Linda passed away, but this filmed interview is a testament her spirit which will NEVER die. She was a welcome guest at the World Boxing Council`s Convention in Ukraine.

Her and His message of: “Fight for what you believe in,” Lives on beyond two lifespans.  In the words of the Great Martin Luther King Jr: “We shall overcome, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward Justice.”