RIGHTING A WRONG

Jack Johnson won the heavyweight championship in 1908, and promptly became not a hero but the most hated man in the United States. Johnson was an African-American, you see, and he had the temerity to defeat a white boxer in the land of self-evident truths and inalienable rights. His victory prompted race riots, as whites waded into black neighborhoods, attacking anyone who happened in their way. Many Americans associate race riots with visions of ghettos in flames. The first race rights featured whites falling upon blacks.

Unable to defeat Johnson in the ring, whites set about to KO him in other ways. They relied on the so-called law. Johnson was arrested for violating the Mann Act, which forbade the transportation of women across state lines for "immoral purposes." Johnson in fact transported a woman across state lines; she was white and became his wife, thereby thoroughly outraging sensibilities that were insensitive. After the original case collapsed, authorities brought up a previous incident and secured a conviction from an all-white jury that deliberated, if that's the word, for less than two hours. Johnson was not a saint, yet he did not deserve his fate. Arrest, trial, verdict, and imprisonment were low blows.

The episode long ago was recognized as an injustice. Geoffrey Ward records the story and much more in Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson. Ken Burns produced a film version for PBS.

Sen. John McCain has joined with Johnson's great-niece to secure a pardon for the late champion. Justice, we are confident, will be served. The Senate has passed McCain's resolution. President Barack Obama will clear Johnson's record.

Collective guilt is a dubious concept, and visits the sins of fathers and mothers upon sons and daughters. Yet Americans gladly claim as their own the virtues of good women and men of old; we stand tall because tall they stood. National inheritance includes more than the good. Stains are not easily removed. They must be acknowledged, at least. Although the therapeutic age may scorn shame, shame has its time and place. People prefer to forget, but memory is an obligation of citizenship. Jack Johnson deserves a pardon. A pardon would compel the U.S. to remember and to continue to progress. Nations professing godliness practice penitential orders.