Jim Jeffries, the current heavyweight champion, refused to fight Johnson or any other black boxer. On May 16, Johnson took on the champion's younger brother, Jack Jeffries. After toying with the ...

Jack Johnson marries Lucille Cameron in 1912 ... Willard was now the Heavyweight Champion of the World. It would be seven years before a black man was allowed to compete for any boxing title ...

But in 1908, 39 years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball, there was Jack Johnson -- the first black man to hold the world heavyweight championship. Johnson is ...