Before Jack Johnson the mellow, surfer-musician, there was Jack Johnson the African-American boxer who broke as many barriers as necks. In 1908, he became the first black fighter to win the heavyweight boxing championship of the world and was an instant sensation. “The Great White Hope” (a play and film) tells a fictionalized account of his life. As a black celebrity in an age wrought with discrimination and segregation, he had to deal with the contempt of racist media and crowds. He wasn’t easily discouraged, however, as he married, not one, but two white women, which fanned the flames of his racist critics.

His enemies got the best of him in 1912, when courts convicted Johnson of violating the Mann Act, which banned bringing women across state lines for “immoral purposes.” He was traveling with a white woman who would eventually become his wife.