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Keletso Atkins
Department of Afro-American and African Studies, University of Minnesota

Abstract

From the mid-1880s to 1910, at the height of European conquest and expansion, the African Diaspora produced a number of outstanding athletes who achieved international fame in boxing. Hitherto this sport was viewed as an expression of white masculine identity. The white champion boxer was a political metaphor for European dominance and preeminence. Indeed the glorification of physical culture was an integral part of British propaganda. Widely held was the idea that physical fitness which promoted character, strength, promptitude and so forth, underpinned the successful operations of the colonial enterprise. "Anglo-Saxon athletic vigor," as James A. Mangan succinctly put it, "was equated with the ability to rule inferior races." Yet it was impossible to convince the colonized that Europeans were the supermen they claimed to be, especially in light of the ascendancy of the black fistic hero. These "modern Ethiopian gladiators," we argue, negated the myth of a superior imperialism and shattered the illusion of a white super race.

During this era black champion pugilists were sports icons collectively perceived throughout the black world not only as models of endurance and courage, but also as potent symbols of resistance and sovereignty. Above all, they represented a force over whom in the "democratic arena of ring combat," the white man had failed repeatedly to assert his domination.

What impact did these international black athletes have on urban African popular culture and consciousness; and on the growth of early black nationalism in South Africa? How did the imagistic treatments in the mass media and in films of Jack Arthur Johnson, the first black world heavyweight champion, threaten the British Empire?