President Donald Trump said Saturday he is considering a full pardon for Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight champion boxer who was convicted of a racially biased crime.
Trump tweeted that actor Sylvester Stallone — who played the fictional boxer Rocky — brought the issue to his attention.
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Sylvester Stallone called me with the story of heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson. His trials and tribulations were great, his life complex and controversial. Others have looked at this over the years, most thought it would be done, but yes, I am considering a Full Pardon!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2018
Johnson became the first black heavyweight world champion in 1908, but was better known for defeating Jim Jeffries in 1910. Johnson's victory over Jeffries, a white boxer, led to deadly race riots.
An all-white jury convicted Johnson in 1913 under the Mann Act for taking his white girlfriend across state lines for "immoral" purposes. The supposed intent of the Mann Act was to prevent human trafficking, but the law was disproportionately applied to African American citizens, according to critics.
Johnson said of the jury: "Eleven of those men are for life conviction, and the other is for hanging before hearing the evidence."
The boxer served nearly a year in jail, which destroyed his career. He died in a car crash 1946 at the age of 68.
Campaigns for posthumous pardons have been in motion since the turn of the century, but have not found much success.
In 2016, a group of congressmen — including Sen. John McCain, then-Sen. Harry Reid, and Reps. Peter King and Gregory Meeks — petitioned President Barack Obama for a pardon in honor of the 70th anniversary of Johnson's death. Sen. Cory Booker joined the group in March 2017.
"Despite this resolution passing both chambers of Congress several times in recent years, no pardon has been issued to date," McCain said in a statement at the time. "I hope President Trump will seize the opportunity before him to right this historical wrong and restore a great athlete's legacy."
If pardoned, Johnson would join former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of racially profiling Latinos; Kristian Saucier, a sailor convicted of taking photos in a restricted area of a submarine; and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a Bush aide convicted of leaking the name of a CIA agent, as a recipient of a Trump pardon.