John Siegal
A five-year effort to win a posthumous presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight boxing champion, was left in limbo when George Bush left the presidency without acting on a petition for clemency.
John Siegal, a partner and business litigator in the New York office of Baker Hostetler, filed a petition in 2004 for a presidential pardon of Johnson, who was prosecuted in 1913 for alleged violations of the Mann Act. Both the prosecutor and judge at the time freely admitted the prosecution was racially motivated.
"The principal thrust of our petition was that a race-based prosecution is anathema to the values of the early 21st century," said Siegal. "We had no great expectations President Bush would pardon a prominent black man who flamboyantly exhibited his involvement with white women but we thought the Johnson case was nearly unique. He was singled out because of his race, his prominence and defiance."
Johnson was one of the most famous people in early 20th century America, though he faded into obscurity until his story was retold in the 1970 film "The Great White Hope" starring James Earl Jones. Filmmaker Ken Burns produced a two-part documentary, "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson," and began the movement to win a posthumous pardon.
Johnson, the son of two former slaves, rose to fame when lynching, legally mandated segregation and notions of racial superiority and inferiority defined race relations in America. Johnson won the world heavyweight boxing championship in 1908 and held it until 1915 in a string of victories over white opponents. He defied the racial taboos by marrying three white women.
Johnson fled to France with his wife following his conviction for purportedly "transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes." He returned to the United States in 1920 and served a year in Leavenworth Prison.
Other than a letter in July 2004 acknowledging receipt of the petition for pardon, Siegal has never heard anything from the Department of Justice. A call to the Justice Department on Wednesday was not returned.
"We all understood when we filed the petition that the Department of Justice has long been opposed to posthumous pardons, given the volume of American history that would have to be reopened and reexamined," said Siegal.
In September 2008, Congress passed a resolution, supported by senators Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., John McCain, R-Ariz., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, calling for Johnson's pardon.
Siegal said he needs to determine if the petition for a pardon needs to be resubmitted to be considered by President Barack Obama, the nation's first African-American president and the son of a mixed race couple.
"I have not had an opportunity to confer with the group I represented, but I think the committee will want to pursue this," Siegal said. "The petition effort was conceived as a mechanism for restoring the historical memory of this individual. That remains a worthy goal."
