I am a PBSer. I love watching the mini-series they broadcast mostly without commercials. One of the best documentaries I have ever seen was Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Johnson produced by David Schaye, Paul Barnes and Ken Burns. I was so impressed that I bought it.

I bought it because it was the most compelling turn from the 19th century to the 20th century story about race, sports and life in the United States. When I watched Unforgivable Blackness I was trying to imagine what life was like for my great grandfather and his father. Neither men were boxers but they were black men living in the United States at the same time. I guess this story pique my interest because I wanted to imagine what life might have been like for my great grandfather and his father after I found documents about their lives. There aren't or weren't too many stories about black people especially black men outside of W.E.Dubois and Booker T. Washington. There aren't too many narratives  outside what is popularized in and by the American narrative. Jack Johnson is/was a character. His story is unique. He was so interesting that it didn't matter that he was a boxer and I am far from being the biggest fan of boxing. There is one point in the documentary where the narrator reads a few words written by the famous writer Jack London. London's words--if they are his--are shocking to say the least. This story was compelling enough that it shaped and reshaped what I knew, what I thought I knew and what I imagine about the lives of black people during this era in American life.

Jack Johnson's life ended tragically. Sometimes, according to the documentary, it seemed that he was larger than life. He was so large that the Federal government tried to bring him down. Today, legislation is moving forward to give Jack Johnson a posthumous pardon for crimes only in the minds of  those who controlled society.