News

No pardoN for Jack JohNsoN

President Obama left office without taking action on at least one pardon application—a request that boxer Jack Johnson be pardoned for a Mann Act conviction in 1912.

Johnson fought and defeated the “great white hope,” Jim Jeffries in Reno on July 4, 1910. Jeffries, a former champ, had been hauled out of retirement by white racists when Johnson became the first African American to take the heavyweight title. Jack London wrote, “Jim Jeffries must now emerge from his alfalfa farm and remove that golden smile from Jack Johnson’s face. ... The White Man must be rescued.”

At an arena between Sparks and Reno, Johnson humiliated Jeffries until the white hope’s managers stopped the fight to avoid a knockout. That night, white rioting erupted around the United States as blacks were brutalized and killed (“The great black hope,” RN&R, July 1, 2010).

Johnson was not a retiring type. His lifestyle included fast cars and white women by his side. The Mann Act, enacted to prosecute transport of women across state lines for immoral purposes like prostitution, was stretched to cover Johnson’s consensual relationships, and he was prosecuted and convicted. He went into exile but eventually returned to the U.S. and spent a year in prison.

People have agitated for years for a posthumous pardon for Johnson, who died in 1946. They have recently been joined by lawmakers such as Harry Reid and John McCain. The notion of a black president pardoning Johnson was irresistible, and all during the Obama presidency the issue stayed alive. As President Obama’s days in office dwindled down, the issue kept getting attention.

“‘White Slavery’ Pardon for Chicago Boxer Awaits Obama OK,” read one headline. Harvard Law School professor Ronald Sullivan submitted a pardon application.

The Nation magazine argued Johnson’s family should refuse the pardon: “Jack Johnson’s open mockery of the ceremonies of white supremacy made him more than a boxer. It made him the lightning rod of white rage and exemplar of Black Pride. ... We are a country that just used the political tool of 18th and 19th century slaveholders—the Electoral College—to elect a white-supremacy sympathizer even though he received 3 million fewer votes than his opponent. This is a sick system, and it lacks the moral authority to pardon Jack Johnson for any reason other than its own public relations. It’s not for us to forgive Jack Johnson.”

The debate served little purpose. Obama left office without acting on the case.

reid hoNored

Former U.S. senator Harry Reid of Nevada last week received an award from the J. Reuben Clark Society, a group of Mormon lawyers with more than 250 chapters around the world. Elder Lance B. Wickman, general counsel for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, presented the award. “Throughout all his years at the pinnacle of government, he has been a loyal, constant source of wisdom and timely assistance on many matters of vital interest to the church,” Wickman said, calling Reid “brother” throughout the ceremony in Salt Lake City. Reid became a member of the church while a college student in Utah. Until this month, Reid was the highest ranking LDS member in U.S. history.

During his trip, Reid also gave an unusually candid interview to the Salt Lake Tribune, which can be read at http:// tinyurl.com/gnqvl6s.

—Dennis Myers

Women, men and children attended the Jan. 21 women’s march in Reno.

PHOTOs/DENNIs MYERs

Thousands march

Now what?

Wearing a denver Broncos sweatshirt, Teresa Long marched last weekend with Denise, her spouse of 17 years.

“I feel like our country’s become a place where women and people of all colors and cultures need to come together and stand up for what’s right,” she said.

She was one of a city-estimated 10,000 people who attended the Reno women’s march. If that figure is correct, it was likely the largest demonstration in the area’s history. People we contacted who participated in protests back to Vietnam said 3,000 was about the largest previous political crowd they could recall.

“Assuming the 10k estimate and the combined population of Washoe and Storey counties being 420k (2013), that means over 2 percent of the region attended this event,” one reader wrote on the website of the Reno Gazette-Journal, which ran its report on the march inside.

However, the march brought people from more than Washoe and Storey. Liz Strekel traveled up from Carson City.

“I feel very passionately about the issues,” she said. “I have a great fear for the potential of what could happen with the new president and the new cabinet.”

She said she doesn’t bring the same negative feelings to her activism that some people do, but that she worries about the competence of the Trump cabinet. She’s new to protests, and she’s not certain what form, if any, her activism will take. There is an upcoming mixer to put the marchers together with organizations that need volunteers, and she may attend that.

“I’m taking a kind of wait-and-see attitude,” she said. “I’ve never been a very political person. It’s never been on my radar.”

Because she lives in the capital, she has given some thought to monitoring things in the legislature this year for some group.

She is far from the only person who is uncertain about what’s next. One of the reasons the march was so large is likely that it pulled people who have not previously been involved in activism. This was not an event of the usual suspects.

What began as a plan for one big march in the District of Columbia became hundreds of marches. The local marches grew past anyone’s ability to keep track of their number. There were in excess of 600, including marches in Reno and Las Vegas. In addition, an event at King’s Beach pulled people from various Sierra communities like Truckee. There was also a march at Stateline that began in Nevada and ended in California.

But concern about the new president did not stop at the water’s edge. From Trafalgar Square in London to

TERESA LONG

the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, from New South Wales to Barcelona—all in countries that are U.S. allies—marches attracted huge crowds.

While they were women’s marches, they were laced with men. One man in Reno carried a sign reading “I’M WITH HER” surrounded by arrows pointing in all directions around him. The same placard was also seen in a march in Bordeaux in southwest France.

Other signs read, “REBELLIONS ARE BUILT ON HOPE.” “STAY NASTY.” “FIGHT LIKE A GIRL” (that one surrounded by images of Princess Leia in combat gear). “NOPE.” “HE’S NOT MY PRESIDENT.” “TYRANTS ALWAYS FALL.” “SILENCE IS COMPLICITY.”

There was a certain amount of strong language: “NOT THIS PUSSY.” “IF ABORTION IS MURDER A BLOWJOB IS CANNABLISM.” “THOSE OF US WITH OVARIES NEED A PRESS WITH BALLS.” One popular chant was “Love, not hate, makes Around the area America great.” The route of the and around march ran only a few blocks, from Liberty the world Street to the former Mapes Hotel site. At one point, the route itself was wall to wall people from one end to the other. Ω For more on post-march plans, see 15 Minutes on Page 31. Commentaries on the marches can be found on Pages 3, 5, 6 and 31.

LIZ STREKEL