Unforgivable Blackness

Indulge me while I share my thoughts and observations on the Ken Burns film Unforgivable Blackness.

Sometimes it is tough to look back at our history and see how racially ignorant we were as a country. As a former history major - this was nothing new but still striking. The only solace is the fact that as a person who came of age after the Civil Rights movement - the racial beliefs of the 1900's strike me as bizarre and incomprehensible. I'm sure that they look even more bizarre and incomprehensible to my kids. We are moving in the right direction.

Part one of the film aired on Monday night, which I thought had a certain symmetry since it was Muhammad Ali's birthday. Part two aired last night.

Let me ask if I was the only one who watched part one and wondered as Johnson's sexual appetite was chronicled if Johnson and Wilt Chamberlain have gotten together in heaven to compare notes. Just listening to how often Johnson got busy made me tired.

It was very interesting to see the intersections of history in the film. For instance how Johnson's path crossed that of both Judge Kennisaw Mountain Landis and Harry Frazee (the owner of the Boston Red Sox who sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees). It was good to also see Woodrow Wilson depicted as the racist that he was. Wilson may have been the most bigoted man to hold the office of President. I was disappointed that how Wilson was elected wasn't discussed (the Republican Party split between Taft and Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party). I have to wonder if things for Johnson would have been completely different if Roosevelt was elected for a third term (Roosevelt was a big fan of boxing who even boxed on the White house lawn).

As a film, Unforgivable Blackness was very well done. Burns with his A game. Samuel L. Jackson was excellent as the voice of Jack Johnson. You can't have a boxing documentary without Bert Sugar but where was Pete Hammill? Not sure about you but during the film I played "name that voice" and got Samuel L., Alan Rickman, Eli Wallach and Billy Bob Thorton right off. I'll have to watch it a second time to pick out the voices of Adam Arkin, Brian Cox, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan and Studs Terkel.

I remember watching part one thinking that a Ken Burns movie just isn't the same without George Plimpton giving voice to one of the characters. It was later just eerie to see Plimpton at the end of part two speaking of ghosts (eerie because he's one now himself).

If there was one disappointment with the film, it was the lack of even a mention of Major Taylor. At the turn of the century, cycling was a huge sport both in the US and in the world. Major Taylor was perhaps the best cyclist in the world and because he was black he had to face and overcome many of the same prejudices that Johnson had to overcome but he did it first. Unforgivable Blackness is being promoted as being about the forgotten Jack Johnson but the real forgotten sports hero is Major Taylor.