Newswise — Christopher Rivers, a professor at Mount Holyoke College and an expert on heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, is available to discuss Senator John McCain's efforts to gain a posthumous presidential pardon for the legendary boxer. Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight champion of the world, was a seminal and iconic figure in the history of race in America.
Rivers agrees with McCain that Johnson was wronged by his 1913 conviction of violating the Mann Act, which prohibited his consensual relationship with a white woman. That conviction is widely seen as having been racially motivated.
Rivers gained national attention when he published a book on Johnson's life, "My Life and Battles," in October 2007 (Praeger), his translation of a virtually unknown French-language memoir written by Johnson. The book was originally published in France in 1911 as an autobiography in a series of articles and then in revised form as a book in 1914; it covers Johnson's life and fights, both inside and outside the ring, up until and including his famous defeat of Jim Jeffries in Reno on July 4, 1910, in one of the most significant ring battles of the early 20th century.
Rivers searched for the book several years ago, and learned that there was only one complete library copy in existence at Harvard University's Widener Library. Rivers photographed each page of the book and worked from the photographed pages for his translation.
"My Life and Battles":http://www.mtholyoke.edu/news/story/5468455
More information on Christopher Rivers:http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/misc/profile/crivers.shtml
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