Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson tells the story of the first African-American boxer to win the most coveted title in all of sports and his struggle, in and out of the ring, to live his life as a free man. The film follows Jack Johnson’s remarkable journey from his humble beginnings in Galveston, Texas, as the son of former slaves, to his entry into the brutal world of professional boxing, where, in turn-of-the-century Jim Crow America, “Heavyweight Champion of the World” was an exclusively “white title.” Despite the odds, Johnson was able to batter his way up through the professional ranks, and in 1908 he became the first African-American to earn the heavyweight championship.

Johnson’s victory set in motion a worldwide search for a Great White Hope to restore the title to the white race. And when no one could be found to beat the champion in the ring, his own government tried to destroy him in the courts, using his relationship with white women as the excuse to prosecute him. Determined to live his life regardless of the confines imposed by his color, Jack Johnson emerges as a central figure in America’s ongoing struggle to deal with the question of race.

“Any serious study of American history inevitably engages the question of race and the monumental hypocrisy born at our founding; the existence of slavery in a country that had just proclaimed to the world that “all men are created equal. . .” In the story of Jack Johnson, these questions come to a profound crux. This is not just a story of supreme athletic achievement, nor even just a story of sex—black and white sex—which got Johnson into so much trouble. It’s not even wholly about race, though Johnson’s “unforgivable blackness” propels this extraordinary story. In the end, this is a story about freedom, and one black man’s insistence that he be able to live a life nothing short of that of a free man.”
                                – Ken Burns

A Film Directed By
KEN BURNS

Written By
GEOFFREY C. WARD

Produced By
DAVID SCHAYE
PAUL BARNES
KEN BURNS

Edited By
PAUL BARNES
ERIK EWERS

Cinematography
BUDDY SQUIRES
STEPHEN McCARTHY

Original Music Composed By
WYNTON MARSALIS

Narrated By
KEITH DAVID

Voice of Jack Johnson
SAMUEL L. JACKSON

Funding Provided By
General Motors Corporation
The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations
Rosalind P. Walter
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Public Broadcasting Service

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Original Broadcast January 2005

Film Honors:
• Emmy Awards, 2005
       Outstanding Nonfiction Special
       Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction
       Outstanding Voice-over Performance, Keith David, Narrator
• Toronto Film Festival, 2004
• New York Film Festival, 2004