Jeffries-Johnson World's Championship Boxing Contest (1910)
Filmed footage of the July 4, 1910 heavyweight title bout in Reno, Nevada, in which reigning champion Jack Johnson knocks down the previously undefeated James J. Jeffries twice before Jeffries's corner stops the fight in the fifteenth round.
Jeffries–Johnson World’s Championship Boxing Contest was the most widely seen film in America until The Birth of a Nation five years later, and Johnson’s victory over the so-called “Great White Hope” set off race riots in cities across the country and led Congress to ban interstate distribution of prizefight films, a prohibition that held until 1940.
Background
This film documents the July 4, 1910 heavyweight title bout in Reno, Nevada, in which reigning champion Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight champion, defeated the previously undefeated former champion James J. Jeffries, who had been persuaded out of retirement specifically to try to reclaim the title for a white fighter. Johnson knocked Jeffries down twice before Jeffries’s own corner stopped the fight in the fifteenth round.
What to watch for
Watch for how significant this film’s release was beyond the fight itself: it became, by most accounts, the most widely seen film in America up to that point, surpassed only years later by The Birth of a Nation. Johnson’s decisive victory over the fighter the press had dubbed the “Great White Hope” triggered race riots in cities across the country, and the controversy eventually led Congress to ban the interstate distribution of prizefight films entirely, a prohibition that remained in place until 1940.
