About the Author
Cameron Ambroise-Sanscartier is a first-year MA student at the University of Concordia located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His main interests are combat sports such as MMA and boxing as well as cooking and shopping for vintage clothing.
He completed his Undergrad in the Honours program at Concordia University writing mainly about performance history such as circus and boxing.
Document Type
Article
Abstract
The early 20th century saw the meteoric rise of boxing as a lucrative business opportunity for both promoters and fighters alike and acted as one of the few business ventures that was accessible for both White and Black Americans. In the Reconstruction period, many former slaves or children of slaves found themselves stuck in a perpetual cycle of poverty performing menial labour not far removed from their previous lives as slaves; boxing provided a rare alternative for these men. Often dubbed “meal ticket fighters” some men fought merely to survive while others stood out as exceptions within this violent and often unforgiving sport. The career of Peter Jackson in the 1890s displayed both the potential for success within this sport but also how social barriers stemming from race relations in the United States were almost unavoidable. The colour line in boxing existed as an unwritten rule that allowed White fighters to pick and choose who they fought, often denying Black contenders fights if they believed the bout to be too risky. The colour line served as a perpetual barrier to prevent Black contenders from fighting for any sanctioned championship belts which monopolized the status of champion for White boxers. This barrier not only served to maintain the delicate status of champion for White fighters by removing potential challengers from title talks but also worked to maintain White authority and masculine representation on a world stage. Stemming from the physical culture movement, and largely inspired by ideas of racialized masculinity perpetuated by social commentator Bernar Macfadden in his work Physical Culture Magazine, American men, and by extension sporting audiences more broadly, believed that one's muscular achievement and ability to fight were directly linked to one's social status. Boxing in this way served as a tool for negotiating or maintaining one's social status within a global hierarchy of race relations, one that White Americans wanted to maintain. Despite its origins in working-class circles, the pinnacle of boxing was reserved for those who fell in line with the status quo; those who were physically fit, White and gentlemanly were considered optimal masculine subjects to represent and maintain White authority. Despite the constant policing of the sport through the colour line, Black American heavyweight Jack Johnson would leverage himself into a bout against newly crowned champion Tommy Burns in 1908 and become the first Black heavyweight champion. Johnson’s title victory and his subsequent “Fight of the Century” with retired champion Jim Jeffries would shake the core of the American physical culture movement and challenge white supremacist attitudes during the Jim Crow Era. Johnson’s career and the global perceptions of it through various Black and White newspaper publications shed light on how sporting events can act as performative representations of broader social relations while subverting and challenging them on a world stage.
Recommended Citation
Ambroise-Sanscartier, Cameron Reid
(2025)
"Fighting on the American Color Line: How Black Masculinity and Identity Was Negotiated Through Boxing in the Jim Crow Era,"
Madison Historical Review: Vol. 22, Article 2.
Available at:
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/mhr/vol22/iss1/2
