The Pleasure Of Not Being Respectable
Fall, 2019
On the black experience of joy and indulgence and not giving a fuckArthur Johnson—a.k.a. the Galveston Giant, a.k.a. the Big Smoke, a.k.a. Jack—the son of former slaves and first black heavyweight champion of the world, checked into a room at the Seal Rock House in San Francisco. The hotel’s tolerance of a colored man, even a great and laureled one, was not to be presumed in the fall of 1909. The primary concern, however, was not the champion but his female companions: Belle Schreiber and Hattie...
