The First Black Boxing Champions: Essays on Fighters of the 1800s to the 1920s - Paperback

by Colleen Aycock (Editor), Mark Scott (Editor)

This volume presents fifteen chapters of biography of African American and black champions and challengers of the early prize ring. They range from Tom Molineaux, a slave who won freedom and fame in the ring in the early 1800s; to Joe Gans, the first African American world champion; to the flamboyant Jack Johnson, deemed such a threat to white society that film of his defeat of former champion and "Great White Hope" Jim Jeffries was banned across much of the country. Photographs, period drawings, cartoons, and fight posters enhance the biographies. Round-by-round coverage of select historic fights is included, as is a foreword by Hall-of-Fame boxing announcer Al Bernstein.

Author Biography

Colleen Aycock, co-editor for the International Boxing Research Organization, was named to the New Mexico Boxing Hall of Fame and is the author, co-author or co-editor of five books on boxing. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Mark Scott, a novelist and former Golden Gloves boxer, lives in Austin, Texas. He is a contributor to other publications on the history of boxing.