Mr. President, Pardon Jack Johnson

Mr. President, Pardon Jack Johnson Good idea from Ken Burns, the guy who made the famous Civil War and Baseball documentaries and who is now making a movie about Jack Johnson.

In court, the federal prosecutors argued that Jackson committed a "crime against nature" for engaging in sexual intercourse with a white woman. The fact that he married the woman only a few months after he was arrested made no difference. He was convicted and sentenced to a year in prison.

After the verdict, the district attorney said that "it was [Johnson's] misfortune to be the foremost example of the evil in permitting the intermarriage of whites and blacks."