Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson
 

http://www.pbs.org/unforgivableblackness/

Anyone else watch this? It is GREAT!

What did you think?

-Rudey

I watched this and....

I know this is heresy but...

I wish it would have been a regular American Experience show. Ken Burns has a way of pacing stuff that bores me (and I am a history supergeek). I'll probably watch part II tonight though.

And if you haven't seen The Great White Hope (the movie bio of Jack Johnson, starring a very young and very fine James Earl Jones) do so immediately.

I watched it and thought it was really interesting. I was familiar with Jack Johnson but it was good to learn more about him. :D PBS does great documentaries.

It was excellent; a story that surprisingly few people know about, and I thought Burns put it together extremely well.

I knew a little but not that much. I'm still impressed with certain things.

1) That there were 2 men to ever set off racial riots across America on such a large scale: Johnson and MLK.

2) That he was considered one of 3 leaders at the time with Dubois and Booker Washington.

I thought Burns really broke the documentary out well between the 2 segments (rise and fall).

-Rudey

Didn't see it, but my mom was raving about it today.

Yeah! I had never heard of that until this documentary. Interesting indeed.

I missed it, but I taped it for someone else. Maybe I'll check it out.

I saw some of it. It was good.


What was the deal with Johnson marrying hookers? Hookers are nasty. Didn't they have strippers or silent movie porn stars back in the day?

You know what? I didn't get that either. This dude is basically the baddest mofo out there and he's bagging hookers. Whatever...maybe they were great in bed or something.

But why the heck would you MARRY the hookers?? Used up girls in our time have enough trouble finding a dude that would marry them, but these hookers got the heavyweight champ to propose.

-Rudey

i liked the side stories.

like Harry Frazee (who went on to sell the Babe to the Yankees) was one of the fight promoters for Jack Johnson's heavyweight title match(1914.)

and his run-in with Judge Keneshaw Mountain Landis (who later became baseball's first commissioner, keeping the game segregated.)

Greetings, What would an example be of a "regular American Experience show?" Unfortunately for most, this is the norm. The Great White Hope is pretty good, but nothing is better that an actual documentary.