Film Spurs Movement To Pardon Jack Johnson

The latest effort of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson" will premiere Jan. 17 and 18 on PBS. The goal of the movement that the making of the film inspired -- attempting to secure a posthumous presidential pardon for Johnson, the first black U.S. heavyweight champion of the world -- may not be far behind.

In July, a committee that included Burns, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), filed a petition with the Department of Justice seeking the pardon for Johnson, who was convicted in 1913 of violating the Mann Act, a vice law Burns's committee believes was manipulated because of racially motivated hatred of Johnson.

In October, the Senate unanimously approved a non-binding measure that urged the president to pardon Johnson.

Burns, who was in Washington yesterday, said he had not heard anything about the status of his petition until Monday, when he was contacted by a deputy counsel at the White House. The counsel said the White House had received the petition and was reviewing the material submitted to the Department of Justice. Burns said he was "delighted" by the news, especially because he learned recently that when President Bush was the governor of Texas, he proclaimed March 31, Johnson's birthday, to be Jack Johnson Day throughout Texas for five consecutive years (1996-2000).

-- Jake Schaller