...Johnson was born too Henry and Tiny Johnson who were both former slaves. Both of Jack Johnson’s parents had blue collar jobs to make ends meet and to raise 5 other children along with Jack. They also tried to teach all 6 kids to read and write and try to teach them right from wrong. That was not always the easiest thing to do back then. But Henry and Tiny Johnson did their best with what they had and with what they were given. Jack Johnson did not attend school very much in his younger years. In total he only had about 5 years of formal schooling before he went into boxing. Jack Johnson was a very quite boy while in school although he was very restless and had a hard time sitting still while in class. As a young kid he worked on several fishing boats down in Florida and also did some work up in Boston on several different Boston racetracks. He did all this to earn extra money while growing up as a kid. It was very tough growing up as a kid in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. And being an African American kid made it that much tougher for Jack Johnson. Even as a youngster Jack Johnson was still ridiculed and teased and made fun of for the color of his skin. He was often entered in what was called a “Battle Royale”. The “Battle Royal” consisted of young black youths who were sometimes rounded up by white adults and forced to box each other with a blindfold on and bare knuckled. This kind of nonsense and abuse would go on until there was only one young African American youth left standing. Then to make matters worse the white spectators would throw whatever coins they had in their pockets into the ring as a reward for the winner. Jack Johnson fought in several of these “Battle Royale’s” growing up. Thus some of his first boxing matches were fought as a young teenager. As a young teenager Jack Johnson was given the nickname “Lil Arthur” by some...
