Welcome to Truth Time with doctor Cornell West and Nina Turner. Per usual, we kind of all joy and I mean all joy, and you are here with us on this a day. Today is our teaching, the birthday day where we go deep about events or personalities that have shaped, impacted, shook up our world. And today we're talking about none other than A Jack A. Johnson now john author. Johnson was born on March thirty first, eighteen seventy eight, and he passed away on June tenth, nineteen forty six. He
was nicknamed the Galveston Giant. He was an American boxer and African American boxer to be specific, who was fighting at the height of Jim Crow.
Who doc he really?
I mean, he messed up the minds of a whole bunch of white folks during that Jim Crow era and even beyond. I think even today he would be among some of the great twentieth and twenty first century of boxers. If he were alive today, he would have given many of them a run for his a run for their money.
So he really became known as the first black man to be a heavyweight champion, to really capture the imagination more importantly of black people who really saw the battles that he was fighting and the matches that he won as really the black community overall, winning winning against Jim Crow, winning against hatred, winning against bigotry, and to be honestly, you know, just winning against white supremacy. So black people really internalized Jack Johnson in a way that I don't
think many understand. He was not just a boxer in a ring. He was boxing for the heart, to soul, the respect, you know, giving black people something to really be proud of in a way to say, we're sticking it to the man.
Quite honestly, no, that's very, very real that.
Jack Johnson was one of the freest black men in the shit of the country. And that freedom when hand in hand with a dignity and respect that he was fighting for not just on behalf of himself, but on behalf of a black folk who terrorized and traumatized. And so when he was knocking white brothers out, that was a triumph of black dignity and black respect in a context because you think of Jim Crow America. The only space in America where black people were treated fairly, it was the boxing ring.
But you got one set of rules, you got one referee.
Everybody can see it because it is a national and internet national spectacle. So we finally have an opportunity for what tavers of fundamental fairness. And let's see who wins. And he knocks out the first Jeffries, then he knocks out his brother, Jefferes, and when he knocks out the old man Jefferies. In July fourth, nineteen ten, as you know,
ten black people were killed that night. They were riots of the country of white folk just attacking black folk because they could take the fact that a black man had eaten a white man.
That's how deep and.
Sick the white supremacy was then and continues to be in various ways. Now, Jack Johnson becomes symbol as well as literal figure of dignity, respect and freedom and triumph for black folk. And just like then and now, black foolk hungry for dignity, hungry for respect, hungry for freedom.
Yeah, that'sdeed got the hungry for respect, hungry for dignity, and hungry for freedom. So let us I want to rest a little bit on the race riots. We know that the bloody or the red summer, red summer of nineteen nineteen or race riots broke out all over the country at the hands of white people just randomly attacking black people.
I mean, it was like a disease. It was almost like the spreading of the flu or covid or something like.
It was a plague.
You know that that and.
This country does not reckon We have enough that that is. That's domestic terrorism for you. I mean that that stuff is real. We don't even have to go We should always reference child of Slavery always. I really personally don't care what anybody has to say it about it. You know, I agree with the fact that you know, James Baldwin once said, know from whence you came? If you know from whence you can it's virtually nowhere that you cannot go. And you can't say you love the tree if you
hate the root. That is our reference point. It's not the only reference point in the great magnificence of black people, but it is the seminal reference point in terms of our souljourn in the United States of America. Now we want to go back to the continent, the motherland where our ancestors hail from. That's a whole nother glorious story which I believe allowed us to bear the burden and the beauty of being black, because it is both of
those things. But make no mistake, white supremacy and just the literal deep seated hatred for us generally speaking, is attached to that white supremacy and just hatred for no reason.
So the race riot. So I bring up bread.
Summer in nineteen nineteen just to remind you people of that, and then let's talk about this race riot, the Johnson Jefferson Jeffries riot, which I'm sure a lot of people don't know about, probably have never heard of. But as you laid out, doctor, series of race riots that occurred throughout the United States. The African American boxer, the Galveston Giant knocked out, defeated James J. Jeffries and a boxing match termed the fight of the century. They actually called
that fight the fight of the century. Wow, that's heavy to put all that on one black man.
When we come forward, we will continue our teach in that Thursday.
Today, doctor West and I are talking about the one and only Jack Johnson, the first African American evyweight champion of the world, who did his thing at the time where wow, it was even more dangerous to do there to do something that he did it. Oh when we continue here with us today on this teaching Thursday, we all know that on Thursdays, doctors and myself we go really deep talking about a luminary of people who did
not liking themselves to be luminaries. Man, they ain't set out to be luminaries, but baby, did they shake in shape of the world. Or we talk about events, and this gives us the opportunity.
With you to go a little deeper.
Today we are talking about the heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, who fought back boxing matches during the height of Jim Krow.
He really set this country on fire. And so doctors, we as we were now that we've come forward, we were talking about those Johnson Jeffreys race riots and the fact that this that riot, you know, it was set off only because Johnson beat a white man fair and square in a boxing match that had rules set up and he beat him fair and square and the white psyche could not take it.
And I'm just we wrestled with a lot on this show.
I'm wrestling with the fact that they got so upset that they started rioting by being white people against black people, because this black man fair and square. This wasn't no street brawl, this was in a boxing ring and he beat Jeffrey's fair and square, and that set white people off.
And not only did it set them off, they felt as though, and they acted in this way, that they had car Blanche to just randomly start just beating up black people so that they felt a sense of entitlement, right, that they're always supposed to be on top, that they're always supposed to win, so much so that they go out and stoke violence against black people.
That's exactly ray, that's exactly right. I mean the.
Depth of the hatred rooted in a depth of insecurity. I mean there's a story right here in New York, right after the white right after the fight, where people were looking at black folks, thinking, our hustle, you think you're gonna be out.
Beyond your position?
Now now that black doubt.
Old brother Jeffreys.
And in a way I wouldn't even call it riot. It was a massacre of black.
People, Yeah, be right down, that's really was.
And it was a massive one, and I mean fascinating to me.
You know, I'm gonna r Lee of course, always viewed himself as an extension of Jackson, and so did so did Miles Davis.
You know my great album nineteen seventy one on Jack Johnson. He said it's one of his greatest albums.
That he was a boxer too, but he always felt so close to Jack Johnson. When I asked Prince who his grand American hero was, he said Jack Johnson. No, well, yeah, he said Jack Johnson. This brother's in the most hate the history of the country, and he's a free man. He does what he wants to do. Of course, he got in out of trouble in his personal life, you know, messing with the white sisters.
And of course what did they do.
They criminalized him, to incarcerated him, to Levin, spent time in Leavenworth for doing what well, for being a free man.
It was like it was unbelievable.
That level self confidence, that level of willingness to do what one wants to do in light of one's conception of oneself is something always had a deep appeal to the Muhammad Ali's and princes and uh uh uh uh and and and and other black men.
In fact, also Ralph Ellison, Ralph Ellison his hero.
Oh yeah, and his and his letters with with the with the great u uh uh. What's the brother's name, the American I can't even remember his name right now. But but in their letters they talk about how Jack Johnson was their hero.
Definitely, that's amazing. That yeah, that is something.
And to hear that Prince, I mean Prince and Jack Johnson spoken of in the same voice that or breath, Wow, that is amade. I don't know that little muggy is gonna have everybody like saying.
What I'll be murray if anybody murray Ralph Ellison, that Jack Johnson is one of the heroes in that in the letters and.
Their letters and did you you know in your conversation with the Purple One, did he did.
He go deeper about it or just kind of put it out there?
Oh?
No, Shoot, he talked about the books that he read. He talked about the inspiration he felt. Anytime he was down and out and felt as if he there was no way that he could make it, he would go back and read about Jack Dohnson and how it was that his brother could sustain his sense of self in the face of unbelievable attack and assault.
It's the freedom. And of course in some way, you know, the black folk too were very hard on Jack Johnson once.
Yeah, then Booker T. Washington was one of his biggest critics, most well known critics.
I believe.
I could.
I could imagine he looked much too much for Booker T. More respectability. You know, I'm not gonna be spending time out the club with all this swagger. And of course he got his cigar and he got his his new car every two weeks. And man, the sad thing is, you know, even when he did get married to the white sister, she committed suicide because it was too much pressure.
Her family turned, yeah, turned the owner. And he wasn't acting right all the time either, but it was he really had a heavy, heavy, heavy birden even though he was making a lot, making the whole.
Yeah, I'm still to endure.
In the white box.
When he was down in Australia and beat Tommy Burns the first time he became champion. Tommy Burns got thirty thousand, he got five thousand. He's still making less money, but it was making a lot of money for that average person was making about eight hundred dollars a year. But still he get five thousand, and the white cat ten thirty thousand, and he's supposed to be satisfied and have with his position, and he's.
The champ, right, So they paid Jack Johnson the champ, the heavyweight champion of the world, of the United States, of the world and the world. And he gets five thousand, and then his white probalyague term loosely received thirty thousand. I mean, doct that is a micro column of how black people are treated in this society, continue to get less compared to their white counterparts. That is happening today in the twenty first century. Quite telling the pattern of
white supremacy. We can predict the pattern. It's the same pattern decade after decade, century after century, year after year. Is the same pattern. So Jack Johnson, so the white community of that time. So he won the championship in nineteen oh nine, I believe, I think I'm right about that. But the early nineteen hundreds he wins his champion was it was nineteen oh eight, was it nineteen oh eight? Nineteen oh eight, he wins the championship, right.
I thought, okay, six nineteen oh eight, nineteen oh eight.
White people lose their mind, even though he's in the boxing ring, fighting fair and square.
They lost their mind. So massacre and all that kind of stuff.
Because Jeffries was considered what the Great White Hope or something like that.
That's eight.
They convinced Jefferies to come out of retirement and not yet Negro, to reaffirm their sense of white supremacy. He goes back into training, gets into the ring July fourth, nineteen ten, and this Great White Hope. And remember remember the play, and I think they made a movie out of it too.
They did. I thought it was called Yeah, Yes, was Samuel Ellen that doc. I don't know why I see Samuel Ol in my mind for that movie.
Don't remember. That's a good question. Jones was the main character, well he played okay Johnson.
Okay, yeah, maybe I'm mixing up movies on that one. But yeah, So the white society goes crazy and they want to punish random black people and rain or terror as you said. So Jack Johnson, being the free black man that he was, decided that you know, hey, any woman from any background.
That's true, that's true.
Willing and Abel, you know, I might rock that way.
And he didn't rock that way, committing the ultimate and I mean the ultimate transgression against white men.
This is exactly.
That is still true today.
I want to recommend our audience reads a doctor Francis Crest. Uh. Oh my god, welles and yes, thank you, DoD, Oh my god.
The book the book.
Uh, I have lost the book, doc, but she wrote a magnificent book and I'm gonna look it up about the white psychology and uh and and and and and and black maleness and how in the white man's psyche he can never ever get over the attributes of black men. And the audience know who I'm going for. So it's always that fight. That is why when black men were lynched by and large, they were castrated at the same time.
That is, and Francis quest well, then she welles ling, she goes deep into the psychology of that that is still very much in the white psyche to this very day. So they go after Jack Johnson because he created the ultimate sin was to be in relationship with a white woman. Notwithstanding they can rape black women at will, they did rape a black woman, particularly during enslavement. Black women were always vulnerable, their daughters, their granddaughters, their nieces, always vulnerable.
We don't talk a lot.
About the sexual exploitation of black men. Black men were sexually exploited too, because they had absolutely.
No control male or female or person.
Black persons had no control over their bodies whatsoever. So you got the physical abuse, the raw physical abuse in that you're working them hard and killing them off, working them hard, killing them off, working them or killing them off. So you got that kind of physical you got that physical you got the psychological abuse, and then you got the sexual abuse black men and black women. And because of the kind of male psyche of.
Not really talking about it in this country, we don't.
Talk about that a lot about how black men are violated. They have been violated, they continue to be violated. They were really violated during that time, black women especially, so so I'm thinking, Doc, you know, is it that guilt
that drives them crazy. I mean, they put they put white women on a pedestal, and they a lot of the lynchings, A lot of excuses for the lynchions was they made black men to be out to be stark, raving, that sexual beast and I'm using exact words, and so they violated the precious.
Womanhood of white women. Meanwhile, it is white men.
Who were doing what they claimed that black men were doing, the wonderful, truly magnificent. I'd have be well. Did all our research on this, and most of the time it had nothing to do with black men raping white women and had everything to do with black men and black people being successful and uppity and getting out of their station.
As to why they would lynched them. But they lynched and castrated them.
Don oh, lord lord.
Almost every time they sold.
Their parts, they sold their parts, and the private parts were the parts that they gained most money.
They profited most from that.
One the boys about Sam Holes when he's walking down the street and they see Sam Holes's knuckles are being told and does his research and he sees, of course that the private parts are the parts that made the most money of And it was a public spectacle. Over fifteen thousand and sick folks were out there to watch the lynching as they then cut up his body and sold various parts of his body. And that kind of
thing was not abnormal. See we're talking about levels of sickness here and levels of pathology.
The great E.
Franklin Fraser wrote an essay called white supremacy as Social Pathology came out in nineteen twenty seven. They ran him out of town. It was in Atlanta, Atlanta University. Came out and they ran him out of town. This is in an academic journal, and they lynching folk. And he just calls it pathology and can tell the truth that he's the one to get run.
Out of town. See, this is.
Part of the scope and breadth of the sickness and pathology. And somebody got to tell about it. Somebody got to be candid about it. Somebody got to be courageous enough to say, this is beyond sickness, y'all.
And and this is probably some of the reasons.
I mean, we could fast forward to today, the twenty first century real quick, because we go in and out of history because we want people to understand the relevance. If you want to understand why the criminal, the legal system treats black people differently, all we got to do is go back to the root. You know, all of these things are not happening in isolation. And that's what we need people to know. Is connected, all intricately connected, unfortunately,
So it is a pathology. It is a sickness. You know, even when black people were being lynched I mean they would bring out the whole community then and take pictures and take the photograph.
They were posed with the bodies. They would even have their babies out there, Doc, they have their little kids out there. Oh pose. It was like a community gathering.
Oh yeah, the picture.
That's just you know, when we come forward.
When we come forward, we will continue this conversation. This discussion is teaching really about the great the first black heavyweight champion of the world, the one and only Jack Johnson. He was heavyweight champion from nineteen oh eight to nineteen fifteen. He gave black people so much pride, and he shook the world.
Yes he did. When we continue, we are so.
Happy that you've come forward with us on this teach Thursday.
Doc, and I got a lot of stuff going on.
But the most important thing is we are here to lift up the life, the legacy, the incredible sacrifice in the personage of the one and only Nina some moan. She really was all of.
That, you know, Doc.
For a brief time, she started teaching music to survive, you know, to make money before you know, I don't know if it quite was it before she started doing the club work, but she taught for a while, she gave lessons to people.
Oh okay, yeah, yeah, yoh no, yeah, I'm not either.
I mean just anybody that actually got trained by Nina Simone. God, God, bless you so much talking about her. She was born in North Carolina on February twenty first, nineteen thirty three. Nina Simone passed away in two thousand and three. But that dash, that dash made all the difference. So yeah, according to the Sight, again please encouraging you to go to Nina Simone dot com. They've done a wonderful job in trying to capture her life. One of the quotes,
this is the world you have made for yourself. Now you have to live in it. She was just unapologetically her doc and I love that about her.
She was a I'm an introvert.
She was the opposite of me, and so I take great pride in looking at her and listening to her and her boldness. And in some ways, you know, when I'm on my assignment in terms of fighting for people, I think my boldness comes out in that way.
But I'm really an introvert.
But I think you all are very very mild because I think so, yes, very much so, because when I was walking with her, you could tell that she was very introverted. She was inside of her world, and she was really in many ways at ease by being in her world. But when I'm alone, and of course they recognized she was very extroverted, so she was able to shift smoothly from intro extrovertin.
Yeah, I guess I shift too, absolutely.
Yeah, so going back, so they said. To survive, she began teaching music to local students. One faithful day in nineteen fifty four, looking to supplement her income, Unice Aka needed some own audition to play piano at the Midtown Bar and Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The owner informed her that not only would she be hired to play, but she was also required to sing.
Despite her dreams and plans to become the first black female classical pianist, Unie Aka Needa Small needed the income and accepted the job. Doc the universe has a way of making a way for you that you did not see.
Is it that something?
Because she specialized in bach as a class, Yes it was. She was a major and grand player of box music. And she shifts right there in Atlantic City and starts playing jazz and blues, and then she thought she was just gonna play. They said, no, you got to sing. Well, let's get in a compliment. Now you got to company your sin and she starts singing to her own music. Next thing, you know, I love.
You Porkyo, yeah.
Budge Gershwin classic, that thing hit and it's at the top of the list, and everybody thinking, like dang.
Who is his sister?
Sure Gershwin like this, Well, she's classically trained but playing on the.
Strip in the casino, the casino bar in atlet.
And I mean again, her gifts made room for her, so it spread. The words spread about this new pianist, this new and unique style who was dripping through the song books of Gershwin as you named out.
So they land it all out doctors.
As you are, and her gifts made room for her. At the age of twenty four, Nina came to the attention of the record industry after submitting a demo of songs she had recorded doing a performance in New.
Hope, Sabinia.
She was signed by Sid Nathan, owner of the Ohio based King Records, home to James Brown, God doc take it from There, Take it from there.
Oh no, well that's what Bootsie the great Bouchie College, another giant and genius and his brother catch that's what they They met James Brown there at King's Studio.
Absolutely yeah, that part right there and then and so I take a pride that Ohio has some had dipped into this as well.
And then they go on.
One of Nina's stated musical influences was, and this probably will not surprise our audience much Billy Holiday.
Yes, yes, yes, m one listening to another. One giant listening to another.
Come on, come on with it, Come on with it.
One of nina stated musical influences, Billy Holliday and her inspired reading of Porky from Porky and Bess heralded the arrival of a new talent on the national scene. At the same time mamm at thirteen Hour Session in nineteen fifty seven, recorded in New York City, Nina also cut My Baby Just Cares for Me, previously recorded by that great great soloist.
Nat King, Cole.
Whooa, Count Basie, and Woody Herman.
The song was used by Channel in a perf or Excuse Me by Chanell in a perfume commercial in Europe in the nineteen eighties and it became a massive hit for Nina, a British chart topper at number five and thus a staple.
Of her repertoire for the rest of her career.
Doc you talking about being able to morph and move them gifts anywhere that they were needed.
That's Nina Simon, That's Nina Simon, I'm telling you. But her genius had a versatility. Yeah, she could move, she could improvise, take it to the highest level, shift when she wanted to. But the bob always was she was always ever herself.
And that's really what I admire the most about her. I mean, you and I have definitely talked about colorism from time to time and we will continue to talk about it. It is part of anti blackness. And to see this chocolate beauty.
Oh, in all of her glory.
And people would just look upon that beauty of hers. But for her to own her beauty knowing that she was impacted by colorism as well. But she just had a boldness and a confidence about her that I'm act I really do.
Oh, But she she had that confidence, she had a determination, she had a genius, she had a beauty, she had a beauty outside external term in terms, she handled herself and she's on the inside. All you had to do was just talk to her, and you knew you was talking to somebody who has spirit and a special annoying man.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, I mean she moves like liquid to me.
I don't know, that's just coming to mind. I mean she was ooh, we she was very necessary, like water is necessary. We can't live like with our water, air and food. Oh my Nina, so my home was necessary to come into this world.
And do all that she has done.
And we're still talking about her to this day, and we will be talking about her for many generations to come. You're listening to Truth Time with doctor Cornell West and Nina Turner on our fantastic, if I must say so myself teaching Thursday, lifting up the life, the incredible life of Nina Samon.
When we come forward, we will continue this conversation.
Well, thank you all so much for joining us today on our teaching Thursday with doctor West and myself, we go deep with either issues or personalities. Today we're talking about Nina Samon, the great classical pianists, the singer, the civil rights activists, just pure liquid cool.
That was Nina Samon.
Her very existence made a statement, a statement of liberation, a statement of power. And she is one of those very rare celebrities that was unafraid to use her celebrity to use her power to indict this nation and also to lift up the black community in particular.
People loved her all over the world.
Because she's the one and only Nina Some Mom, Doc, What do you what are some of your thoughts about what she was willing to sacrifice and what that means for each and every one of us today. I mean, you don't have to have a fancy title to be able to make sacrifices.
Everyday.
People make sacrifices for justice all the time. But when you do have the extraordinary gift the international renowned it's a Nina some Mom. But yet it was all in her and through her to stand up, through her songs, through the words that she would say for her people. That's that's incredible. It was incredible then, it's incredible today. But what do you think that her what is hurt the message of her life to the rest of us.
I think it is is that when you are a genuine truth seeker and truth teller and justice motor that you will bad tremendous burdens and have to pay major costs. And in her life, her personal life, her political life, her social life, in many ways.
You know, she was.
Chased out of the United States and ended up spending many many years in Africa, many years Europe, and she persisted.
Now, it was tough.
It was up and down, and of course you know the troubles and challenges she had with her precious daughter, who was the god it was Lorraine Hansbury. It was a very very difficult one and it was hard to get the kind of companion that she really deserved. That was a whole another thing. That's another major cost. That it was true to herself. She was true to her music. And I'm just trying to think of somebody today who was part of her legacy in an exemplary manner.
Uh I tell.
You Eric about it. It was the only one that comes to mind. And she in her own distinctively Dallas, Texas way.
Yeah, genius.
Now you notice that when Beyonce made her documentary, she made that big tribute to Nina Simone. Yeah, beautiful.
I'm so glad she did.
But being on to first one to say, even giving her genius and being a giant, that Nina is in a whole different league when it comes to.
A sacrifice.
Yeah, and she always I mean she always will be. But she left tremendous footprints for people to be able to trace. Rule Truth Time Teaching Thursday with doctor Cornell Weston Nina Turner just amazing, lifting up the life and the legacy and telling stories that you can only hear here here on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty.
Doctor west fhaired his airport story.
If you missed it, baby, you want to go back and check that out, make sure you download the app.
This is truth Time when we come.
Forward our remaining four minutes lifting up Nina Simon. Thank you so much for coming forward with us on this teaching in Thursday. We're talking about Nina Simons.
She was gifted.
There was nobody like her, and she had no problem with telling the truth, telling it like as my grandmother would say, like it is, you know, Doc, Nina Simone came into contact with really other great people in their own right that were.
Outside the music industry.
I remember seeing a picture of her and James Baldwin, one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century, one of my favorite novelists. I'm sure that had to be surreal.
Oh that's the truth.
I think Balwin was the one who was getting down on his knee because certainly the great greatest writer, especially of essays, but the novels are powerful too. But he modeled himself on the Bessie Smiths and the Wreatha Franklin's and Nina Simone. So music was always the standard his his history, right to the condition of music. So when he met at Nina Simone, o, Lord have mercy.
Yeah, he had to.
He had to get down on his knees and rightly so. But she was down on her knees too because she knew his genius was something that was that was beyond description.
Come on, game, recognize game, doc I'm gonna go back to Nina's ninasimon dot com, which I encourage people. So she had those two marriages, as doculaid out, she passed away.
In France, you know.
In her autobiography, Nina Simone writes that her function as an artist is quote to make people feel on a deep level. It's difficult to describe because it's not something you can add lives to get near what it's about you to play, you have to play it. When it's about you, you have to play it. And when you've caught it, when you've got the audience hook, you always know. Because it's like electricity hanging in the air. End quote. Everything about her, Doc was like electricity hanging in the air.
My god, Oh lord, I felt that electricity carrying her.
Bags, Oh, Doc, I certainly believe that.
You know, it's so funny.
I'm chuckling when you sall carry her back.
Because I got so many bags, it's insane. So you would probably feel it the same way. Oh. I tried to channel Nina some all all the time in my.
Work, in you know, in public spaces.
I just really love her so very much, and I just hope that our audience has a better feel for her. A final thoughts, Doc, and are about a sixty seconds or so that we have left.
Well, it's just amazing how wise your precious mom was to name you a simone.
I'm telling maybe she saw something in me. I counted all joy I'm honored.
Now.
My mom gave me a different middle name, but I'm almost tempted to change it.
To Simon, but I don't want to dishonor my mama. She made a decision and I'm staying with it.
I'm gonna stick with it, Doc, Wow, this has been a pleasure to lift up the life and the legacy of the One in Only Nina Simon again one of her famous quotes. I tell you what freedom is to me. It is no fear. And that is exactly what we need in this moment in time.
Doc.
We talk about that all the time on Truth Time, that people have to live fearless lives no fear.
That is what freedom is to me. We want you to live.
On purpose, live out your purpose, and above all, understand this that titles are good, they really really are.
For purpose is better Until next time.