Film: "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson"
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (dir. Ken Burns, USA, 2005, from Episodes 1 & II)
Ken Burns interrogates American racial discourse in his chronicle of the riveting rise and fall of Jack Johnson, the first African American to win the world heavyweight boxing championship. W.E.B. DuBois's phrase "unforgivable blackness" sums up the untenable position of Johnson, whose interracial marriages and lifelong struggle for freedom and equality provoked race riots and legal censure. With a musical score by Wynton Marsalis. Presented by Erik Ewers (UM'91), Florentine Films, Editor, Episode II.