Abstract

The world heavyweight title fight between titleholder, Canadian Tommy Burns, and the charismatic African-American Jack Johnson that took place in Sydney on Boxing Day 1908 is a milestone for Australian sport and society. Given the overt racial bigotry of the era, a public critique inevitably emerged before and immediately after the fight that portrayed Johnson in an unfavourable light. For many Federation era Australians, Johnson challenged not only Burns but the doctrine of white supremacy itself. Yet curiously, such crude stereotyping represented the minority response in the pages of Australia's dailies and magazines. In certain ways, the fight elicited some of young Australia's finer and fairer instincts. Verf.-Referat