TOO BLACK AND WHITE FOR BARRY:

Barack Obama on ropes over pardon of black boxer Jack Johnson (Tony Allen-Mills, October 26, 2009, the Australian)

FOR once Barack Obama seemed to be facing the easiest of decisions. Offered a chance to right a grievous historical wrong and to honour an African-American hero, he needed only to issue a presidential pardon that even his fiercest political rivals agreed was long overdue.

Yet there has so far been no pardon for Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing world champion, who was jailed for immoral behaviour 100 years ago after he flaunted his relationships with white women. [...]

Senator John McCain, Obama's Republican rival in last year's election, launched a campaign last April to secure a posthumous pardon for Johnson, who held the world title for seven years and thrilled his fellow African-Americans by trouncing James Jeffries, the so-called "Great White Hope" who declared that he had taken on the fight "for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a negro".