Jack Johnson's Family and Ancestry/Galveston Texas

[Caractacus]

Someone had asked in another thread if Jack Johnson may have visited some of his relatives in Gavelston Texas
during June 1946 when he had went down there for a quick tent show tour before heading on back to NYC in his Lincoln-Zephyr.
I had said my impression from what I read over the years was that most if not all his family
had all moved up and settled in Chicago shortly after he had won the HW championship in 1908.
(he bought a house on 3344 Wabash avenue for his mother and sisters to live in.it was sold when his mother passed away and he was still out of the country)
so here is basically what I read.

Jack Johnson's parents were Henry and Tiny Johnson.
His father is believed to have died in 1907.
Jack Johnson was the third of their 5 children
in this order :
Lucy
Jennie
Jack
Henry
Fannie
he also had an adopted brother named Charles, who was adopted when he was 2 yrs old.
Jack Johnson also had a niece and nephew who were the children of Jennie(Rhoades)
their names were Ada and Gus.(who would become Jack Johnson's right hand man practically once he became HW Champion)

[Caractacus]

check this link out.


http://www.afrigeneas.com/forumc/index. ... -ancestry/

[Caractacus]

A reporter tracked down Jack Johnson's great-grandniece in Chicago.
She is the great grand daughter of one of his older sisters, Jennie (pronounced Janie)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=105Fv_YZwaI

[Taansend]

Respect to you for starting this thread

I went to where he was born hoping there would be a statue or something but there wasn't thing, just a street in a black part of Galveston.

[pound per pound]

When doing family three histories, John was his real first name, not Jack.

One thing that stuck me as odd was Johnson, famous on infamous for his sexual appetite never had any children of his own.

[Caractacus]

When doing family three histories, John was his real first name, not Jack.

One thing that stuck me as odd was Johnson, famous on infamous for his sexual appetite never had any children of his own.

sounds like you may be stero-typing.
but neither did Wilt Chamberlain.
It could have been a low punch like the one that defiinatly ended his boxing career many years later by Bob Lawson I believe.
That one I think he had to have surgery for in Chicago

[Caractacus]

what stikes me as somewhat odd,is that in all of the biogrophies and artices in boxing magazines of Jack Johnson
over the last
nearly 50 years or so.
I could be wrong,but
No one seems to have tracked down or interviewed his nephew Gus Rhodes
who it seems became his right hand man after he became HW champion or not too long afterwards
and was with him when he went on the lam to Europe and South America.
They may have had a falling out at some point(I think Rhodes was shot in Mexico perhaps accidently by Johnson the story is unclear)
I dont recall Johnson ever mentioning him in his books after he was released from Levenworth.
But the stories he could have told !
particularly in the late 1960's and early 1970's (assuming he was still alive that is)
I remember I tried to track what became of him back when I could still afford a subscription
to the various newspaper archives.
There was a newspaper story about doctor in Virgina(Arlington I think) who was about to retire in the 1970's,
but there was no mention if he was related to Jack Johnson.

[Caractacus]

I went to where he was born hoping there would be a statue or something but there wasn't thing, just a street in a black part of Galveston.

when did you go ?
back in the 1990's ?
Because there in Gavelston Texas there now is Jack Johnson park located on Jack Johnson Boulevard
( formerly called Seawall Park and Seawall Boulevard,they re-named it back about 5 years ago)
There is also a bronze statue of Jack Johnson in the small park.
Jack Johnson reportedly grew up in a small house at 808 East Broadway.
I have no idea what may be at that particular location nowdays tho)

[Nile4000]

When doing family three histories, John was his real first name, not Jack.

One thing that stuck me as odd was Johnson, famous on infamous for his sexual appetite never had any children of his own.

sounds like you may be stero-typing.
but neither did Wilt Chamberlain.
It could have been a low punch like the one that defiinatly ended his boxing career many years later by Bob Lawson I believe.
That one I think he had to have surgery for in Chicago

I think they did find out Wilt had one son, but the family didn't want to cooperate. I always heard that Jack Johnson was unmixed. If that was true, it is truly amazing.

[pound per pound]

When doing family three histories, John was his real first name, not Jack.

One thing that stuck me as odd was Johnson, famous on infamous for his sexual appetite never had any children of his own.

sounds like you may be stero-typing.
but neither did Wilt Chamberlain.
It could have been a low punch like the one that defiinatly ended his boxing career many years later by Bob Lawson I believe.
That one I think he had to have surgery for in Chicago

I think they did find out Wilt had one son, but the family didn't want to cooperate. I always heard that Jack Johnson was unmixed. If that was true, it is truly amazing.

Perhaps Johnson caught VD and became sterile? He did like the girls you pay for.

[Caractacus]

or perhaps he preferred "the Rhythm Method" ?

[Nile4000]

sounds like you may be stero-typing.
but neither did Wilt Chamberlain.
It could have been a low punch like the one that defiinatly ended his boxing career many years later by Bob Lawson I believe.
That one I think he had to have surgery for in Chicago

I think they did find out Wilt had one son, but the family didn't want to cooperate. I always heard that Jack Johnson was unmixed. If that was true, it is truly amazing.

Perhaps Johnson caught VD and became sterile? He did like the girls you pay for.

Could be, sad way to go in his place.

[Caractacus]

Jack Johnson's childhood home (that his father built in the 1880's) a "a small one-story house,with a basement and a porch)
that was located at 808 East Broadway in Galveston Texas
was destroyed in the Hurricane of September 1900 (along with two-thirds of the city).
There is another similar looking house on the same spot now I believe.
Jack Johnson when growing up was a member of the "11th street and Avenue K" gang.
after the Hurricane the Johnson family moved into a house in the Alley behind the West Point Baptist Church
in the 3000 block of Avenue M (from what I had read).

[Caractacus]

I went to where he was born hoping there would be a statue or something but there wasn't thing, just a street in a black part of Galveston.

The statue of Jack Johnson in the park in Galveston was unveiled November.13.2012.

[Taansend]

I went to where he was born hoping there would be a statue or something but there wasn't thing, just a street in a black part of Galveston.

The statue of Jack Johnson in the park in Galveston was unveiled November.13.2012.

Brilliant. I was there in 2003

[Caractacus]

I went to where he was born hoping there would be a statue or something but there wasn't thing, just a street in a black part of Galveston.

The statue of Jack Johnson in the park in Galveston was unveiled November.13.2012.

Brilliant. I was there in 2003

yeah,but look at it this way,it was probably people like you over the years walking around their neighboorhoods asking about Jack Johnson,
that finally convinced them and the county commisioners to rename Seawalk Blv. and Park to Jack Johnson blvd and Park
and to put a statue in it to attract the tourists and the $$.

[Caractacus]

I came across this listing of some of the venues in Galveston that Jack Johnson had some of his earliest fights at.(from 1897-1901)
8 out of his first 11 pro fights were in Galveston Texas)
Most likely most were either wiped out by a 16 ft high tidal wave from the Hurricane in 1900 or were demolished later.
As of yet I don't have the street locations these places were at back then,in case anyone here visits Galveston to take a look
what may be at these locations nowdays.


The Docks
Prof. Bernau's Gymnasium
(formally located at 2114 Mechanic St./Ave C on the third floor)
Convention Hall
The Galveston Athletic Club
Josie's Beer Garden (East end of island on the beach)
Harmony Hall
(Harmony Hall was built in 1881 and was Galveston's Jewish Community center at the time and the place where Johnson fought Joe Choynski in 1901,
the original building had survived the 1900 Hurricane but later burned down in Febrauary 1928 and at the same site there is now
the Scottish Rite Cathedral was built a year later,it is located at 2128 Church Rear street in Galveston)

[Caractacus]

btw you wanna see a rare photograph of Prof. H Bernau ?
(man,he looked really ripped,for his time anyways,
I wonder if Jack Johnson or Joe Choynski for that matter were ever intimadated by just seeing his well developed tricep muscles ?)
check out this link and scroll to almost half-way down.

https://galvestonartist.wordpress.com/c ... n-fourmys/

[BroughtonRulesRefuge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=105Fv_YZwaI

- That gal could line up at nose guard for the Chicago Bears and probably send a Grizzly turning tail for an quick exit, ouch!

None to bright either when she creams herself over JJ's swag of race cars, women, and jewelry, about 13 yr old maturity level. You'd think she'd be putting efforts to clean up her Chicago homies shooting each other up with 762 murders last year and no end in sight rather than trying to get her pimp uncle pardoned. Lot of them boys doing the shootin' and their victims covered in swag, even buying gold plated guns for that special touch. Surely a bunch deserving pardons, ya think?

Interesting that Obama refused to defile himself with such a low brow interview request, deferring to his Attorney General Holder to do the hatchet work, who in the interest of future political elections, sorta of deflated the pardon request slowly to maintain their Chicago political base. O'Henry was less guilty of a piddling bank embezzlement charge that was a bank accounting irregularity that netted him about 4 yrs in the pen. He only fled the country for about a year, returning for the love of his wife who grew deathly ill so he could be with her at the end, a true love story, but no pardon for him. Johnson only came crawling back because he'd worn out his previous warm welcomes in France, Spain, Cuba, and Mexico and gotten to the point where a 1 year prison sentence in a liberal jail where he had many perks and was fed 3 squares a day was looking pretty good.

The video guy gets to gig Ken Burns by knowing something he didn't, the whereabouts of JJ's great niece, and gets to show off his and his buddies' white wives in the guise of righting the wrong of racism, how noble, but maybe needing more swag! And where's the forum idiot that made that JJ pardon thread claiming anyone not supporting JJs pardon is racist? Guess that would include Obamy and Holder now. How delicious.

As to JJ's progeny, with his infinite numbers of prostitutes, well any of those gals could've got pregnant and born a child, but chances are they wouldn't know which John would be the father, so I'd guess he might have maybe a half dozen direct descendants that have further expanded his lineage everywhere he lived.

[Caractacus]

I don't know either,but doesn't the one dude in this clip look like he could be related to Jack Johnson ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NsrwH9I9vE

[enrique]

I HAVE BEEN INTERESTED IN GUS RHOADES HIS NEPHEW BUT I HAVE LITTLE INFO ON HIM. I FOUND ONE FIGHT AND A PHOTO POSTED IN HIS WIKIPEDIA BUT LITTLE ELSE. HE FOUGHT A DRAW WITH FRANZ HOCHE WHO WAS ONE OF THE BEST EUROPEAN FIGHTERS OF HIS AGE. ANYONE HAVE ANY INFO ON THIS GUY?

[Caractacus]

As far as Gus Rhodes (Augustus Rhodes jr.) born c.1894 in Texas
the last time that I read anything where he was associated with Jack Johnson as his secretery was when Johnson was in Levenworth
and just after he was released in July 1921,.
He (Rhodes)probably then focused on his own life after that ,as he would have been 27 years old at that point.

[Caractacus]

BTW The lady seen in this video would be Gus Rhodes great-grand- niece (her great-grandma was his sister Jennie.
Maybe if you contact her she could shed more light on him and what became of him.
(maybe he was buried in the Johnson Family plot there in Chicago).



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=105Fv_YZwaI

[Caractacus]

There is no telling when he passed away,unless he is buried in the Johnson "Family Plot"
in Chicago.
,but as I mentioned a while back
when I still had a subscription to the newspaper archives,there was a short article about an African-American doctor
in Northern Virginia in the early 1970's
by the name of Gus Rhodes who was retiring from what I remember .No mention if he was kin-folk to Jack Johnson
from what I remember reading.

[Caractacus]

check out this article from 2004 when Jack Johnson use to stop by and visit relatives in Chicago back in the 1930's.
(Gus Rhodes would have been her grandmother's younger brother)

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004 ... uncle-jack