The Great White Hope

Jack Jefferson is the first Black boxer to become world heavyweight champion, and the title makes him a target. The white boxing establishment looks for someone to beat him and, failing to find one, turns to other methods. Jefferson is with a white woman, Eleanor, and the laws of the time are worked so as to make that a crime. A case is brought against him, he has to leave the country, and he wanders in exile in Europe carrying his title. The real counterpart of the character is Jack Johnson, who took the heavyweight title in 1908 as the first Black boxer to hold it. Johnson too was convicted under the Mann Act over his relationships with white women and spent years abroad. The source is Howard Sackler's play; James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander carried their parts from the stage to the screen and both were nominated for Oscars. Martin Ritt directed. The phrase in the title was a real term of the period for the search for a white opponent who could beat Johnson.