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The great white hope" is a reference to the white boxer who many white people hoped would finally defeat Johnson. William Warren Barbour , who won the American and Canadian amateur heavyweight championship in 1910 and 1911, respectively, was "Gentleman Jim" Corbett 's choice to be "the great white hope," but Barbour declined to take up the mantle.
Gerald Arthur Cooney [1] (born August 24, 1956) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1977 to 1990. He challenged twice for world heavyweight titles in 1982 and 1987.
The outcome of the fight triggered race riots that evening—the Fourth of July—all across the United States, from Texas and Colorado to New York and Washington, D.C., Johnson's victory over Jeffries had dashed white dreams of finding a "great white hope" to defeat him. Many whites felt humiliated by the defeat of Jeffries.
Johnson became the first black World Heavyweight champion in 1908 which made him unpopular with the predominantly white American boxing audiences. Jeffries, a former heavyweight champion came out of retirement to fight Johnson and was nicknamed the "Great White Hope".
Writer Jack London coined the phrase "Great White Hope" to describe Jeffries in his attempt to win the heavyweight crown from African-American world champion Jack Johnson in 1910. [3] Jeffries came out of retirement for the fight, urged on by London and many others who wished to see a white man once again reign as heavyweight champion. [4]
The Great White Hype, a 1996 U.S. boxing sports-comedy film World White Heavyweight Championship , a boxing title in pretense from 1911 to 1914 The White Hope (disambiguation)
3. Jack Jefferson in ‘The Great White Hope’ (1970) In “The Great White Hope,” Jones played a Black boxer facing off against all manner of racist hostility during the 1910s.
When "The Great White Hope" Jess Willard beat Jack Johnson for the world heavyweight title on 5 April 1915, the world white heavyweight crown became defunct. No heavyweight champ would offer a title shot to a black heavyweight challenger for 22 years, until James J. Braddock lost his title to Joe Louis in 1937.