Two years later, President Obama is still avoiding this request like the plague. However, backers have reintroduced a resolution to issue a posthumous pardon for boxer Jack Johnson. From the Associated Press: "Sen. John McCain and Rep. Peter King again are pushing a congressional resolution urging a presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, who became the world's first black heavyweight champion a century ago. But the effort faces odds as long as an underdog fighter. President Barack Obama refused to act on the call for a pardon in the last congressional session, even after the resolution passed both houses of Congress. The Justice Department told the lawmakers that such requests are best used for the living. Johnson was imprisoned because of his romantic ties with a white woman in a case that critics call a stain on the U.S."
Booker Rising response: The situation is actually more sordid than how the AP tells it. Johnson was convicted of violating the Mann Act (1910), which made it illegal to transport women across state lines for "immoral purposes". He was convicted of taking white prostitute/girlfriend Belle Schreiber across state lines (and that was after previously doing the same with Lucille Cameron, a white prostitute who refused to testify against him and whom he later married on the fly). Naw, Obama ain't touching this one.
The "Where Da White Women At?" Act Of 2011, Part II
