Jack Johnson, born in Galveston, Texas, held on to the belt until 1915. John Arthur Johnson (March 31, 1878 – June 10, 1946), better known as Jack Johnson and nicknamed the “Galveston Giant”, was an American boxer, the best heavyweight of his generation and the first black world heavyweight boxing champion (1908–1915). In a documentary about his life, Ken Burns notes, “For more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African-American on Earth.”
