Pardon Sought for Jack Johnson

Filmmaker Ken Burns and senators John McCain and Orrin Hatch are seeking a posthumous pardon for Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion. Johnson, who became champion in 1908 when he stopped Tommy Burns, was convicted in 1913 of violating the Mann Act, a law passed three years earlier that bans the interstate transport of a woman for immoral purposes. The pardon petition argues that Johnson was unfairly punished for a consensual relationship with a white woman.