>
>
> Dennis Claxton wrote:
> >
> > "This was probably the first time and the only time in the history of
> > America that a black man ends up being a white hope," civil rights
> > activist Dick Gregory says during the program. "He'd become the great
> > white hope."
> >
>
> Re "white hope": It got emptied of content rather early (though Gregory
> brings it back to life here). After Louis won the championship, Dempsey
> started a training program to find and train a "white hope." A reporter
> visiting the gym noticed that one of the fighters there was black. To
> the reporter's startled query, Dempsey replied, "Oh, he's one of my most
> promising candidates." (Roughly like that -- this is from a 60+ year old
> memory.)
>
> Carrol
>
> In case someone on the list doesn't know the history of "white hope," it
> goes back to the days when Jack Johnson was heavyweight champion.
>
> ___________________________________
>
The quote comes from John Lardner's boxing book "White Hopes and Other Tigers" and was probably used in one of his columns before that.
"White Hopes and Other Tigers," a great book I used to own but which disappeared in a fire. Lardner was son of Ring Lardner and was a wonderful writer.
The actual setting for Carrol's quote was Jack Dempsey's restaurant on Broadway Dempsey used to let the so called "white hopes" eat for free in his restaurant but by time of the 1950s the term "white hope" was so diluted that it included any person of color that would be acceptable to White Americas. At least this was John Lardner's point in the book. In the early days the White Hope tourneys were held in places like Toronto but until Rocky Marciano came along they were all pretty lousy boxers.
By the way, when the movie Rocky came out Ali recognized right away the connotation of naming the main character Rocky and that Stallone was doing a "white hope" movie. I think most boxing fans recognized the racial (if not outright racist) aspects of the Rocky pictures. In later parts of the series the Apollo Creed himself becomes an advocate of "white hopes" given that he is so disgusted with the new heavy weight champion who is so low class (read "ghetto"). Thus Creed becomes Rocky's trainer. The flexibility of the "white hope" label can be seen here because in the context Creed himself has been transformed in the movie to a kind of "white hope." Racial politics everywhere in Our Benighted States.
My copy of "White Hopes and Other Tigers" was a first edition that I found in a used bookstore in Maryland for $2 in 1983. It was signed by Lardner and now I see the book is worth a little bit of money. When I lost it in the fire I tried to remember all the little tidbits I could and wrote down as much as I could remember. There was so much New York City trivia in that book.
Jerry
-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/