Early Life
Johnson was born in Galveston, Texas, the second child and first son of Henry and Tina "Tiny" Johnson, former slaves who worked at blue-collar jobs to raise six children and taught them how to read and write. Henry Johnson traced his ancestry back to the Coromantees of modern-day Ghana. Johnson dropped out of school after five or six years of education to get a job as a dock worker in Galveston.
Read more about this topic: Jack Johnson (boxer)
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“They circumcised women, little girls, in Jesuss time. Did he know? Did the subject anger or embarrass him? Did the early church erase the record? Jesus himself was circumcised; perhaps he thought only the cutting done to him was done to women, and therefore, since he survived, it was all right.”
—Alice Walker (b. 1944)
“There was something so free and self-contained about him, something in the young fellows movements, that made that officer aware of him. And this irritated the Prussian. He did not choose to be touched into life by his servant.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)