JAYFORCE

My homie Fudge put me up on this documentary on Sonny Liston that I’ve never seen before & found it to be a very interesting piece to watch especially during black history month. More information about the documentary under the hood…

SONNY LISTON: THE CHAMP NOBODY WANTED
“On winning the heavyweight championship of the world Liston had a speech prepared for the crowd which friends had assured him would meet him at Philadelphia airport but on arriving he was met by only a handful of reporters and public relations staff. During an era when white journalists could still describe black sportsmen in stereotypes, Liston had long been a target of racially charged slurs; he was called a “gorilla” and “a jungle beast” in print. There was a mocking suggestion that a ticker-tape parade could use torn-up arrest warrants, and one sportswriter facetiously suggested Liston’s defeat of Patterson proved that in a fair fight evil will always triumph over good.

Liston was continually harassed by the police and was eventually forced out of St. Louis, Philadelphia and Denver. Liston particularly resented a 1961 arrest (by a black patrolman) for loitering, as he claimed to have merely been signing autographs and chatting with fans outside a drug store. One month later Liston was accused of impersonating a police officer by using a torch to wave down a female motorist in Fairmount Park, although all charges were later dropped. Subsequently Liston spent some months in Denver where a Catholic priest who acted as his spiritual adviser attempted to help him bring his drinking under control. After he won the title Liston relocated to Denver permanently, saying, “I’d rather be a lamppost in Denver than the mayor of Philadelphia.”