Title: First black heavyweight champion may get posthumous pardon

" One before Jackie Robinson broke Major League baseball's color barrier in 1947. There was another first Jack Johnson. The first -- to will be illustrious title heavyweight champion of the world. Only the toughest decision this prize fighter was ever dealt came outside the ring."

" It was a gross -- justice inflicted not a man. For purely racial reasons."

" Johnson became champ in 190 wait a story chronicled in the Ken Burns documentary unforgivable blackness the rise and fall of Jack Johnson. Two years later when he beat -- fighter billed as the great white hope race riots broke out across the country. Resentment of Jack Johnson success and flashy lifestyle guru even though he was called the."

" Client being defined is how -- you -- to define it to me he simply lived his life and he didn't have to explain how he lived his life."

" The bitterness culminated in Johnson's 1913 conviction under the Mann act. A law designed to prevent prostitution but used against the fighter because it once auto white girlfriend a train ticket."

" He was a black man who didn't play by the white rules and he also was involved with white women. That all of those were -- those -- white American those things."

" Jack Johnson fled the country after his conviction but agreed years later to return and serve a ten month jail sentence. Now a century later to Republican lawmakers -- boxing enthusiasts are fighting to clear Jack Johnson's name. Resolutions to grant him a posthumous pardon have failed in the past but Senator John McCain and congressman Peter King finally won approval this year. In both the house and the Senate. West now sits on president Obama's desk."

" I'm confident that the president will issue the pardon he understands this he understands the history of this country and and I look forward to applauding. Granting that card. The White House is not commenting on the Johnson case citing a policy of not addressing pardon requests. TJ when it ABC news Washington."