Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight boxing champion

The first African American heavyweight boxing champion should be granted a presidential pardon for a racially motivated conviction in 1913, some 95 years ago, that ruined his reputation and his boxing career, the U.S. Congress recommended last Friday.

Jack Johnson beat Tommy Burns to become world heavyweight champion in 1908, leading to a search for "the Great White Hope" to take the crown back from Johnson.

However, in 1913 Johnson was convicted of breaking the Mann Act which outlawed the transportation of white women across state lines for immoral purposes. He fled the US but returned in 1920 to serve his term at Leavenworth. He then returned to boxing but failed to acheive the heights of glory he had before. He later died in 1946 a virtual unkown.

His conviction is widely considered as malicious as US authorities having first failed to charge Johnson over his relationship with a white woman whom he later married, then found another white woman to testified that Johnson had transported her across state lines.

The Congress resolution states that Johnson paved the way for other athletes to succeed in professional sports and that he was "wronged by a racially motivated conviction prompted by his success in the boxing ring and his relationships with white women." It urges president George W Bush to grant Johnson a posthumous pardon.