The City Rises Against a Heavyweight Bully
When boxing legend John L. Sullivan publicly spewed racist venom in 1892, Seattle’s Afro-American League turned his own brutal rhetoric against him, demanding dignity from the local press.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
At the meeting of the Afro-American League in the city hall last night, there were about 500 people present, including a large number of whites. J. F. Craigwell spoke on the natural development of the colored race, and John N. Conner, of Tacoma, discussed political issues, comparing the actions of the Republican and Democrat parties with reference to their past record on the color question. The following resolutions were unanimously adopted: WHEREAS, In the different local papers it was recently announced that the notoriously brutal John L. Sullivan had declared that the negro is inferior to the white man, and was capable only of washing spittoons and the like; and, WHEREAS, The Post-Intelligencer, a daily paper of this city, in reply to such inhuman, absurd and prejudiced declarations, did, in its issue of today, speak of the negro as capable of the same development and high civilization as any other race and denounce the notoriously brutal character, John L. Sullivan, as his language merited; therefore, be it Resolved, That the Afro-American league, No. 6, of Seattle, and the friends thereof, do commend the Post-Intelligencer for its just and true criticism of the statements made by John L. Sullivan in outrage of the Afro-Americans, and for its constant support to the Afro-Americans in their fight against discrimination on account of color.
“Resolved, That the Afro-American league, No. 6, of Seattle, and the friends thereof, do commend the Post-Intelligencer for its just and true criticism of the statements made by John L. Sullivan in outrage of the Afro-Americans.”
This 1892 moment captures the tension of Seattle's early civil rights organizing, where local leagues leveraged media alliances to hold high-profile figures accountable for hate speech. Even then, the struggle for equitable representation and public dignity was a central pillar of Seattle's political discourse.
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