Federal Government Uses Mann Act to Criminalize Jack Johnson's Interracial Relationships

Federal prosecutors indicted Jack Johnson under the Mann Act (passed 1910) for transporting his white girlfriend Lucille Cameron across state lines. Cameron refused to testify against him; prosecutors then found Belle Schreiber, a previous girlfriend, who cooperated. Johnson was convicted in 1913 and sentenced to a year in prison, fleeing to Europe instead. The case was an explicit use of federal law to punish a Black man for relationships with white women — in 2018, President Trump granted Johnson a posthumous pardon.