Follow CBSPHILLY Facebook | Twitter
WASHINGTON (CBS) — Sylvester Stallone thanked President Trump at the White House on Thursday for granting a posthumous pardon to Jack Johnson — boxing’s first black heavyweight champion.
READ MORE: 10-Year-Old Boy Recovering After Grazed By Bullet In North Philadelphia: PoliceStallone called Johnson the inspiration for “Apollo Creed” in the Rocky films.
READ MORE: Tolls Increasing Sunday On 8 Delaware River Crossings Connecting Pennsylvania, New JerseyIn 1913, an all-white jury convicted Johnson of violating a Jim Crow-era law.
He spent a year in prison for crossing state lines with a white woman.
MORE NEWS: Man Dies After Being Shot Four Times In West Oak Lane, Philadelphia Police SayJohnson died in 1946.