THE BLACK PEARL MINNEAPOLIS’ 19th CENTURY DARK DESTROYER
“When I am fighting a man I always let him fool around until I get a good chance to get in my knockout blow.”
Harris Martin “The Black Pearl” 1888.
By Jake Wegner– Long before Hollywood had Cpt. Jack Sparrow sailing through theaters aboard the vessel known as “The Black Pearl”, the prize rings of America had already known a Black Pearl all their own; and unlike the Hollywood film, this pearl was real. His name, though rarely spoken in today’s fistic conversations, was once on the lips of fight fans across the nation. Stories of his remarkable athleticism, heart, and endurance were widely known, and at a time not far removed from the bonds of slavery, he was as popular among White America as he was among his Negro brethren. He was in essence, the first black superstar of the Northwest; he was Harris Martin, “The Black Pearl”.
George Harris Martin was born on April 2nd, 1865 the son of Ethiopian servants. Although some historians have said he was originally from the Washington D.C. area, it has since been proven he was born and raised in the Mill City of Minneapolis, as more than one newspaper reporter noted how he was born there and ran the streets as a child, and worked as a bellhop at the famous West Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Later interviews with the Pearl corroborate this, as he spoke of washing dishes, shining shoes, and bell-hopping at the West Hotel. So how he garnered a few early fights out east remains a question he never addressed.
He began his fistic career by fighting to a Draw with the legendary Jack Burke in Cincinnati when Burke was on tour challenging any man to stay four rounds with him for money. Martin told the crowd he was, “The Black Pearl” and went on to hold his own with the ring legend. Quickly seeing the money that he could make in such a short amount of time, he chose to continue fighting, meeting with good success.
Martin was a short, muscular, compact, fighter; standing just 5’ 6” tall, but with a huge 40” chest and a lean 30” waist. His biceps measured 15”, his calves 16.5” and he had a 17.5” neck. He liked to rush his opponents and overwhelm them with heavy inside fighting to both the body and the head. He met Minneapolis boxing manager, Billy Hawley, who saw immediately the raw talent in young Martin. He quickly signed him to a contract and hired well-known black pugilist, Professor Charles Hadley, to train him and teach him the finer points of boxing. At this point in his young career, the Black Pearl simply overpowered his foes. He was a 19th Century Henry Armstrong who never quit throwing punches, and one who didn’t mind taking exuberant amounts of punishment in able to get inside and deliver his own blows. In fact, so durable was he, that he was quickly gaining a reputation for his chin and stamina alone. Hawley saw a raw gem in the Pearl, and used Hadley to polish him up; and Hadley did just that. By mid-1886, the Black Pearl was a force to reckoned with. Besides his iron chin and his never-ending reserve of energy, he now possessed a stiff jab to go along with a top-rate bobbing-and-weaving style that worked well for him. It allowed him to evade the blows he used to take to get inside where he fought best, usually focusing on the body. This is a topic worth expanding upon. Some men were known as great body punchers, but the Black Pearl was something altogether different. He was arguably the best body puncher of his era, as he frequently ended bouts with painful blows to the liver and ribs of his opponents. Due to his growing reputation, Hawley found it hard to get Martin fights. On more than one occasion the Pearl and his trainer Hadley fought for money just to stay busy.
Minnesota was home to a lot of talented black fighters in the 1880’s; fighters whose records will never fully be reconciled to accurately represent their true success in the prize ring. Some were born here like The Pearl, and others moved here and called Minnesota their new home. These great black fighters who boxrec.com records grossly misrepresent their true ring records are: “Black Frank” (Frank Taylor), “The Black Star/Minneapolis Star” (McHenry Johnson), “The Black Diamond” (Harry Woodson), Professor Charles Hadley, Thomas Jefferson, and “The Black Demon” (Billy Wilson). His battles with local rival and much heavier opponent, Black Frank were legendary for their brutality. Fighting much heavier men was nothing new for the Black Pearl, and he took on these heftier foes willingly to showcase his superior skills.
After beating Black Frank in a fight to the finish which lasted 38 brutal rounds, fought on the east side of the riverbank where Hennepin and Ramsey counties meet (just north of the river where the Shriner’s Children’s Hospital is today), The Black Pearl was universally recognized as the Colored Middleweight Champion of the World—not even the harshest ring critics on either coast disputed this claim. The Pearl then announced that he was now under the training and management of the former Colored Lightweight Champion, George Phillips. Phillips refined the Black Pearl’s skills even more. So much so, that when the World’s Middleweight Champion (and future Heavyweight Champion) Bob Fitzsimmons came to town in late April of 1891, he specifically asked to break the color line and fight the Black Pearl in a four-round challenge. No one had been lasting four rounds with the heavy-hitting Cornishman, and Ruby Robert had been collecting quite a considerable supplementary income by offering to fight all comers. If they could stay just 4 rounds with him, $500 was theirs to keep. That was quite a lot of money in 1891. Not only did the Pearl take him up on the offer, he withstood the four rounds, holding his own and asking for more when it was over. Ruby Robert was said to have shook his head and smiled before he walked away.
After a messy divorce, the Pearl’s life spiraled downward. He began drinking and carousing the late night even more. He began getting arrested on a regular basis and eventually was banned from ever setting foot in Minneapolis again for trying to kick down the door of a well-known brothel when he was refused admittance for being black. The man known to all as, “The Black Pearl” was forced to leave his beloved city of Minneapolis. He traveled west where his skills were never quite the same again, as the nightlife became his only life. He retired for good in 1900 and moved to Seattle to live with his brother; working menial jobs. The man who once out-earned even his White friends and admirers was now flat-broke. He was not even recognized in Seattle. He missed the attention of the little black children that used to follow him down the streets wanting to be him—the only African-American icon to look up to at the time. But those days were past—in Seattle anyways. He missed Minnesota so much that he moved back in 1899, only to Saint Paul, per his lifetime ban from the Mill City. Every day he was reported to have looked across the bridge at the forbidden city of his life (Minneapolis), while holding down jobs tending bars on present-day Kellogg Blvd. On April 26, 1903, while walking home, he suddenly collapsed and died from a massive heart attack. He was just 38. More than 1000 people of all races came to his funeral.
Today the Black Pearl’s name is long forgotten. His record at the time of his death was reported to have been more than 100 wins with only 10 losses, and continues to be discovered and documented. Until 2009, his final resting place was even a small-time boxing world mystery, as Forest Cemetery (now Forest Lawn Cemetery) had claimed that he was never interred there at all. This led many boxing historians on quests throughout the past 50 years to seek out his grave like a modern era Holy Grail, on par with the once famous search for the final resting place as the great Barbados Joe Walcott. I’m proud to report that this writer is the one who discovered the remains of the Black Pearl, interred under years of grass and earth, buried all along in the very cemetery that claimed never to have had him at all. For finding his name etched onto the 109 year-old slab of concrete was akin to finding a long lost treasure. It turns out that the denial of having his remains was a clerical issue, having entered his name into their 1903 interment logbooks incorrectly, thus burying all evidence of his existence there. On December 7, 2009, buried treasure was indeed found in the frozen earth of Minnesota; 155 pounds of Black Pearl to be exact, and with it, the tale of one of the 19th Century’s most talented black fighters sails again.
Harris Martin, known to fight fans as “The Black Pearl”, was enshrined into the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame in their inaugural class of 2010, and the Star Tribune wrote a large article on the induction night, using the Pearl as the centerpiece. Today, his induction plaque hangs proudly inside the offices of the Forest Lawn Cemetery, about 70 yards from his lonely grave, not far from a large elm tree.