Mr. Sackler has written a great sprawling chronicle in twenty scenes, laid between San Francisco and Budapest, as "Jack Jefferson" wanders the earth looking for a place where he can live in peace with his heavyweight title and his white mistress. Aristotle named "spectacle" as one of the parts of tragedy, and The Great White Hope is spectacular: it features a cakewalk, a prayer meeting, a voodoo ceremony, a funeral, and crowd scenes of all sorts. (p. 93)

Sackler's play is by no means one entire and perfect chrysolite. For one thing, it is far, far too long; I do not object to three-and-a-half-hour plays on principle, but this one repeats itself too many times. Furthermore, some of the important characters are unrealized in the writing; the champion's mistress, especially, is far too gracious, too faithful, and generally too perfect to be altogether persuasive. Even Jack Jefferson himself, until he is undermined by the persecutions he suffers, is somewhat too good to be true. For a wide array of additional reasons, a number of scenes fail to come off; the script "needs," as they say, "work."

But The Great White Hope matters very much all the same, just as it stands, because Sackler has gotten hold of a vitally significant piece of history, has realized just why it is significant, and has put that significance, in vivid human terms, on the stage. Jack Johnson/Jefferson, as Sackler depicts him, is not a well-behaved, serious-minded Negro like Booker T. Washington or Sidney Poitier; he mocks at white society, and he sleeps with a white woman. And this, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, is unendurable; America, Sackler suggests, absolutely cannot stand a "bad nigger."

For a while I sat watching the play and fighting its implications. I had it in mind to accuse Sackler of catering to the absurd, ugly and dangerous kind of Negro paranoia…. The play is by no means a calm and balanced assessment of the situation, but it seems clear to me that what Sackler implies is at least basically true; ours is still a racist society. But whatever conclusion we come to, the play demands of us, in urgently dramatic terms, that we examine the whole question and our stake in it. (pp. 93-4)