Jack Black (1871–1932) was a hobo and professional

burglar Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is the act of entering a building or other areas without permission, with the intention of committing a criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, robbery or murd ...

. Born in 1871 in

New Westminster, British Columbia New Westminster (colloquially known as New West) is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It was founded by Major-General Richard Moody as the capita ...

, he was raised from infancy in the U.S. state of

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

in the town of Maysville and eventually Kansas City. He wrote '' You Can't Win'' (Macmillan, 1926), a memoir or sketched autobiography describing his days on the road and life as an outlaw. Black's book was written as an anti-crime book urging criminals to go straight, but it is also his statement of belief in the futility of prisons and the criminal justice system, hence the title of the book. Jack Black was writing from experience, having spent thirty years (fifteen of which were spent in various prisons) as a traveling criminal and offers tales of being a cross-country stick-up man, home burglar, petty thief, and opium fiend. He gained fame as a prison reformer, writer and playwright. He disappeared in 1932 in a likely suicide.

Life

Jack Black is an essentially anonymous figure; even his actual name is uncertain. Some 1904 news articles name him as Jack Black, alias Tom Callahan, while a 1912 newspaper article names him Thomas Callaghan, alias Jack Black, and another gives his alias as Harry Klein. One of his nicknames among criminals was Blacky. After his last spell in prison, Black became friends with wealthy patron Fremont Older and worked for Older's newspaper ''

The San Francisco Call ''The San Francisco Call'' was a newspaper that served San Francisco, California. Because of a succession of mergers with other newspapers, the paper variously came to be called ''The San Francisco Call & Post'', the ''San Francisco Call-Bulletin ...

''. He worked on his autobiography with

Rose Wilder Lane Rose Wilder Lane (December 5, 1886 – October 30, 1968) was an American journalist, travel writer, novelist, political theorist and daughter of American writer Laura Ingalls Wilder. Along with two other female writers, Ayn Rand and Isabel Pa ...

and eventually composed essays and lectured throughout the country on prison reform. He was also rumored to have received a stipend of $150 a week to draft a screenplay titled '' Salt Chunk Mary'' with co-author

Bessie Beatty Elizabeth Mary "Bessie" Beatty (January 27, 1886 – April 6, 1947) was an American journalist, editor, playwright, and radio host. Early life and education Elizabeth Mary "Bessie" Beatty was born and raised in Los Angeles, one of four children o ...

, based around the infamous vagabond ally and

fence A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its whole length. ...

of the same name in ''You Can't Win''. The play flopped, although he was able to attain some amount of popularity, which subsided quickly. His philosophy on life was especially influential to

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

, Burroughs associated with similar characters in his early adulthood and mirrored the style of ''You Can't Win'' with his first published book, '' Junkie''. In his foreword to the 1988 edition of ''You Can't Win'' (reproduced in a 2000 edition), Burroughs wrote: "I first read ''You Can't Win'' in 1926, in an edition bound in red cardboard. Stultified and confined by middle-class St. Louis mores, I was fascinated by this glimpse of an underworld of seedy rooming houses, pool parlors, cat houses and opium dens, of bull pens and cat burglars and hobo jungles. I learned about the Johnson Family of good bums and thieves, with a code of conduct that made more sense to me than the arbitrary, hypocritical rules that were taken for granted as being 'right' by my peers."

Disappearance

He disappeared in 1932 and is believed to have committed suicide by drowning, as he reportedly told his friends that if life got too grim, he would row out into New York Harbor and, with weights tied to his feet, drop overboard. Ruhland, Bruno. Afterword. ''You Can't Win'', by Jack Black. AK Press/Nabat, 2000. 272. . In ''You Can't Win'' Black describes this state of mind as being "ready for the river"..

Quoted excerpts about Black and his memoir

Bibliography

*Black, Jack. ''You Can't Win''. New York:

Macmillan Company Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publi ...

, 1926. Foreword by Robert Herrick. *_____. ''You Can't Win: the Autobiography of Jack Black''. New York: Amok Press, 1988. Foreword by William S. Burroughs. *_____. ''Du kommst nicht durch''. Berlin : Kramer, 1998. *_____. ''You Can't Win''. 2nd edition. Edinburgh:

AK Press AK Press is a worker-managed, independent publisher and book distributor that specialises in radical left and anarchist literature. Operated out of Chico, California, the company is collectively owned. History AK was founded in Stirling, S ...

/Nabat books, 2000. *_____. ''You Can't Win''. .l.: BN Publishing, 2007.

References

Cited sources

External links

*
''San Francisco Call'', Volume 111, Number 36, 5 January 1912
{{DEFAULTSORT:Black, Jack 1871 births 1930s missing person cases 1932 deaths American autobiographers American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American memoirists American people convicted of burglary Canadian autobiographers Canadian male non-fiction writers Canadian memoirists Hoboes Missing person cases in California 1932 suicides