Jack Black

Jack Black (1871–1932) was a Canadian and American hobo and burglar. Black is best known for his autobiography You Can't Win (Macmillan, 1926), 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 in Canada and the United States) as a travelling criminal, and offers tales of being a cross-country stick-up man, home burglar, petty thief, and opium addict. He gained fame as a prison reformer, writer, and playwright. He disappeared in 1932 in a likely suicide.

Life

Black was born in 1871 in New Westminster, British Columbia, and was raised from infancy in the U.S. state of Missouri in the town of Maysville and eventually Kansas City. Aside from this, Jack Black is an essentially anonymous figure; even his actual name is uncertain. In his autobiographical book, he quotes his father as calling him "John," of which Jack is often a nickname. 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 his newspaper The San Francisco Call. Black wrote his autobiography with Rose Wilder Lane 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, based around the vagabond ally and fence 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.