What does the term 'Great White Hope' mean?

Question

And where does it originate from?

Answer 1

Great White Hope, sometimes plain great white hope, may refer to several things:

* It originally referred to James J. Jeffries (1875-1953), a white boxer who came out of retirement in 1910 in an attempt to dislodge the first black world boxing heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson.

* The 1970 film The Great White Hope, based on an earlier play by Howard Sackler, was a fictionalized biopic of Jack Johnson's life. In the film, the hero's name is Jack Jefferson. The African-American actor James Earl Jones was nominated for Best Actor in a leading role at the Academy Awards.

* By a further analogy, the phrase came to be used in the sport of cricket to describe certain white cricketers emigrating from southern Africa in an attempt to qualify for the English team, notably Robin Smith, Allan Lamb and Graeme Hick. Although Kevin Pietersen has lately been thought of in this category, he has always been a British subject, and therefore eligible to play for the England cricket team. In fact, many cricketers have made this journey, however the phrase seems limited only to those of apparently remarkable ability, and the end of whose qualification periods are eagerly awaited, especially given their records in county cricket.

* The term was also used to describe rapper Eminem, due to his being white in a predominantly black music scene.

Answer 2

It refers to boxing. In America they wanted someone to beat the reigning champion of Afro-Carribean descent that was white. Hence the Great White Hope.

Answer 3

A white boxer fighting for the heavy weight championship of the world

Answer 4

The hope is for that individual to fulfill the highest expectancy for the company or the event.
This was referred to a white boxer fighting a black boxer initially.

Answer 5

It refers to the responsibilities accepted by the European colonisers of the nineteenth century in bringing civilisation and progress to the benighted parts of the world in Africa and Asia.