Congress passes the White Slave Traffic Act, June 25, 1910
By: Andrew Glass
June 25, 2010 04:42 AM EDT

On this day in 1910, Congress passed the White Slave Traffic Act, which for many decades gave federal prosecutors a way to criminalize consensual sexual activity. 

It was commonly called the Mann Act, after Rep. James Robert Mann (R-Ill.). 

The Mann Act made it illegal to “transport any woman or girl” across state lines “for any immoral purpose.” In 1913, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had intended this to include “debauchery,” not just prostitution. 

In 1946, the high court decided that a person could be prosecuted under the Mann Act even when married to the woman, if the marriage is polygamous. 

While rarely enforced now, the Mann Act is still on the books. A 1986 congressional amendment replaced “debauchery and any other immoral purpose” with “any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense.” 

In 1912, the first person prosecuted under the Mann Act was Jack Johnson, the African-American heavyweight boxing champion. Johnson had an affair with a white prostitute named Lucille Cameron. The case fell apart when she refused to testify, and she later became Johnson’s second wife. 

But another prostitute, Belle Schreiber, with whom he was involved in 1909 and 1910, did testify against him. He was convicted in 1913, though the events occurred before the law’s passage.

Johnson skipped bail, living in exile for seven years before surrendering in 1920 to federal authorities at the Mexican border. He served a year and a day — the maximum sentence.

Last year, Congress passed a resolution calling on President Barack Obama to issue a posthumous pardon to Johnson, who died in 1946.

Source: “Crossing Over the Line: Legislating Morality and the Mann Act,” by David Langum (1994)