AN INAUGURAL WELCOME
TFLAC Preserves Histories that Once Mattered — And Still Do.
Date: July 4, 2026
Here We Rise
Dan Perkins, Founder and Director, THE TRIPLE FIGHT MUSEUM / TFLAC
This is a day I have long anticipated, and I am delighted that you are here.
TFLAC — the Triple Fight Library and Archival Center — is a department of THE TRIPLE FIGHT MUSEUM, a digital cultural institution dedicated to the study of three categories of fights that helped shape America and the world from 1890 through 1929: Fights in Rings, Fights Among Nations, and Fights for Equality and Justice. The TFM Collection comprises hundreds of newspapers, photographs, postcards, posters, and printed artifacts that give evidence to these fights and their consequences — consequences that did not end in 1929 and have not ended yet.
We launch today on the 250th anniversary of America’s founding — a date we did not choose arbitrarily. The Fourth of July sits at the heart of what TFLAC studies. So does Juneteenth, thirteen days before it. Together, those two federal holidays mark the distance between America’s declared promise and its lived history. That distance is the territory TFLAC’s collection inhabits.
At TFLAC, race is front and center. It was front and center in 1776, in 1865, in 1910, and it remains so today. We do not approach that reality with grievance or despair. We approach it with primary sources, careful inquiry, and the conviction that understanding the past honestly is the only reliable foundation for navigating the present wisely.
To understand why race anchors our approach — and why the Fourth of July is inseparable from America’s history of slavery and its aftermath — we invite you to read our companion presentation: Colonial Dreams and Injustice.
We also invite you to explore the debut of our collection — five editions of a British weekly sports magazine that covered boxing’s world in 1910, arguably the most consequential year of Jack Johnson’s reign as World Heavyweight Champion. What those five editions reveal about race, excellence, and the color line inside boxing is the first demonstration of TFLAC’s methodology in action.
To struggle against oppression, and to fight to become our best in service to others, is what it means to be fully human. That conviction is the foundation of everything TFLAC does.
Welcome to TFLAC — where we keep stories of humanity alive.
Welcome to TFLAC Day. A Day We Rise and FIGHT FOR GOOD.
TFM — In the FIGHT FOR GOOD
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