Muhammad Ali. Besides knowing a little about him, because I study black history and the Civil Rights Movement, the second thing I think about when I think about Ali is his famous quote, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”. In 1964, Ali was 22 years old, and still known by his birth name: Cassius Clay, Jr. In Miami Beach, Florida, Clay was the underdog in a matchup against Sonny Liston, who had been the world heavyweight champion since 1962. The Independent reports that there was a genuine fear that Liston would kill Clay, but Clay wouldn't be intimidated: According to History.com, he spent days leading up to the fight taunting Liston and telling reporters he knew he would win.
(pic from birminghammail.co.uk)
Just before entering the ring, Clay said what would become one of his most famous quotes, and a phrase used to define his fighting style:
"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can't hit what the eyes can't see."
He was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. and lived from 1942-2016. He was a professional boxer, activist, and philanthropist. He was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He started training as an amateur boxer when he was 12.
At the age of 18, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, then turned professional later that year. At the age of 22 in 1964 he won the world heavyweight championship, fighting, as I mentioned, Sonny Liston. Ali seemed to be quite the entertaining showman. He was known for trash-talking, and often freestyled with rhyme schemes and spoken word poetry, in boxing and as political poetry for his activism, anticipating elements of rap and hip-hop music. I didn’t know he recorded two spoken word albums which earned him two Grammy nominations.
"Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?"Ali the Conscientious Objector
In 1965 Clay converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. His activism probably started when Ali antagonized the white establishment by refusing to be drafted into the U.S. military, citing his religious beliefs, and opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War. He publicly said he was a Conscientious Objector.
(pic by slate.com)
He stated various specific religious reasons he couldn’t fight in the war, but also added a famous quote I had heard before, “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?" This is the quote I think of more when I think of Ali, and why I wanted to write about him. Then he continued, "Man, I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong." He was eventually arrested, found guilty of draft evasion charges, and stripped of his boxing titles. Ali successfully appealed his case to the Supreme Court in Clay v. United States. The conviction was overturned in 1971. At first Ali was part of the Nation of Islam supporting views of black separatism, but he eventually broke with that group to support racial integration like his mentor Malcolm X. After separating from the organization, he started to practice Sufism, which is Islamic Mysticism. Civil rights figures came to believe that Ali had an energizing effect on the freedom movement. Ali was honored with the annual Martin Luther King Award in 1970 by the Civil Rights Leader Ralph Abernathy who called him, "a living example of soul power, the March on Washington in two fists." Coretta Scott King called Ali, “a Champion of Justice and peace and unity,”
He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1981 or 1984 according to different sources. He focused then on humanitarian and philanthropic projects. He donated millions to charities and disadvantaged people. In 1974 he visited a Palestinian refugee camp in Southern Lebanon where he declared his support for the Palestinian struggle to liberate their homeland. He visited Ghana, Bangladesh, Iraq, Rwanda often on humanitarian missions and he marched for Native American rights. There are too many things to mention here, but Ali had connections to movie stars, presidents, and was into many issues. In 1998, Ali began working with actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease, and the Michael J. Fox Foundation, to raise awareness and encourage donations for research and to find a cure. They made a joint appearance before Congress to push the case in 2002.
He died at the age of 74 from septic shock.
"The draft is about white people sending black people to fight yellow people to protect the country they stole from red people."
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