MUHAMMAD ALI APRIL 28-1967

MUHAMMAD ALI APRIL 28-1967


Fifty one years ago on April 28, 1967, African American world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army and was immediately stripped of his heavyweight title. The government of the USA did not give Ali that title, he earned it with skill and grit but the US government felt that they could strip him of his well earned title and they did. Ali, a Muslim, cited religious reasons for his decision to forgo military service.


Murphy Browne © Wednesday June 22-2016


This here’s the story of Cassius Clay
Who changed his name to Muhammad Ali
He knows how to talk and he knows how to fight
And all the contenders were beat out of sight
Muhammad, Muhammad Ali
He floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee
Mohammed, the Black superman
Who calls to the other guy I’m Ali catch me if you can
Now all you fight fans, you’ve got to agree
There ain’t no flies on Muhammad Ali
He fills the arena wherever he goes
And everyone gets what they paid for
Muhammad, was known to have said
You watch me shuffle and I’ll jab off your head
He moves like the Black superman
And calls to the other guy I’m Ali catch me if you can
He says I’m the greatest the world’s ever seen
The heavyweight champion who came back again
My face is so pretty you don’t see a scar
Which proves I’m the king of the ring by far


Excerpt from “Black Superman (Muhammad Ali)” by British singer Johnny Wakelin of Brighton, Sussex, England released in 1974 following the October 30, 1974 boxing match in Kinshasa between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.


The famous heavyweight boxer and civil rights activist Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay on January 17, 1942 in segregated Louisville, Kentucky. He transitioned on June 3, 2016.
During his 74 years of life, Ali, who renounced the European “slave name” Cassius Marcellus Clay and was given the Arab name Muhammad Ali when he choose Islam over Christianity, was vilified by White America. Ali was never shy about expressing his opinions about the White supremacist culture of America. The morning after he defeated another African-American heavyweight boxer, Sonny Liston, on February 25, 1964 Ali spoke at a Miami Beach press conference where he was asked, “Are you a card carrying member of the Black Muslims”?


Ali’s reply had some White American sport fans almost foaming at the mouth with anger: “I believe in Allah and in peace. I don’t try to move into White neighbourhoods. I don’t want to marry a White woman. I was baptized when I was 12, but I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m not a Christian anymore. I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.”


The following day while speaking at a second press conference Ali expanded on his comments of the day before when he said in part: “Black Muslims is a press word. The real name is Islam. That means peace. Islam is a religion and there are seven hundred and fifty million people all over the world who believe in it, and I’m one of them. I ain’t no Christian. I can’t be when I see all the coloured people fighting for forced integration get blowed up. They get hit by stones and chewed by dogs and they blow up a Negro church and don’t find the killers. I’m the heavyweight champion, but right now there are some neighbourhoods I can’t move into. I know how to dodge booby traps and dogs. I dodge them by staying in my own neighbourhood. I’m no trouble-maker. I never have done anything wrong. I have never been to jail. I have never been in court. I don’t join any integration marches. I don’t carry signs. A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he’ll never crow. I have seen the light and I’m crowing.”


Ali was a marked man from the time he unequivocally declared that he had rejected the role in which White America sought to cast him as a descendant of enslaved Africans who were once treated as property by White America. In Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties, published in 1999, White American writer Mike Marqusee wrote: “Reactions to Clay’s announcement were swift and hostile. The southern-dominated World Boxing Association (WBA) began moves to strip him of his title. His record album, ‘I Am the Greatest’, was pulled from the shelves by Columbia. A scheduled appearance on the Jack Parr ‘television talk’ show was canceled. Endorsement deals evaporated. Senators threatened to mount an investigation into the legality of the Liston fight. The syndicate of Louisville millionaires who sponsored Clay described him as ‘ungrateful.’ With a fine disregard for history, Jimmy Cannon, the doyen of boxing writers, declared that boxing had never before ‘been turned into an instrument of mass hate…Clay is using it as a weapon of wickedness.’


Harry Markson, the head of Madison Square Garden, warned Clay, ‘You don’t use the heavyweight championship of the world to spout religious diatribe. We’ve made so much progress in eliminating colour barriers that it’s a pity we’re now facing such a problem’.”
From there the hate was on for the man who seemed to have no fear of the White power structure of America or elsewhere. Appearing in Britain, Ali reiterated his position when he spoke about the racism to which African-Americans were subjected in the country where their ancestors’ unpaid labour enriched White slave holders.


When Ali made his pronouncements he was barely 22 years old. Today young and not so young African-American sports figures seem to be very reluctant to speak out about the victimization of African-Americans by White police and a White supremacist culture. Young African-Americans who are members of movements like “Black Lives Matter” are not supported by African-American athletes who have a public platform to raise awareness.


Ali, who lived through the turbulent period of African-Americans struggling to assert their humanity in a White supremacist culture had much to lose and did lose much. In today’s culture African-American sports figures seem to fear losing their millionaire status more than their humanity.
Muhammad Ali, who transitioned on June 3, 2016 earned and deserved the title “The Greatest” for more than one reason. We will not see another like him in our lifetime.


Murphy Browne © Wednesday June 22-2016