Linton P. Gordon
The world is mourning the passing of boxing’s greatest, Muhammad Ali. There is no doubt that Muhammad Ali brought a style and a flair to the world of boxing that transformed it into the highest paying sport the world has ever seen.
Muhammad Ali dominated the boxing scene from the 60s through to the early 80s when he retired from boxing. He was a fearless, tough and determined boxer and this came to the fore more than any other time during the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ where he knocked out George Foreman who up to then was seen as a strong and deadly warrior in the ring.In that fight Muhammad Ali brought to bear his skills and craft not only in the ring but the way he won over the crowd in the stadium thereby gaining the upper hand in the psychological warfare being waged between Foreman and him.
However, we should not forget that Mohammad Ali waged and won a greater fight for all black people but especially for those in the United States. Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay on January 17, 1942. He was born in the southern state of Kentucky, the heart of red neck country. This is an area of the United States where in the 60s there was strict segregation, meaning, for example there were schools for whites only and schools for blacks only. There were restrooms for whites only and restrooms for blacks only. Even the churches in some instances were segregated. So strict and ridiculous was the segregation system that even drinking water dispensers were segregated. A black man dying of thirst would be sent to prison or perhaps lynched if he was caught drinking water from a dispenser marked for whites only.
Shortly after he won the world heavy weight championships Muhammad Ali abandoned his original name, Cassius Marcellus Clay and took the Muslim name, Muhammad Ali. In doing so Ali announced that he was abandoning his slave name Cassius Clay and adopted the name Muhammad Ali. He also announced that he was a believer in the Muslim Faith.
During the late 60s, the United States was waging war against what was then North Vietnam on behalf of South Vietnam. This was a war in which the United States went on to suffer some 70,000 fatalities and still never won the war. In order to have sufficient manpower for the war, the United States started a system of conscription. That is to say, young men were called on to come into the army under threat of imprisonment so that they would be trained and most likely sent to Vietnam. Muhammad Ali received his conscription papers and when directed to step forward to be enlisted in the army, he refused and gave two important reasons for so doing.The first one he gave is that he had nothing against the Vietnamese people so he saw no reason why he should wage war against them. The second one is probably the most important, Muhammad Ali said he did not see how he could engage in a war abroad on behalf of the United States when the very country was treating him as a second class citizen, under the segregation law he was being forced to live by.
Put another way, Muhammad Ali was saying that the war he needed to fight was a war against bigotry, discrimination, racism and segregation, in his own country and not a war against the Vietnamese.
This position taken by Ali was adopted by several Civil Rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jnr and more and more Americans of African descent started a campaign in support of equal rights and justice for black people in the United States.
Muhammed Ali was found guilty of disobeying his Draft Orders and was fined Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00) and sentenced to prison for five (5) years. He never served the time as he appealed and the Supreme Court of United States eventually overturned the conviction. However it should be noted that the Court at first instance banned Mohammed Ali from boxing and took away his heavy weight title. Thus he suffered financial loss and inactivity over a three-year period. Despite this, Muhammad Ali never retreated from the principled position he took and he never made any compromise with the establishment.We need to ask ourselves how many of us are prepared to make that type of sacrifice for principle. How many of us are prepared to risk our career and our source of income in order to stand up for the principle we believe in? When looked at that way, we have to agree that the contribution by Muhammad Ali to the destruction of racism, bigotry and discrimination in the United States is indeed larger and at least more important than what he did in the ring.
The United States and the world are better off by virtue of Muhammad Ali’s stand against racism than his performance in the ring. We should therefore remember Cassius Clay as we remember Marcus Garvey and Paul Bogle as a fighter for equal rights and justice and for the destruction of racism against black people.
