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better to ask questions then to know everything about him cause people can go on for ages.Comment
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Then came his stand against the US Govt. Ali, who had changed his name from Cassius Marcellus Clay because it was his "slave name", refused induction in Houston, TX when asked to step forward by the US Army. His reasoning? "Ain't no Vietcong ever call me ni**er." He was subsequently stripped of his title while undefeated and exiled from the sport of boxing. He was sentenced to a 5 year prison sentence, but was allowed out pending appeal. His passport was also surrendered.
During that time, Ali felt the squeeze financially and was forced into selling his soul in endorsements, many of which stained his character. The heavyweight champ has no business endorsing roach spray and other nonsense.
It wasn't for 3 years, when a lax Georgia commission allowed Ali to best Jerry Quarrey in a shaky outing. Ali would fight a few more times before rushing in with Joe Frazier, an undefeated heavyweight blue collar guy from Philly. It was billed as Ali's radical politics against Frazier's quiet unassuming humility. In essense, it was seen as white against black. Ali lost that fight.
After beating Ali, Frazier was asked to speak in front of the Senate. Was it because he was the recognized heavyweight champ? Nope. It's because he beat Ali, who was a hate figure at that point.
When they met a third time, Ali jibed Frazier as a "gorilla" and mocked his nose and lips. Ali lost favor with a lot of black fans because of that. In reality, Joe Frazier was the quintessential Southern black man, while Ali seemed to transcend everyone, including his own race.
Ali finally won exoneration for his stances against the government and went from anti-hero to a figure of the establishment. Imagine that.Comment
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This infomation is good. Just need infomation about him not wanting to go into the draft and him changing his name.
Also was he really racist?
After I gather the info, Ima check if I can find any other valuable info and finalize and then write my paper.Comment
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Was he a racist? No. Was his camp full of racists? You bet your ass.
Angelo Dundee, Ali's beginning to end trainer, was a white Italian man from Miami. When Ali was blinded in the first Liston from linament on Liston's gloves, members of the Nation of Islam believed that Dundee had intentionally blinded Ali as part of some conspiracy. What ludicrousity.
Ali was bitter, no doubt about it. As a young boy, he recalled in interviews the impact that Emmit Till's torture and lynching, plus the subsequent injustice that ensued, had on him as a person. Seeing a young boy with his eye removed for whistling at a white woman is powerful stuff to an impressionable youth. He didn't quite understand segregation, a way of life in his native Louisville, Kentucky. When he was thirsty and wanted to drink from a fountain at a department store, his mother explained that he wasn't allowed to. That had a profound effect on him.
Ali had some controversial remarks many interpreted as racism. His famous quotes, about how Angel food cake is the white cake and devil's food is the chocolate cake, that can be construed as racist. I believe Ali was a mouthpiece for Elijah Muhammad's views, a puppet of sorts, who in his early 20s had no idea of how he was being used.
Ali famously never had relations with a white woman, which would've made him a hypocrite of his own segregational views. He was very much a proponent of seperate but equal, and by any means necessary.Comment
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He was black.Comment
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