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(SILENCE)
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
Well, now, with just a slight skip of the heart,
we have, I think, got through to Chicago and Muhammad Ali.
- Are you hearing us from London, Muhammad? - Yes, Sir. Loud and clear.
- How are you doing today? - Very well. Thank you. Welcome to the show.
Thank you for allowing me to come to you live by Early Bird satellite.
Now, let me just get a few facts straight with you.
You're a professional fighter, right?
I am a minister of the religion of Islam also.
A professional fighter and a minister as well.
- Yes, Sir. - David Susskind would like to ask you some questions. David.
Well, I don't know where to begin.
I find nothing amusing or interesting or tolerable about this man.
He's a disgrace to his country, his race...
and what he laughingly describes as his profession.
He is a convicted felon in the United States.
He has been found guilty.
He is out on bail.
He will inevitably go to prison, as well he should.
He's a simplistic fool and a pawn.
(MAN) Muhammad Ali.
One of the greatest athletes of all time.
As the first three-time heavyweight boxing champion of the world,
he thrilled, entertained and inspired us.
(LOUIS FARRAKHAN) He was given the Medal of Freedom...
by the president of the United States.
(PRESIDENT BUSH) The American people are proud to call Muhammad Ali...
- one of our own. - (APPLAUSE)
(FARRAKHAN) What does it mean, the Medal of Freedom?
We bring you up. Oh, yes.
This is Muhammad Ali, the great fighter, the great humanitarian,
the great Muslim.
Years ago,
Ali came and sat right here.
And Ali looked at me.
He said, "Still a nigger."
I said, "Oh, Ali."
Don't talk like that."
He said, "Still a nigger."
What did my brother mean?
(APPLAUSE)
(ALI) Olympic champion, and the flag is going...
(Humming "Star-Spangled Banner")
And I'm standing so proud.
I just hear the man say,
"Champion of the whole world... Cassius Clay."
(RAHAMAN) Olympic champion of the world...
...from Kentucky.
Southern boy raised poor becoming a gold medal winner, oh, man.
Oh! I still get excited.
Me, my mother, my father were standing at the terminal
when he came off the plane.
I was so happy.
It was beautiful. Beautiful.
Any ideas now as to whom you might sign with?
I would like to get with a nice, honest crowd. Nice, clean people.
And with the right backing, I believe I'll have a chance...
to become the world's heavyweight champion.
It's best to be with somebody you know and from your own town if possible.
I'm Gordon B. Davidson, attorney for the Louisville Sponsoring Group,
owner of Cassius Clay and the hired hand to keep the group and Cassius Clay together.
(DAVIDSON) We had a contract with Ali for six years.
We were as powerful a group as you could put together in Louisville.
These were all capitalists.
I'm Bill Faversham, vice president of Brown-Foreman,
and one of the founders of the group of Cassius Clay.
I'm also his manager.
I'm W.L. Lyons Brown,
chairman of the board of Brown-Foreman Distillers Corporation.
I'm also a farmer and in the oil business.
(DAVIDSON) The original group, they're all deceased.
I'm the only survivor.
The reason for the group was to aid, assist and protect...
this fine Louisville athlete.
He was a young fellow who wanted to be great.
(MAN) Cassius, you say you're gonna be
champion by the time you're 21. Is that right?
As you know, today is the jet age. Everybody's trying to break records.
There's the man who says that he'll be on the Moon by 1970.
They're gonna make cars that will run by sunlight.
Well, those are pretty game predictions.
I wouldn't want to do too much bragging about it,
but everybody that watches me, they say that.
I'm the greatest that they've ever seen.
(DAVIDSON) But did I think he would be the heavyweight champion?
I had doubts about it.
And I think the group had doubts about it...
because the odds, it's like winning the Kentucky Derby.
You have a horse, and the horse looks pretty good,
but it is gonna win the Derby?
He never had a doubt about it.
For me to say it was a civic thing...
...it was.
This is the house behind us that Muhammad and I were raised in...
for the first 13 years of our life.
(MUHAMMAD ALI) Who's the champ? I'm the champ.
- Come on. - You come on.
I was good, but he was more gifted than I.
Left jab,
right cross,
hook.
(RAHAMAN) And we shared a room together. It had twin beds.
He had a bed on one side on the room.
I had a bed on the side of the room.
And from Mom, we got kindness,
gentleness, sweetness and affection, love.
All the good things from Mom.
My father, his name was Cassius M. Clay Sr.
As I understand, I'm Cassius Marcellus Clay Vi.
Well, Cassius Marcellus Clay is a great name in Kentucky.
(DAVIDSON) Cassius Marcellus Clay...
the old guy, the white guy,
for whom Cassius was named...
he was a very strong abolitionist.
I did talk to the Clays a lot. Always a very friendly relationship.
The father was kind of an in-and-out sort of fellow...
who painted signs and other things for a living.
(RAHAMAN) My father was painting the churches here in Louisville.
My dad painted this beautiful portrait of
Jesus Christ rescuing Peter.
Peter started denying to believe in Christ and he started sinking.
(ALI) When I went to church on Sunday,
and I always asked my mother,
"How come is everything white?"
I said, "Why is Jesus white with blond hair and blue eyes?"
Angels are white."
I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't pinpoint it.
(DAVIDSON) They had a lawyer whose name was Alberta Jones.
She was an African-American lawyer and a very good one.
He had little regard for money, except he wanted to have it to spend.
When the group had him,
the top rate for income tax was 91%.
It's now 35.
So the more he made, the more he paid to the government.
To solve that problem,
the group paid for everything...
so he could just concentrate on his boxing.
(MAN) Cassius, do you believe that a fighter...
actually tries to kill another fighter?
Does he get that vicious? Do you get that vicious?
Every time I enter a ring, I intend to down him.
And if he should fall, he falls.
Well, that's everybody's intention or we wouldn't go in.
We had a fund that we fondly jokingly called "The Orange Juice Fund."
When he was in Florida, we would get the bills...
and they would be in the range of, say,
2,000 gallons worth of orange juice.
And we knew that he wasn't drinking 2,000 gallons of orange juice.
But the entourage managed to get a little one way or another.
We could not foresee the difficulties that would lie ahead...
as far as military service and, of course, the Muslim affiliation.
This is the corner where I met Cassius Clay in 1961.
I'm standing on the corner of Second Avenue and Sixth Street in Miami, Florida.
I was selling the Muhammad Speaks newspaper...
to propagate the faith of Islam.
We tried to clean our people up.
We were trying to be the best citizens that American had.
People trying to be righteous.
We didn't smoke. We didn't use drugs.
We respected our women.
We train our children to be the same way. This is what he saw.
Cassius Clay holler across the street at me.
He say, "Hey, brother, why are we called Negroes?"
Why are we called Negroes?
"Why are we blind, deaf and dumb?"
Why are we deaf, dumb and blind?
Why is everybody making progress...
and yet we lag so far behind?
I say, "Hey, man. You hip to the teachings then."
He say, "Yeah, man."
Well, I took it on myself to program him, we might say,
keep after him to become a Muslim in the Nation of Islam.
But I wasn't the first one he heard it from,
'cause he heard it mainly from that record Minister Farrakhan put out...
"White Man's Heaven is a Black Man's Hell."
(FARRAKHAN) ♪ When the slave master wanted to have some sport ♪
♪ He would heap on our parents cruelties of the worst sort ♪
♪ Burn them at stake ♪
♪ Hang them on trees ♪
♪ His ears were deaf to our parents' pleas ♪
♪ Oh, my friend, it's easy to tell ♪
♪ White man heaven is a black man hell ♪
(FARRAKHAN) When Cassius Marcellus Clay heard the song...
"A White Man's Heaven is a Black Man's Hell"...
which is still true to this very day...
then he wanted to become a part of a movement...
that would free the minds and hearts and spirit of our people.
So he became a follower of the Nation of Islam.
Black people at that time were tremendously vulnerable.
Remember, we had no... There was really no advocate for the black community...
other than Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement.
But we wanted to overcome yesterday, not someday.
So the whole civil rights motif...
was not attractive to us.
The overalls and the Southern agrarian accoutrement...
that they were fond of,
this rubbed us the wrong way.
I mean, we were city guys, you know.
We wanted to look cool and urbane.
We didn't want to act as if we were farm workers, you know.
(ABDUL RAHMAN MUHAMMAD) 1962, I took Cassius Clay to Detroit.
I kind of introduced him to Malcolm at that time.
(APPLAUDING)
It is time for you and me to stand up for ourselves.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us...
don't let the white man speak for you...
and don't let the white man fight for you.
(CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
(MUWAKKIL) I think Malcolm X was absolutely critical...
to bringing Ali in to the Nation of Islam.
He was charismatic and Ali was equally charismatic.
And Ali was not very sophisticated politically.
I think Malcolm simply bowled him over with his wisdom and his eloquence.
(MALCOLM X) Egypt was judged for enslaving the Hebrews.
God destroyed them. This was the Judgment Day in their day.
Today, America's faced with the same thing.
If she doesn't let us go with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad out of this country,
then America will be destroyed just as surely as Egypt was destroyed...
and Babylon was destroyed.
(MAN) I came into the Nation of Islam in 1950.
The minister was talking about...
this cross...
that black people had been nailed to.
Said their hands had been nailed to the cross where they couldn't use them...
to work for themselves.
Their feet had been nailed to this cross...
where they couldn't travel as free men.
A crown of thorns had been crushed into their brain...
where they were unable to think for themselves.
And at that moment,
it appeared as though that...
you know, when you turn a light on...
bling, it clicked on in my head.
The Nation of Islam will say, "Well, this is white America."
Why should they include you?
This is their country. Um, don't expect to be included in their mythology.
"Create your own mythology."
One of the reasons why we could never progress...
is because we had been indoctrinated by a culture that demeaned us.
Christianity was widely interpreted to be a slave-making religion.
Islam was seen to be a slave-breaking religion.
(MAN ON TAPE) Greetings to you.
I'm Elijah Muhammad, the preacher of freedom, justice and equality...
for my people who has been lost and now found.
If you are a free man, don't say.
"I wanna make you treat me right" and you have made a slave
out of my fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers for 400 years.
No.
I don't want to make you do nothing but let me go!
(MAN) Do you feel that integration is meaningless?
I think integration is completely sin.
...to the black man and white man.
Separatism is the only solution.
(MUWAKKIL) I don't think many members of the Nation of Islam...
were concerned really with the intricacies of the religion itself.
Elijah Muhammad reinterpreted Islam as part of a liberatory ideology.
And that's the way it was presented to the Nation of Islam.
I said the Earth belongs to the black man.
(CHEERING)
I don't know. There's some mysterious force there.
Because he wasn't really a charismatic guy.
But yet he had this amazing attraction to some of the...
(CHUCKLES) the meanest and most sociopathic
members of the community,
as well as righteous folk.
He was indeed a majestic leader.
When I first went to Miami training for a professional fight,
I went to a Muslim meeting.
And as soon as I heard it, I knew this is what I've been looking for all of my life.
Well, the man proved to me that I was not a Negro,
that Cassius Clay was not my name,
and I didn't know my language or my culture, my religion.
Today, few Negro leaders... militant or moderate...
feel that the Negro masses will accept the Black Muslim social doctrine.
I'm convinced that a doctrine of black supremacy...
is as dangerous as a doctrine of white supremacy.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
(MAN) Fear of the secret dark.
They are black Muslims,
a national religious cult that says it will take over the United States...
and eventually the world.
Black capitalists... they preach "build black, buy black."
The Muslims operate 47 schools of their own in the United States,
including the University of Islam in Chicago.
Growing up in the Nation of Islam was extraordinary.
We were living in a nation within a nation,
which is this nation.
Cassius Marcellus Clay came to Chicago...
to visit the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's empire.
"He said, " This Elijah Muhammad,
he called white men the devil and... I mean, that's pretty bold.
"I want to meet this powerful man."
And that's where I was at.
I was in the school, and I was 10 years old.
Clay, he was introduced to the whole masses in the auditorium.
And he stood up there and said to us...
"I'm gonna be heavyweight champion before I'm 21. So get your autographs now."
So he came to me. He says, "Hey, little girl"...
And he was scribbling his name...
I says, "Brother, I'm gonna tell you something."
And as I'm telling him this, I'm tearing up the autograph.
"And you learn who you are and you don't have the white man's name..."
the slave name, you know...
"then you can come back to me and we'll talk."
And I opened up his hand and put the paper in his hand.
And he froze. And he said,
"What? Who is she?" And I walked away.
(CROWD CHEERING)
(NO AUDIBLE DIALOGUE)
(BELL RINGS)
55,000 people came that night.
You should have seen the people. One layer.
Two layers. 10,000 on each layer. 15,000, 20,000 on some.
Four layers and a fifth layer.
People were looking down on the ring.
55,000 and Cleopatra was at ringside.
We don't believe it. The fifth round came.
(SCREAMS) I hit him.
Yeah, I said, "Come on, sucker." (SCREAMS)
And he said, "Break it up." I said, "There he is."
Let me see you close your mouth and just keep it closed.
- Well, you know that's impossible. - No, no, now keep it closed.
You know that's impossible. I'm the greatest.
And I'm knocking out all bums.
And if you get too smart, I'll knock you out.
(ABDUL RAHMAN MUHAMMAD) Cassius Clay was training for the Sonny Liston fight.
For the heavyweight championship
I wanted him to be a registered Muslim.
When you come into Islam, we write a letter...
saying we believe in the teachings.
And we put our slave name in the letter.
Those were the names the slave master had when they owned our ancestors.
So he wrote his letter and sent if off to Chicago...
and then they sent back what we called "X."
He became Cassius X.
And then the promoters, they was trying to get Ali to denounce the religion.
And they told Ali,
"You got to get rid of them Muslim kooks...
and Captain Sam"... That's me...
"and denounce that religion, otherwise there ain't gonna be no fight."
Well, Ali had been training all his life for
a fight for the heavyweight championship.
So that summer scare a man to death.
I said, "Man, don't believe that."
I said, "Money's the white man's God."
And I said, "You the only one who can make any money for 'em."
I said, "Hold to your belief."
Ali was packing up his bus to leave Miami, and they ran over there.
"Uh, where you goin', Champ?"
He said, "I'm fin to go to Louisville."
They said, "Wait a minute. The fight's on. The fight's on."
You just don't say you're a Muslim. We ain't gonna say it neither."
Ali said, "All right, I won't talk about it."
(CROWD CHEERING)
Cassius Clay had no right to be in a ring with Sonny Liston.
He had never beaten anybody of importance.
He was untried.
Jerry, I'm the greatest fighter that ever stepped foot in the ring.
But I'm getting ready to participate in the biggest fight of all time.
More money will be lost that night.
This will be the biggest upset in the century of all boxing.
I think you're a big bag of wind.
Now, just hear me out. Wait a minute. Hold it a second.
- I think that, one... - Bodyguards.
- Hold it. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I think that you're the damnedest showman that ever lived,
- and you ain't kidding anybody. - People...
Will you let me finish and shut your mouth for one minute.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Cassius, Sonny Liston said that you should be arrested for impersonating a fighter.
He said you should be turned over his knee and spanked.
The odds were 7-to-1. It's very big odds...
for a heavyweight championship fight.
(ALI) I'm just ready to fight. And I'm glad it'll be here...
where all these bigmouth people here in Miami...
talking about I talk too much and Liston's gonna whup me.
Well, I want all of them to be there. And I'm gonna shut up all of you's mouths.
The challenger from Louisville, Kentucky...
Cassius Clay.
- Clay. - Cassius Marcellus Clay, 22 years of age.
Going for all the marbles in the boxing business.
In my opinion, fights are always won with fists and not with mouth talk.
I pick Liston to win by the fifth round.
- (MAN) It has to be Liston. - (MAN #2) Liston is a much bigger puncher.
- (MAN #3) The fifth round. - (WOMAN) Oh, I think in the third.
I'm not quite sure that anything human can hurt Sonny Liston.
- (BELL RINGS) - (CROWD CHEERING)
(ANNOUNCER) Cassius Clay on the move as we see.
The right hand! The best punch of the fight so far!
(MALCOLM X) It was not a heavyweight championship fight physically.
There was more to it than that.
I looked at all of the historic things that were taking place on this Earth,
and to me, time itself was on Cassius' side.
- (CROWD CHEERING) - Seconds remaining in the sixth.
- (CROWD CHEERING) - (BELL RINGS)
The crowd now cheering the challenger.
What do you think is going on in Sonny's mind at this point?
(ANNOUNCER #2) Well, I think Sonny's beginning to worry now.
- At least his corner's beginning to worry. - (BELL RINGS)
(ANNOUNCER #1) They might be stopping it. That might be all, ladies and gentlemen.
It's a technical knockout.
Okay, get Cassius Clay... Wait! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!
(MALE REPORTER) At the black Muslims convention in Chicago,
Elijah Muhammad came closer than anyone so far in proclaiming Clay a member.
Clay has hinted that he is at least on the fringe.
Elijah Muhammad all but pushed him across.
The enemy wanted him
to come out all blasted.
They had said the he would.
Liston would tear up that pretty face of yours.
- (NO AUDIBLE DIALOGUE) - (CROWD AFFIRMING)
But Allah and myself said, "No, no"
(CHEERING)
God's with me! Can't nobody be against me!
I shook up the world!
I know God! I know the real God!
You must listen to me!
You tell it, boy. (CHUCKLES)
(LIPSYTE) The morning after, he was very subdued.
I don't have to talk no more. I done proved my point.
All I have to do is just be a nice, clean gentleman. That's all.
(LAUGHING)
(MAN) Nice, clean gentleman.
(LIPSYTE) At that moment, all the older reporters walked away.
And then one young reporter said,
"What about the rumor that you're a card-carrying Muslim?"
And he... What... You know, what does that mean?
I like everybody.
I treat everybody right.
"What about segregation?"
Don't you want to be part of the civil rights
struggle? Integration?" He said, "No."
I don't have to be what you want me to be.
I'm free to be what I want to be and think what I want to think.
(LIPSYTE) That was kind of his Declaration of Independence.
This is complete freedom, not just a cup of coffee or a seat in a school...
or a token... This is real.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad say he was too big of a man to carry that "X"...
and named him Muhammad Ali.
I remember the exact moment we told my dad and mom.
We said, "The Honorable Elijah Muhammad gave us our name".
They became very angry.
They said, "What in the world do you mean?"
My brother said, "Dad, I'm Muhammad Ali." You got to accept it.
(MAN) What does it mean?
"Muhammad" means "worthy of all praises" and "Ali" means "most high."
(LIPSYTE) At theNew York Times, the top editor felt...
we met you as Cassius Clay.
Until you go into a court of law and change your name, you are Cassius Clay.
And it really kind of bothered me.
Nobody asked John Wayne or Rock Hudson what their names were.
But I tried to slip it in when I could.
I usually ended up writing "Muhammad Ali, a.k.a. Cassius Clay."
His change of name, what did it threaten?
If he was white, they would be referring to him as the All-American boy.
(MUWAKKIL) It was an affront to many Americans...
that the heavyweight champion of the world...
would reject American identity and all of that entails...
for something as obscure and cultish as the Nation of Islam.
- (MAN) Cassius, you're... - I'm not Cassius. You still calling me...
- Or Muhammad, you're talking... - I'm not no white man.
So you want to keep calling me a white man's name. I'm not white.
I don't want to be called after your name no more.
I'm not no slave. I'm Muhammad Ali.
(KHALILAH) I was working in the bakery...
and he would go in and he would say,
"I know your name. I know your name."
And I'd say, "Well, whoop-de-do." I says that.
He says, "And I got a name of culture now. My name is Muhammad Ali."
(CROWD CHEERING)
Now that he gave me the beautiful name of Muhammad Ali...
and took away that slave name of Cassius Clay,
now I can go all over the world.
- All over the world! - (CROWD CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
Muslims all over the world who never followed boxing said,
"Ooh! Look."
There's a Muslim in America named Muhammad Ali.
Those are big, big names in the Islamic world.
His international appeal, it was vast.
Welcome.
The young people of Ghana want to welcome you.
(ALI) Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey,
they call me their champion too.
I was surprised. The whole world was watching it.
- (MAN) They sure were. - Yeah.
(MAN) What kind of impression do you try to leave...
on the nations you visit over there?
(MUHAMMAD ALI) Well, uh, just as a clean-living Muslim.
Letting them know they have hundreds and thousands of brothers here in America.
All of these are Muslim countries that I've been to.
He's in a better position than anyone else...
to restore the racial pride to not only our people in this country,
but all over the world.
- (APPLAUDING) - As-salaam alaikum.
(ALI) I've been all over into the deepest parts of Africa...
and Egypt, and everybody knows and are talking about the Muslims in America.
- Everybody. - (APPLAUDING)
And if it was not for the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad...
not bragging, but a man in my position...
that would be the last place I would go is Africa and Egypt.
The first stop would have been Paris, London, France, like the rest of them.
(CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
(DAVIDSON) He hired Elijah Muhammad's son to be his "manager."
But it was very clear that he didn't really mean
manager like the Louisville Sponsoring Group.
How many managers do you have?
Oh, I have 11 backers. I don't... I have one manager.
(DAVIDSON) They flattered him.
They treated him as a very important person, which, of course, he was.
They made him a hero.
He didn't live in Louisville anymore.
But he was never introduced as anything except from Louisville, Kentucky.
To a boxer, that's not a small thing, how you're announced.
Ali kept his word on every fight that we made for him.
And he never argued about black or white problems with us.
I think Ali probably told the Muslims
don't mess with the Louisville Sponsoring Group.
Leave them alone.
I understand that you're headed to meet with Elijah Muhammad.
- Yes, Sir. Having dinner with him. - Uh-huh.
One of the main reasons is your friendship with Malcolm X.
- He's a friend of yours now, isn't he? - Yeah. He is a brother of mine.
- He's my brother. Whatever he do, he's my brother. - Uh-huh.
Now that he's split away from the...
I don't know about splitting. I'll have to see the higher authority on that.
(MAN) There's been great publicity given to the fact...
that heavyweight champion Cassius Clay is one of your followers.
Well, Cassius is following Elijah Muhammad.
And, uh, I'm no longer a follower of Elijah Muhammad myself.
And I think that the black Muslim movement,
if it doesn't adopt the Sunni practice of Islam,
that it will disintegrate and fall apart.
There's no organization in this country...
that could do more for the struggling black man...
than the black Muslim movement if it wanted to.
But it has gotten into the possession...
of a man who's become senile,
and then he has surrounded himself by his children...
who are now in power and want nothing but luxury...
and will do anything to safeguard their own interests.
People like myself and Ali, we were in the valley of decision.
Should I follow a man that taught me...
or should I follow the teacher of the man who taught me?
Elijah Muhammad called all of his officials...
national officials to Chicago in October...
and ordered them to kill or maim any of his followers...
who leave him to follow me.
Does this split disturb you that's been reported?
No. What Malcolm X does is his business. He's one man.
(MUWAKKIL) Muhammad Ali chose to go with the establishment, so to speak.
(MAN) Elijah Muhammad has given his blessing to a new recruiter...
Cassius Muhammad Ali Clay.
(ALL) We are the greatest!
(MAN) Clay is no Malcolm X,
but he has become an idol for youngsters.
(MUWAKKIL) A lot of Malcolmites who were following Malcolm...
were really not equally attracted to the Nation of Islam.
They were attracted to Malcolm's audacity, his eloquence...
and his vision, which, in some ways,
elaborated the vision of the Nation of Islam.
I pray that God will bless you in everything that you do.
I pray that you will grow intellectually...
so that you can understand the problems of the world...
and where you fit into in that world picture.
(SIREN WAILING)
(MAN) He's a hero to me. He stood out among all black people.
He showed the white man where it was at.
(MAN) Who do you believe is responsible for Malcolm X's death?
The white power structure is America is behind it.
And they're quick to capitalize on it by saying that one of his own kind did it.
But they put it up to be done.
Now, I give him credit for the good work he done when he was with the Nation of Islam.
We didn't have nobody better.
But Elijah Muhammad made him.
When Malcolm was a good man...
preaching the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,
I would have gave my life for him.
But when he turned viciously...
against the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,
if I could have got ahold of him, I might have killed him myself.
But we didn't kill him. 'Cause you know why?
Because we took orders from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
He told us not to touch him. Let him just go.
Malcolm is the victim of his own preaching.
He preached violence, and so he become the victim of it.
(RAHAMAN) So many things have been said wrong about Malcolm X.
Malcolm X was a very nice person.
The Bible says "He without sin cast the first Stone."
That's a strong statement.
(SIRENS WAILING)
(RADIO DISPATCHER, INDISTINCT)
(LIPSYTE) The night that Malcolm X was killed,
there was a fire in Ali's apartment.
The implication was that it was arson.
That it was some sort of revenge.
Uh, I don't know.
I think there's no question that Ali had to have been scared himself.
Malcolm, in many ways,
was a more important political figure than Muhammad Ali.
I mean, if you could waste him, you could certainly waste Ali.
He was still just a boxer.
I feel for his life because the condition the world is in today.
And, uh, you never know what's going to happen...
when you're in public life like he is.
And I'm much concerned about the fire that started in his apartment.
And I do wish that he would withdraw from this movement...
because I am awful worried about him.
We raised him to be a Christian...
and took him to church every Sunday when he was small...
on up till he got out, you know, in the world on his own.
And then he got in this organization which we do not approve of at all.
(MAN) Your mother was quoted yesterday in Louisville as saying...
that she felt you ought to leave the Muslim movement.
- How do you feel about... - It's natural for a mother to be worried about her son...
with the press writing all of these things about somebody's life's in danger.
You know how the press can blow things up...
and make it look like we in a war with some black people.
We not at war with nobody.
(ALI) And I'm walking the streets daily by myself.
And, uh, if anybody want me, they can find me.
Malcolm X and anybody else who attacks, uh...
talks about attacking Elijah Muhammad will die.
No man can oppose the message of Almighty God, uh, verbally or physically...
and get away with it.
Floyd Patterson didn't think that there should be a Muslim heavyweight champion.
Refused to call Ali by his new name.
(PATTERSON) Cassius Clay doesn't fully understand...
what the black Muslim stands for.
It's like the Ku Klux Klan.
I think that hurts the championship quite a bit.
(ALI) Oh, I'm gonna have to give him a good whipping.
And I have entitled it "A Floyd Patterson Humiliation Punishment."
- (BELL RINGS) - (CHEERING)
(MUWAKKIL) Floyd was kind of a hero to us at one point.
You know, a black heavyweight champion is always a big hit in the black community.
But when he came up against Muhammad Ali,
he was fighting the fight of America...
doing the job of slaying the militant Negro.
(LIPSYTE) I was at the Floyd Patterson fight.
The man was bent over like somebody with osteoporosis.
He couldn't really defend himself. The fight should have been stopped.
One or two good combinations and he'd be gone.
I think he carried Floyd Patterson just so that he could inflict the punishment.
(ANNOUNCER) The champion continues to be on target.
(LIPSYTE) It was disgusting.
(MUWAKKIL) Muhammad Ali had prolonged the punishment...
to make sure Patterson understood his offense.
It perfectly harmonized with our feelings about Floyd Patterson.
So Muhammad Ali became even more heroic.
(CROWD CHEERING)
It was a truly terrible moment in boxing,
as was the way he took apart Ernie Terrell.
I don't usually make predictions,
but I see Clay with such limited ability...
that I'm predicting that I will knock him out.
My name is Muhammad Ali, and you will announce
it right there in the center of that ring...
after the fight if you don't do it now.
You are acting just like an old Uncle Tom.
(LIPSYTE) In this age of beatification of Muhammad Ali,
we forget just how great a fighter he was.
And I don't think it's possible to be a great
fighter unless you have a mean streak.
He had it.
(ANNOUNCER) Ali continues to scream at Terrell.
(FARRAKHAN) He beat the hell out of those
who didn't want to use his name.
"My name is Muhammad Ali. What's my name?" Bam, Bam, Bam.
(CHUCKLES)
- (BELL RINGS) - (ANNOUNCER) And that's the bell.
Ali continues his taunts.
Ali was exemplifying a freedom...
that most black people did not enjoy.
(CROWD JEERING)
(FARRAKHAN) So that made him loved by some and hated by others.
There's a rule in boxing. They say this fella has a killer instinct...
or he don't have a killer instinct.
But I call it aggressive... aggressive instinct.
Uh, we're not out to kill nobody.
I don't know if my conscience would let me live if I even killed someone.
This is really war.
It is guided by North Vietnam.
Its goal is to defeat American power.
(LIPSYTE) Muhammad Ali gets a phone call.
And he runs in, answers the phone,
comes back and he is wild.
And he tells me that he had just been reclassified 1-A.
(ALI) And another thing I don't understand...
is why me, a man who pays the salary of at least 50,000 men in Vietnam,
a man who the government takes six million dollars from a year out in two fights,
a man who can pay, in two fights, for three bomber planes,
why would you take and seek out and be anxious...
to call me out of 30 men who you could have called?
And I'm fighting for the government every day.
In other words, you think they called you only
because you're the heavyweight champion...
And a Muslim too. Ever since I've joined the Muslim religion,
I've been catching hell from here...
(LIPSYTE) Somebody said, "So, you could be drafted..."
and you're gonna go in the army and you're gonna go to Vietnam...
and you're gonna be on the front lines...
and you're gonna have to kill Vietcong.
"I mean, how do you feel about all of this?"
And he said, "I ain't got nothing against them Vietcong."
I mean, that... that was carved in the Stone facade of history.
And then later on,
it was embellished...
"I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong."
"No Vietcong ever called me nigger."
I'm asking you if you apologize for the unpatriotic remarks that you made.
I'm not apologizing for nothing like that because I don't have to.
I'm just apologizing for what I said to the newspapers and to the press.
- Mr. Clay... - Muhammad Ali, Sir.
- Or Mr. Muhammad Ali, either one. - Yes, Sir. Just Muhammad Ali.
When you appeared before this commission before,
if I recall correctly,
- you said you were the people's champion? - Yes, Sir.
Do you think that you're acting like a people's champion?
Yes, Sir.
Members of the group went to various reserve units, uh, in the community...
to see whether or not they would take him in in the National Guard...
or the Navy Reserve or whatever.
They all said they would.
We felt that he would be a Joe Louis.
Joe Louis served and never carried a gun.
But he boxed, wore the uniform...
and did a fine service to his country.
(KHALIHAH) I got a call and Ali said,
"If I went to war, I would probably be in one of them boxing things like Joe Louis.
I wouldn't be really fighting in the war."
I says, "That's not the point."
You have to understand that once you sign your name to that army,
then you are their slave forever.
Okay?
So just say hell no, you ain't gonna go.
Rhyme it. Do what you do best.
Those people over there in Vietnam did not lynch you,
did not break up your family.
Those Vietnamese people are your brothers.
This was a wrongful war.
War is wrong. Period.
"War is made from the devil."
I was sitting in my office in Louisville and the phone rang...
and it was Angelo Dundee.
And he said the champ is gonna announce he's gonna be a conscientious objector,
and he's not gonna take that step forward.
And I said, "Oh." (CHUCKLES)
I said, uh, "I'll be right up there."
The conscientious objector thing was a complete shock.
A conscientious objector, as a matter of law,
was that if you believed that you should not kill somebody or carry a weapon...
or participate in an activity which would result in death,
that you did not have to serve.
I personally told him...
that this was gonna cost him millions of dollars.
And then I went over, chapter and verse,
the contracts that were on my desk to be signed...
would not be offered to him again.
(ABDUL RAHMAN MUHAMMAD) If he had not become Muhammad Ali,
he'd have been Cassius Clay,
and he would have went into that army.
'Cause he asked me straight up.
He said, "What would you do if you was in my shoes?"
I said, "I'd do what Elijah Muhammad done."
He said, "What would he did?" I said, "He went to jail."
(FARRAKHAN) Elijah Muhammad went to prison for five years.
For sedition and draft dodging,
they called it.
He set the standard.
(DAVIDSON) The contract with the.
Louisville Sponsoring Group was expiring.
The group... they were disappointed,
and one or two didn't want to be affiliated with...
It was more of the draft business than it was the Muslim business.
Although that was part of it.
He called all members to say thanks and shake hands,
and au revoir. (CHUCKLES)
(ALI) And I will say here boldly now on television...
no.
I will not go 10,000 miles from here...
to help murder and kill another poor people...
simply to continue the domination...
of white slave masters over the darker people of the Earth.
(FARRAKHAN) You fight when you have something to fight for.
But what are we fighting for?
To tell me that I'm fighting for America...
and her way of life.
What is her way of life?
To come back home to injustice...
with all these medals on our chest?
Hell, no.
Mr. Muhammad Ali has just refused to be inducted...
into the United States Armed Forces.
Notification of his refusal is being made to the United States Attorney...
and the local Selective Service Board...
for whatever action deem to be appropriate.
(MAN) And so it is all over for the heavyweight
champion of the world, Muhammad Ali.
What happens now to his title?
He will doubtless be stripped of it...
by every state boxing commission in this country...
and by the World Boxing Association.
All type of moves have been made against me...
that's never been made before in the history of boxing.
Regardless of the ultimate disposition of his case legally,
he will no longer be the champion.
Well, now that they've taken Cassius Clay's title away, do you think they should have?
Well, I don't know. I think they should, yes.
I think that any man who don't wanna fight for his country,
I don't think he should have the honor of being champion.
The tragedy to me is...
that Cassius has made millions of dollars off of the American public.
And now he's not willing to show his appreciation.
Hurts the morale of a lot of
young Negro soldiers over in Vietnam.
(MAN) You won't fight for your country?
- You refuse to go into the... - I'm a minister. My religion.
This country has laws for ministers.
- Are you an ordained minister? - By my leader.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Almighty God Allah fights battles for us.
We are forbidden to carry anything like a weapon.
We are peaceful people.
(MAN) Do you think there's anything wrong...
in someone like Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali, in refusing induction?
Yes, Sir, I certainly do.
- Why? - 'Cause he's no better than the rest of us.
I got a wife and three kids I'd like to stay here with,
but if they need me, I reckon I'll go.
Simply because Muhammad Ali has these beliefs,
there's no reason why people should go against him.
It took an all-white jury less than a half hour...
to find Muhammad Ali guilty of all charges and specifications.
He was sentenced to the maximum five years in prison...
and was fined $10,000.
(MUWAKKIL) To have a heavyweight champion refuse to be inducted,
that was almost blasphemous.
(MAN) This would mean, of course, that you stand the chance of going to jail...
as a result of not going into service.
Well, whatever the punishment,
whatever the persecution is for standing up for my religious beliefs,
even if it mean facing machine gun fire that day,
I will face it before denouncing Elijah Muhammad and the religion of Islam.
I'm ready to die.
(KHALILAH) I was happy that this black man, he actually stood up...
and did what a Muslim would do.
And that took a lot of balls.
And he would come into my...
He would try to, you know... try to get to me, but he couldn't.
And he would be trying to look for me.
But by us having all the white unis on,
he had to try to look at your face because he couldn't tell.
So he would always eye at me in the mosque...
and keep his eyes and all that... you know, flirting like.
I knew he was mine. He was mine then.
(ABDUL BEY MUHAMMAD) When I find out that's who he was gonna Marry,
I jumped for Joy.
(ABDUL RAHMAN MUHAMMAD) It was a big blessing to him. She was a virgin.
To Marry a virgin...
I said, "Boy, you hit the jackpot." That's what I told him.
And she was young and pretty.
Khalilah... one of a kind. She's the female Muhammad Ali.
Sweet, kind, good lady.
He loved the fact that I stuck with him when he didn't have anything.
I tried to keep everything positive...
and started a family, and that was a good thing.
- (CRYING) - I'm not having no trouble out of you.
There ain't but one big mouth in this family.
(KHALILAH) I said, "Brother, let me tell you something."
If you keep your body in shape and keep your mind clear, you will win this fight."
The government fight has cost nearly some $200,000...
plus my living expenses... my mother, my father, my brother, my wife, my children.
(MAN) Boxing commissions around the country wouldn't sanction his fights.
I'm just about broke. I'm not allowed to work here now in America.
I'm not allowed to leave America.
Is there any chance of you boxing?
I really don't know.
One day we might. I'm not too sure.
(MAN) I tried to get him back into the ring...
and get governors to allow him to fight in their state.
Alabama.
Utah.
Jackson, Mississippi.
The white man told me to get back on the airplane.
I tried Alcatraz Island.
I tried every place that I could think of.
(MAN) The only answer to the beleaguerments of Muhammad Ali...
might be the stripped jet plane sailing above all local jurisdictions...
with two fighters and 200 fans.
They had tried to put a ring inside a 757.
(MAN) Wilt, there's been rumors that you are ready to fight Cassius Clay.
Are any of these rumors true?
(CHAMBERLAIN) Actually fighting Muhammad Ali was not a rumor.
That was a plan. But right now it's all down the drain.
We start doing the speaking engagements.
(LIPSYTE) That was the circuit that really sustained him.
He got paid.
(ALI) Black and white are opposite of one another.
The opposite of good is bad.
The opposite of hot is cold.
(LIPSYTE) In the beginning, he was terrible.
And the opposite of black is white.
He would go into Muslim dogma.
What is it that the Muslims believe?
Number one, we're gonna say a few things on what the Muslims want.
Remember, he was 12 years old...
when he committed himself to boxing.
Suddenly, you're in this tunnel of your talent.
You just concentrate on being this great boxer, which he became.
You wave through so many of the tollbooths of life.
So now suddenly, it's 1967.
He has refused to step forward.
He's 25 years old.
He's out on his own. He's on college campuses.
He thought all these kids were really smart kids out there.
They were going to ask him really tough questions,
which, to a great extent, they did.
In time of peace, would you allow yourself to be drafted?
- Would you? - Yes, Sir.
Why?
Do you think that the United States will eventually separate...
into two different societies, black and white?
Well, the latest government fact-finding committee...
said that this is what it's coming to be...
and this is what it's shaping up to be.
I'd like to ask you why you're still a Muslim...
since it's a far-gone conclusion that the Muslim... Muslims...
or two or three... I don't know which...
did assassinate Malcolm X.
Anybody that'd assassinate anybody...
or anybody that carry weapons are not Muslims.
A Muslim wouldn't carry a weapon,
and a Muslim wouldn't assassinate nobody.
(KHALILAH) Muslims have always been under surveillance all our lives.
You see, Elijah Muhammad has taught us about Big Brother.
Brother Government was always watching us...
to find anything they can to put these Muslims down or out.
They're there waiting for that moment.
(WINSTON) I did a lot of those spots with Ali.
He got exposure, being free.
And away from being coached,
I just watched him grow up to become a man.
Well, I would say Black Power would be the same thing to me that White Power is,
but leave out the brutality.
- (MURMURING) - Like this is White Power...
your own schools, your airports, your jet planes.
Being independent and not dependent on others.
Building your own houses, factories and hospitals.
I think that he's teaching the black people
to hate white, and I think that's very wrong.
I was opposed to his views before he came here,
and I still am opposed to his views...
because I feel if he wants American rights,
then he should assume responsibility of the draft.
(KHALILAH) Somebody would come out of nowhere...
and say, "You draft-dodger nigger, go home."
Well, he didn't like that at all.
I said, "We have to do this for a living, man."
Don't worry about what people say about you. You got to keep going."
And then he'd talk back at me and says,
"You're not out there getting embarrassed. I'm out there getting embarrassed.
What would you do if somebody did that to you?"
I'm not gonna help nobody get something that Negroes don't have.
If I'm gonna die, I'll die now right here fighting you.
You my enemy.
My enemy is the white people, not Vietcong or Chinese or Japanese.
You my opposer when I want freedom.
You my opposer when I want justice.
You my opposer when I want equality.
You won't even stand up for me in America for my religious beliefs,
and you want me to go somewhere and fight,
but you won't even stand up for me here at home.
(MURMURING, CHATTERING)
(KHALILAH) The exiled years was the worst years...
of me and Ali's life.
(ABDUL RAHMAN MUHAMMAD) In Islam we feel like we're being attacked unjustly.
We feel like there's a trial period for us,
and if we stand on righteousness and truth,
God gonna bring us through it.
And that's the way I saw Ali.
I suffered with my brother. He suffered. I suffered. We're like that.
I felt the way he felt.
I share my brother's pain. I share his...
You got to forgive me.
I'm very emotional when it comes to this.
He paid the price.
(SOBS)
He did what he had to do.
He's the champ.
- (SIREN WAILING) - (GUNSHOTS)
The country was beginning to pull apart.
(MUWAKKIL) This was a time when the ideals of rebellion were spreading.
Urban insurrections and violence were popping out in cities across the country.
(MAN) Violence is a part of America's culture.
It is as American as Cherry pie.
America taught the black people to be violent.
We will use that violence to rid ourselves of oppression if necessary.
When the white race attack the black people,
you don't ask us what's our religion or what's our belief.
You just start whupping black heads.
They don't say are you a Catholic, are you a Baptist,
are you a black Muslim, are you a Martin Luther King follower,
are you with Whitney Young.
They just go... (IMITATING KNOCKING)
There is no need for us to go anywhere and fight for democracy.
We working for our liberation, and it's gonna be in this country.
And what we gonna say across this country,
from Muhammad Ali to a little black boy in Cardozo High School,
"Hell, no. We won't go."
(APPLAUSE, CHEERS)
(CHANTING) Hell, no! We won't go!
(ALI) I'm not here to talk and say I don't agree with Stokely.
I don't agree with Rap Brown.
We're all black people who are fighting for freedom, justice and equality.
Everybody have their approach. One man believe in integrating.
One day we all be white, he say. Look like white people after 200 years.
One believes that education and politics will solve it.
One believes shooting and looting and burning up the country will solve it.
One man believes integration will solve it.
And we believe separation, somewhere to ourselves, will solve it.
You were quoted as saying on one occasion, "All whites are devils."
- But that's not true, is it? - Elijah Muhammad teaches us...
that God told him that all whites are devils.
Well, God was wrong on that occasion, wasn't he?
- You don't... - I believe every word of it.
- But you don't actually believe that all
- whites are devils. - I believe every word...
Yes, Sir. I believe everything he preach.
- I mean, I just... - You said "all," didn't you?
- Yeah. I'm trying... - I really believe that all white people are devils.
I'm not gonna be no phony. I done gave up $10 million in fighting.
I'll go to jail for five years.
And you think I'm gonna get on this TV show and deny what I believe?
- No. - I believe every bit of it.
From my point of view,
what Elijah Muhammad is doing to you is diseasing your mind.
And you have the nerve to be on a TV show...
and look at me like I'm wrong...
for saying, Elijah Muhammad is poisoning you...
by telling you that we're your enemies.
And I feel it and see it every day.
And every black man watching this show know you our enemies,
and you have the nerve to stand up here...
and say Elijah Muhammad is poisoning my mind.
He cannot teach us that you our enemy. You taught us.
(KHALILAH) And Ali liked intimidating you, pissing you off.
He loved that. That's his comfort zone.
And when you're in your comfort zone,
nobody in the world can penetrate you,
and you can be who you wanna be.
I'd like to start off by saying, As-salaam alaikum.
(ALL) Wa alaikum.
Ooh. You all...
- I didn't know you all knew that up here. - (LAUGHTER)
Within a year of this,
he was a much more attractive character.
(ALI) And once you find out who you are,
then you're start saying, "I am the greatest."
(LAUGHTER)
To those people who think that I lost so much...
by not taking the step,
I haven't lost one thing.
I have gained a lot.
- (APPLAUSE) - Number one...
- (APPLAUSE STOPS) - Number one, I have gained a peace of mind.
- (WOMAN) Yeah! - (APPLAUSE)
I have gained a peace of heart.
I now know that I'm in content...
with Almighty God himself.
(Martin Luther King, Jr.) And there are those who are seeking...
to equate dissent with disloyalty.
It is my hope...
that every young man in this country...
who finds this war objectionable and abominable and unjust...
would file as a conscientious objector.
And no matter what you think...
of Mr. Muhammad Ali's religion,
you certainly have to admire his courage.
(ALI) Our great leaders like Martin Luther King, to bump him off.
And when the white man can just bump us off like nothing,
then what chance does the common man have?
He just don't care. He sees no future...
because his hope, his inspiration are wiped out like nothing.
Muhammad Ali's making statements about what was happening in his life and his world...
in this society in which we live,
and you gonna crucify him and take his means to support his family away?
Oh, it was wrong. Simple as that.
(ANNOUNCER) The United States leads the Olympics in medal awards...
and is just about supreme in the sprint races,
thanks to men like Tommie Smith and John Carlos.
They came in first and third.
(CARLOS) Any time they have an Olympic Games...
or any time they do a national anthem at a football game,
that's politics right there.
We felt that as young individual athletes...
that we could make a significant difference in society.
I said, "Look, Tommie, I wanna make a statement."
♪ (Star-Spangled Banner)
"Let's put a black glove on and say although we're proud to be Americans,
we're prouder to be black Americans."
I had a black shirt on to cover up my U.S.A...
because I was ashamed of America...
the way America has been all these years.
We have a great history in this country.
But at the same time, we have a history that we should be ashamed of.
The number-one statement in my mind...
was to have Muhammad Ali vindicated from all the nonsense, negativities...
that they try and put around him...
and give him the right to be the champion that he deserve.
(CARMICHAEL) Wanna let the whole world know...
that we are going to pick our heroes from today on.
And brother Tommie Smith, brother John Carlos...
join the rank of brother Muhammad Ali...
because we want black people who are concerned
with us first and with sports second.
- Yeah! - (WOMAN) Yea!
When you refused to be drafted,
do you think that it set a Mark in history...
as one black person who just out and out refused to...
Many have done it before me, but they were not famous cases.
And I just don't think I should go 10,000 miles from here...
and shoot some black people who never called me "nigger,"
never lynched me, never put dogs on me,
never raped my mama, enslaved me...
and deprived me of freedom, justice and equality.
And he's black too. I just can't shoot him.
And with this in mind, and plus my religious beliefs too,
which is the legal reason I'm not going,
I just can't go over there and shoot them people...
and come back home I'm still a nigger.
It has been said that I have two alternatives...
either go to jail or go to the army.
But I would like to say that there is another alternative.
And that alternative is justice.
(MAN) I came to work for Justice Harlan...
in the summer of 1970,
which during the term I was there...
that the Vietnam Veterans Against the War...
sat in on the steps of the Supreme Court.
(CHANTING) No!
(CHANTING, INDISTINCT)
There was controversy...
just surrounding every corner of life.
- Black Power! - (SHOUTING, INDISTINCT)
Ship all niggers back!
It was during that year that Clay against United States...
came up to the Supreme Court.
The justices probably thought Ali wouldn't win.
He could argue about it, but he had a fair shot below...
when reasonable judges had said no.
And he didn't present any unique or unusual issues,
and so they were just gonna let the case go away.
As they were about to announce,
the solicitor general came in and said...
we just learned that there was an illegal wiretap...
during which the F.B.I. overheard Muhammad Ali talking to Reverend Martin Luther King.
We are all victims of the same system of oppression.
And even though we may have different religious beliefs,
this does not at all bring about a difference in terms of our concerns.
We're still brothers.
(KRATTENMAKER) So they just did what was routine in those days.
We're sending this back down to the trial judge...
to determine whether anything needs to be done.
I didn't think it would take so long... three and a half years...
but I did think he would be back.
And he was always doing something interesting.
He was in a Broadway show, Big Time Buck White.
- (APPLAUSE) - It was wonderful and terrible.
You know, I first came here some 400 long years ago.
Yes. Right on, Big Time.
- I came as a first-class passenger... - Yes!
On a cold, nasty, muddy, wet prison of death.
- Yes! Yes! - A slave ship.
♪ We came in chains ♪
Yeah!
- ♪ We came in misery ♪ - Uh-huh.
♪ Now all our suffering and pains are part of history ♪
Right on!
- ♪ We came in chains ♪ - Oh, yes!
(MAN) Do you feel in a way that you're not really acting up there?
No, I'm not acting at all. I'm real.
We may have a little music in the background,
but everything that I do, I look at it as being real.
♪ Chains, chains, chains ♪
♪ We came in chains ♪
♪ Four hundred years ♪
♪ No justice No freedom No equality ♪
♪ Worked from sunup to sundown ♪
♪ 1970, still in chains ♪
♪ Financial chains Economical chains ♪
♪ Chains, chains, chains ♪
♪ America chains ♪
♪ Chains Look at these chains ♪
♪ Chains ♪
(CHEERING)
(ANNOUNCER) Meanwhile, a group of Atlanta blacks and whites...
managed to get Clay a license and bring the fight to Atlanta.
No other city has done this.
We put Mr. Clay, Muhammad Ali, back into the ring.
I don't see how this fight could take place...
anywhere in the United States of America...
by a man that has denounced his country's uniform...
and refused to be inducted.
There are no state laws in Georgia...
covering the boxing industry.
We have secured from the city of Atlanta the boxing permit, the license.
We've covered everything.
Muhammad Ali, or Cassius Clay, or both...
will return to the boxing ring in Atlanta, Georgia.
Governor Maddox does not like it.
But he can't stop it.
I've called for a day of mourning because of this,
that this tragic thing has happened in this United States of America...
where men have fought so long and their wives and children have sacrificed so much.
(ANNOUNCER) But there are a lot of people who feel as Governor Maddox does.
But Clay has his license and will fight.
Your greatest trial may not be in the ring.
It may be with the American public,
most of whom deeply resent your stance with regard to military induction.
(KRATTENMAKER) Because Ali was such a visible public figure,
Justice Brennan thought we just can't let a case like this go...
without explaining why.
So we caught the case on the bounce back.
The Supreme Court agreed today to review
heavyweight fighter Muhammad Ali's conviction...
for refusing induction into the army.
Ali claims he cannot be drafted for religious reasons,
and now the high court will decide whether he's right.
Is your client a pacifist?
A pacifist is, uh... is... is, uh, strict language.
A pacifist means, um... uh, a Quaker,
one who does not engage in any kind of violence.
It would hardly classify him as a pacifist.
Of course there's this incredible irony...
that you have this big, powerful heavyweight champion of the world...
saying he's a conscientious objector.
Justice Thurgood Marshall recused himself from the case.
He was largely removing himself from any case...
where the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund,
of which he used to be the head, was representing a party.
The fact that Marshall was not in the case...
meant there were only eight justices.
So there was always the risk that this case would come out 4-4.
If the justices vote 4-4, the decision below is affirmed.
Ali would go to jail.
(MAN) Earlier this year Ali began retempering the steel...
that lay beneath the starchy lecture-circuit lunches.
(ALI) All this is to me is a job.
It means that I have a chance to earn a living and take care of my family.
That's all it means to me.
(ANNOUNCER) In exhibitions like this,
sometimes he floated like a butterfly in galoshes.
But there were moments when a live youth...
broke through the Rusty layers.
(ALI) Many critics say it's impossible...
for a man to be off three years and a half...
and with a six-week notice be in shape.
It's impossible for him to have his wind, his timing, his speed and his legs.
People are wondering what can I do,
and we won't know until the pressure's put on me.
(MAN) A man should be entitled to do his job.
He was convicted of a felony, but he's not in jail.
And as long as he's free,
he should be entitled to make his living.
(ANNOUNCER) Win or lose, he's got the appeal of his conviction to worry about...
and the possibility of five years in prison.
(GRUNTING)
Time!
(KRATTENMAKER) When the case was argued to the justices,
almost all the analysis turned on the question...
of whether he was a selective conscientious objector.
That is, he had a conscientious objection to this war but not another one.
There is in this record a basis, in fact,
for the conclusion...
that the petitioner's objection,
though religious, is selective.
- As-salaam alaikum. - Wa as-salaam.
(GRISWOLD) That he is, in fact, oppose to fighting...
what he regards as "the white man's wars,"
although having no religious or conscientious scruples...
against participation in war...
which would defend the black man's interests.
The court voted 5-3 against Ali.
It was all over but the writing.
Metaphorically, Ali had one foot and three toes in prison.
The Chief justice assigned the opinion to Justice Harlan.
Justice Harlan... he was in very good health, with one exception.
His eyesight was horrible.
He had had something that was like a stroke of the eyes.
Part of the job of being Justice Harlan's law clerk was to read to him.
And I told Justice Harlan...
I might have said it more times than is really polite...
"When you go back and you read The Message to the Blackman... ".
Every one of you should have this book in your study.
"And you read The Autobiography of Malcolm X,"
the Nation of Islam people were saying...
if Allah summons us to war, then we will go to war.
If you really took the law literally seriously,
you cannot distinguish Jehovah's Witnesses from the Nation of Islam...
"on this particular issue."
And so we've got legal precedent.
What the Supreme Court had said about the Jehovah's Witnesses...
was even though they're willing to fight...
in some hypothetical war declared by God,
it doesn't mean that you're not a conscientious objector.
Congress meant to exempt people who, in good conscience,
couldn't participate in a person-to-person bombs-and-bullets war.
"We believe that we who declare ourselves to be righteous Muslims...
shall not participate in wars which take the lives of human beings."
(KRATTENMAKER) Justice Harlan sent a memorandum
essentially saying,
"Now that I've look more carefully at the record,".
I think we were wrong in our vote,
"and I am voting to reverse the conviction."
And now we had a problem.
How are we going to keep staffing that war machine...
if it turns out that everybody who joins the Nation of Islam...
gets a free pass out of the draft?
In war, the intention is to kill, kill, kill, kill...
- and continue killing innocent people. - (APPLAUSE)
But there is one hell of a lot of difference...
in fighting in the ring and going to war in Vietnam.
(Announcer On P.A.) From Louisville, Kentucky,
return of the champion,
Muhammad Ali.
- (CHEERING) - (BELL RINGS)
(LIPSYTE) The Quarry fight was really exciting outside the ring.
(WINSTON) Everybody who was somebody came to that fight.
Cadillacs, gangster style.
Cats with minks and diamonds.
It was the fight night.
(ANNOUNCER) That left jab is finding its Mark.
(LIPSYTE) It was a total explosion of blackness...
from the highest levels of civil rights...
I want to say that you're not only our champion in the boxing area,
but you're also a champion of justice and peace and human dignity.
Thank you.
You're the living example of soul power.
This was the March on Washington all in two fists.
- Thank you. - Thank you. You're so kind.
(KRATTENMAKER) Ali's case exposed...
how awkward the legal system was...
and how arbitrary and capricious it was in many respects.
Justice Stewart dug further into the record...
and found an obscure technical point...
on which the court could reverse Ali's conviction.
But this ground for reversal applied only to Muhammad Ali.
It didn't apply to anybody else.
The technicality was that the government had denied Ali due process of law.
At the first stage of this case,
the government had told the Louisville draft board...
that not only was Ali not opposed to all wars...
but that he was insincere in claiming this.
Then when they got to the Supreme Court,
Justice Douglas, at the very end of the oral argument by the government,
turned to the solicitor general and said...
(Justice William O. Douglas) "You don't question his sincerity?"
No, Mr. Justice, we do not.
(KRATTENMAKER) That's a denial of due process.
The government isn't allowed to tell a judge Ali was insincere...
and the next day sincere...
in order to sustain a conviction.
This little procedural point turning this big case into a peewee case...
immediately got you five votes,
and other people then started coming over to the opinion.
So the final outcome was a unanimous victory.
They wrote a case that, insofar as precedent is concerned...
the way I say it... is so thin...
that if you turn it sideways, it doesn't even cast a shadow.
(ANNOUNCER) The Supreme Court ruled 8-0 today...
that Muhammad Ali is indeed sincere...
in his Muslim beliefs against war.
That overturns Ali's conviction for refusing induction...
and removes the threat of five years in jail.
When Ali heard the news, he said, "Thanks be to Allah."
I was on 79th Street on the south side...
and just bought me an orange in a grocery store.
And the grocery owner came out and grabbed me and hugged me with tears in his eyes...
a little black fella... and told me that
you've just been vindicated and you're free.
Eight judges all voted in your favor.
Only God did it, buddy.
The God of heaven and Earth, these stars.
He changed hearts.
Whew!
Hit me hard.
Well, all I have to say is what's concerning my case.
I don't know what's happening to this moment.
I don't know who will be assassinated tonight.
I don't know who will be enslaved or mistreated.
I don't who will be deprived of some other justice or equality.
Well, I think everybody's looking for truth.
Everybody's trying to find himself.
People sit back now in their old age...
and reflect on the crossroads of their life. "Did I make the right choices?"
Muhammad Ali stood fast and never denied what he stood for.
(WOMAN) The first time that I understood the importance
of who my father was,
I was around three years old.
We had to be lifted out some way of this massive crowd.
People were crying. They were on their knees. They had their hands crossed.
(LIPSYTE) In a strange sort of way,
I don't think that he totally transcended boxing...
until he went back to boxing,
until he went back on that platform.
(ANNOUNCER) This is an incredible scene.
The place is going wild.
Muhammad Ali has won! Muhammad Ali has won!
(HANA) Naturally when you're young,
you want your father all to yourself.
My father would go off on trips,
going to China or Libya or wherever,
and I would cry.
He said to me one time, "You know, Hana, I'm your daddy,"
but I'm also the daddy to the world."
And I said, "You're not my daddy. You're Muhammad Ali."
Whenever he would leave, he was Muhammad Ali.
(ALI) I'll always gonna be one black one...
who got big on your white televisions,
on your white newspapers, on your satellites...
and 100% stay with and represent my people.
That was my purpose, and that's why I'm happy.
I'm here, and I'm showing the world...
that you can be here and still free and stay yourself...
and get respect from the world.
(MUWAKKIL) When Elijah Muhammad died in '75,
the decision of the leadership was to name Wallace Muhammad, Elijah's son,
as the new leader.
We've arrived here. The trip was successful.
He began to change the Nation to something more akin to traditional Islam.
Less attention to black nationalism.
Less attention to race.
Muhammad Ali became a follower of Wallace Muhammad.
Most members went along with them at first.
And then eventually, people in the Nation convinced.
Louis Farrakhan to break away...
and reform Elijah Muhammad's race-oriented version.
And that's been that way ever since.
In the early days of the religion, they have black separatism.
In those days, you were the devil.
The white man was the devil. That's right.
Ali was constantly evolving,
constantly growing...
from the narrow view...
of the Nation of Islam in its infancy...
to the broad universal view...
of Islam in its fullest development.
That's Ali.
(ALI) I'm a Muslim,
and I'm against killing, violence,
and all Muslims are against it.
I think the people should know the real truth about Islam.
And I wouldn't be here to represent Islam...
if it was really like the terrorists made it look.
I think that all the people should know the truth...
and come to recognize the truth because Islam is peace.
(ABDUL RAHMAN MUHAMMAD) Ali... he has made more people examine Islam.
And they find that Islam ain't what the government...
and the enemies of Islam trying to make it out to be.
(MUWAKKIL) Since 9/11,
Islam has acquired so many layers and dimensions and textures.
When the Nation of Islam was considered as a threatening religion,
traditional Islam was seen as a gentle alternative.
- (CHANTING) - And now quite the contrary.
The Nation of Islam is seen as a tame domestic version...
and traditional Islam is seen as the threatening thing.
Muhammad Ali occupies a weird kind of place...
in that shifting interpretation of Islam.
(KHALILAH) He'll always be the greatest fighter ever.
But I just outgrew him.
My father's first marriage was to Sonji Roi,
and it didn't last long, about a year.
His second wife, he had four kids with.
(MOUTHING WORDS)
His third wife, Veronica Porsche, my mother,
he had myself and my sister, Laila.
And his current wife, Lonnie,
they adopted together one child.
And my father has two children by women he was not married to.
So there's nine of us, and we're one big happy family...
'cause he brought us together in the summers every year.
Probably drove my mother crazy and everybody else crazy. We had a ball.
(KHALILAH) I see him at certain family events.
It hurts sometimes to look at him too long.
I can be around for a few minutes and then I have to walk away.
But then I see there's a good Aura there.
Then I'll penetrate it with some good memories.
And then I fall in love with him all over again.
(ALI) All the wealth of the universe...
and all the wealth on Earth is equal to mosquitoes...
compared to what you get in the next life.
Some who know him believe that all those blows to the head damaged his brain,
that he is no longer the man he was inside.
(HANA) He has Parkinson's, as the world knows.
But he's healthy otherwise.
He is happy being Muhammad Ali. He enjoys who he is.
He's not in any pain.
He believes that everything has a purpose and a time.
And, you know, he's... he's happy.
When you do the right thing, man, you will prevail at the end.
It's just a matter of you being out there in the front...
of the people who haven't caught up with you yet.
(CHEERING)
When he lit the Olympic torch in '96,
I felt tears in my eyes.
(CHEERING CONTINUES)
(APPLAUSE)
(ANNOUNCER) The greatest of all time!
But to see him carry that,
uh, it was a big-time howdy.
It was a perfect poetic moment.
If anybody should've lit the torch in any Olympic Games,
it should have been Muhammad Ali.
(LIPSYTE) In the '60s and '70s,
he was the most recognizable face in the world.
We created a symbol.
Muhammad Ali has long since been supplanted...
by what we believe he is.
One more time! Who's the champ of the world?
(AUDIENCE) Muhammad Ali!
(LIPSYTE) There are so many ways of looking at him...
that have only to do with us...
and have nothing to do with him.
When Muhammad Ali took that stand...
- That was a hell of a stand. - It certainly was.
(HANA) And my father was always more than a boxer.
To me, he's the eighth wonder of the world.
That's the one title I'm waiting for.
Muhammad Ali... the eighth wonder of the world.
(RAHAMAN) I love you, champ.
You're my soul and my heart.
Only brother I got. Love you.
I love you. Peace.