“They got the complexions and connections to give me good directions,” said Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) after turning professional and signing with 6 local millionaires. He had just returned to Louisville, KY, his birthplace, from the 1960 Olympics in Rome where he won a gold medal.
“In the jungle, lions are with lions and tigers with tigers,” Ali said, the morning after winning his first heavyweight title and announcing his membership in the Nation of Islam, a black separatist group. “I don’t want to go where I’m not wanted.”
"Why me?" Ali asked suspiciously after his draft status was reclassified 1A (initially he had been deferred on mental aptitude grounds perhaps because he never learned how to read properly). “I buy a lot of bullets, at least three jet bombers a year, and pay the salary of 50,000 fighting men with the money they take from me after my fights.”
“I ain’t got nothing against them Vietcong,” Ali said when pressed by reporters to explain why he refused to be drafted. “Shoot them for what? They never called me nigger. They never lynched me.”
“You talking about me about some draft and all you white boys are breaking your neck to get to Switzerland and Canada and London,” Ali said, adding, “If I’m going to die, I’ll die now right here, fighting you.”
No comments:
Post a Comment