I Am Ali Page #5

of the odds were against him.

He upset the oddsmakers. He won.

He became victorious.

He became the champ.

They knew that as soon as,

if people began to identify with Cassius

and the type of image he was creating,

they were going to have

trouble out of these negroes

because they'd have negroes

walking around the streets

saying, "I'm the greatest. "

I could name you 20 activists

that had a part in the change

in this country.

You were living in a state

of discrimination and racism.

And so there were the outstanding

individuals who would risk everything.

The Panthers took up arms. I mean,

it was a time of people standing up

and other people cowering down.

So there were

a lot of individuals

that were risking not only

their careers, but their life.

That was a time of...

of social revolution.

We are not seeking to lose

our identity in blood mixing

and our beautiful

Black African history.

We don't hate you. We don't hate

those of you who are white.

We just wanna stay black. We love my color.

I just love myself.

I think that, on a personal

level, I've been around him

and there's a couple of things about

him that I think are really beautiful.

First of all, he loves people.

I thought that was a great trait

and he had a way of relating to

people and making them feel good.

And he used to say to me,

"Come on, Jim, let's walk in the

neighborhood and talk to the people. "

"Yeah, that's all right,

I'll go with you. "

Meet the people, go into the barber shops.

Go into the, hair salons.

And, he didn't

dislike white people.

He just didn't like what a lot

of white people stood for,

but when we went to England,

he enjoyed the English.

He would even party in my suite

with the English people,

particularly young ladies.

But... So his heart,

and his compassion for people,

was bigger than just black people and

I think that's important to know.

And then he had

a lot of courage.

The risk he had to take and then to be

isolated, to have his crown taken away.

Not be able to make a living.

That was difficult.

And to keep an attitude about himself,

to keep that personality moving

even though inside

he had to be suffering a lot.

Clay now faces a nomadic

existence of uncertain duration

divided between courthouses and

meeting houses all over America.

His occupation's gone. He seems

unlikely to box again for a long time.

Patriots deride him.

The Peace Party applaud him.

His Black Muslim friends

keep him from faltering.

It's doubtful whether he has

the intellectual equipment

to evaluate these pressures,

but under them all he keeps

a dignity and repose

which make it difficult to maintain

that he's either cowardly or dishonest.

I hooked him up

with a fella in New York City,

and he had him doing

the college lecturing

and he went out on

the college campuses

and he did the lecturing and

all the colleges loved him.

He was accepted Harvard, Yale,

Princeton, Columbia, Penn.

All of the schools, the bigger

schools, and he was like their hero.

I'm very

flattered in coming here,

because you never could have made me

believe years ago when I was a...

When I got out of high school

with a D minus average.

And they gave me the "minus"

because I won the Olympics.

I understand that,

out of people such as y'all

come presidents and

governors and mayors

and great doctors and physicians

and scientists and everything.

So I said, "Well, to get something

together, to talk to these people,

it's gotta be pretty heavy. "

So I didn't bring

no notes with me.

You are happy to

have thrown away

perhaps the greatest sports career

since the war for the ideals.

I haven't thrown it away.

I haven't lost it.

I would say I turned it down.

I'm not...

See, the greatest sports title

mean nothing, mister,

if you cannot be free, see?

Boys in Vietnam are throwing

away, you may say, their lives.

I haven't did that much.

I'm still living.

They are dying today to free

somebody they don't know,

so what in the hell is a heavyweight

title and a few stinking dollar bills

for my people's freedom?

I'm an advertising guy, and the,

editor of Esquire, Harold Hayes,

came to me and, was reading about

me being a hotshot art director.

I had seen, footage

of Muhammad fighting.

I said, "Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Whoa!"

"What?

Whoa. This kid is something. "

Yeah! Where's he at?

I'm the king of the ring! I'm

the biggest thing in history!

A young black kid with a

big mouth, talking sense.

Yeah,

it was wonderful back then.

I mean, they were still hanging

guys down in the South.

Ali refused to be drafted

during the Vietnam War,

and because of that

he lost the very best boxing

years he had during that time

because boxers

don't last forever.

And so Lois,

who was the cover art director

of Esquire magazine at the time, said,

"Why don't we do him as a martyr?"

I said to Harold Hayes,

the editor, I said,

"I think Muhammad Ali's a great man.

How about you?"

He said, "Yeah, I think so. " So

he said, "What do you wanna do?"

"I'm gonna have him posing

as Saint Sebastian. "

"A martyr to his country,

a martyr to his religion,

as a martyr to what he thinks

about life. "

"Wow. " I call up Muhammad

and so he comes to New York

and, I show him a postcard

of a Saint Sebastian painting

where the body was in repose,

but his head was in torment.

And I said, "Muhammad, I want you to

pose like this. I want you to... "

And he looks at it and he says, "Hey,

George, this cat's a Christian. "

I said, "Holy Moses,

you're right, Muhammad. "

"Yeah, yeah, Saint Sebastian. "

And I realized very quickly

he was saying a Muslim

can't pose as a Christian.

Whoa. Gotta do this cover.

What, what...

"I can't do it. "

"What can we do?"

"Can we call Elijah Muhammad?"

"I guess so. "

Have a little bit of a

conversation, puts me on the phone

and I had, like, a 15-minute talk

about religion and symbolism

and image making, etc, etc,

with Elijah Muhammad.

It was a funny conversation.

I wish I had a tape of it.

And, finally, Elijah Muhammad

said to me, "Young man,"

and I was a young man then, "I think

it would make a terrific image. "

It took a long time because

the arrows kept falling down

and Ali had to stand still,

which is not his style.

But he was very cooperative,

very helpful.

We made funny stories

and kept him amused.

He's posing, hands behind his back,

head in pain, head in anguish.

Beautiful image.

And we're starting to shoot, trying to

photograph, and he said, "Hey, George. "

I said, "What, Muhammad?"

"Hey, George. "

I said, "Muhammad, what?

Pose. Do your job. Come on. "

"Hey, George. " When he does three

"Hey, George"s, you've gotta...

He wants to say something.

"What?"

And slowly but surely, he pointed

to each of the arrows and he said,

"Lyndon Johnson, General

Westmoreland, Robert McNamara,

Dean Rusk, Carl Clifford,

Hubert Humphrey. "

He pointed to six tormentors

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