The Trials of Muhammad Ali Page #2

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."

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

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.

1962,

I took Cassius Clay to Detroit.

I kind of introduced him

to Malcolm at that time.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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

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