The Trials of Muhammad Ali Page #5

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.

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.

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.

Oh,

I'm gonna have to give him a good whipping.

And I have entitled it

"A Floyd Patterson Humiliation Punishment."

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.

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.

The champion

continues to be on target.

It was disgusting.

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.

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.

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.

Ali continues

to scream at Terrell.

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.

- - And that's the bell.

Ali continues his taunts.

Ali was exemplifying

a freedom...

that most black people

did not enjoy.

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.

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.

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...

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 n*gger."

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.

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."

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.

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."

Elijah Muhammad

went to prison for five years.

For sedition and draft dodging,

they called it.

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