When We Were Kings Page #3

Ain't this something, flying in

an airplane with Black pilots?

All Black crew? This is strange

to the American Negro.

We never dreamed of this!

Every time we watch TV they show us

Tarzan and the natives and jungles,

they never told us that Africans

were more intelligent than we are.

They speak English,

French and African.

We can't even speak English good.

Ain't this beautiful? I'm free!

Fantastic!

I'm free.

# Now, I want everybody

# To repeat after me

# If you don't know who you are

and where your place in life is

# Just say to yourself, I am!

# Somebody!

# I am!

# Somebody!

# I may be poor

# But I am somebody #

'It was a great joy

'to see that the championship

was going to happen in Africa.

'People were so happy.

'At last the world was

paying attention to our continent.

'Yes, we knew Muhammad Ali

as a boxer,

'but more importantly

for his political stance.

'When we saw that America was at war

with a Third World country, Vietnam,

'and that one of the children

of the United States said

'"Me? You want me to go

and fight against the Viet Cong?"

'"Why should I fight against them?

They haven't hurt me."

'And for us, it was extraordinary to

see that in the America of that time

'someone could take such a position.

'He may have lost his title,

he may have lost millions of dollars

'but he gained

the esteem of millions of Africans.'

Ali! Ali! Ali!

What is your population?

- 22 million.

- 22 million?

- 22 million.

- How many George Foreman fans here?

- We don't know, we don't know.

- How many Muhammad Ali?

- So many we cannot count them.

'George Foreman?

We had heard he was a world champion.

'We thought he was white, then

we realised he was black, like Ali.

'But still, for us,

Foreman represented America.

'He arrived with a dog,

a German shepherd,

'which immediately offended Africans

'since the Belgians

had used them as police dogs.'

Ali said you're

the out-of-towner here.

Africa is the cradle of civilisation,

everybody's home is Africa.

OK, fine.

So, they're leaving tomorrow...

Typhoid. How do you spell typhoid?

Is that all that we're giving?

Who do you want to be

your beneficiary in case of anything?

'You need

a ticket to get on the plane.'

Let me see some hands of the 51

who don't have airline tickets.

Hi! You know who we are, don't you?

I'm Lola Love, I'm with the dancers

of the James Brown show, revue.

Zai-ere, or Zare,

or whatever, you know?

Yeah, when are gonna get to Zee-air?

- Who?

- Mobutu land.

We're gonna fly in zee-air

till we get to Zaire.

That's right!

# Sittin' in a railway station

# My suitcase in my hand

# Going back where I came from

# I've had more than I can stand

# Marchin' in beside my dreams

# Pack my things

and live those dreams

# I was up but then I've been down

# Ain't gonna hang around

# I'm coming home

# Uh-huh, yes, I am

# More than I can stand, my daughter

# Tell someone to meet me

# I'm comin' home

# Why don't you, mercy me

# Ooh-hoo, let me tell ya

# Came to this old town

# Some fortune and some fame

# Never got the chance

to prove myself

# Tryin' to play every game

# Abusin' people just ain't my thing

# I won't dangle from any string

# Peace movement don't care about now

turning inside out

# I'm coming home, home, yeah

# It's mighty long

# I got it, you know too

# Hey, I know what I'm gonna do

# Tell someone to meet me

# Oh, come on

# Yes, I am, yeah!

# Tell someone to meet me

# I got it, look here! #

The plane is not coming in at six,

it's now coming in between 10 and 11,

so you don't have to have those

trucks up to the airport that early.

- Where's James Brown...?

- James Brown is on his way.

BB King... They ain't nowhere around!

Six, fifth and fourth are done.

Elevators are working.

There's no air conditioning at all?

but it doesn't work.

What do you mean, 80%?

What floor is out?

I have sixth, fifth and fourth.

I understand, but what about...

It's individual

air conditioning controls...

What apartments

have air conditioning?

How many beds

can we move people into tonight?

- Four. Four rooms.

- Just eight people?

Yeah.

# Everything gonna be all right

# Cos home's

where the heart's at, yeah

# And it's a natural fact

# What you sayin' tell me, won't you?

# Yeah, hey hey

# Gotta make a start today

# Gotta do it in my way

# Gonna see Momma again

# Gonna see my old, old friend

# Africa!

# Africa!

# Africa!

# Ohh, Africa! #

Hello, bubba!

How you doin'?

Ready to dance? I got ants

in my pants, I gotta dance.

'The fight was held in Zaire,

the former Belgian Congo.

'Kinshasa was the capital

on the banks of the Congo,

'this was just before

the rainy season.'

Up to the north

was the flickering of storms,

and it was important to the promoters

that this fight get in

before the storms occurred,

because once the rainy season comes

you can't do anything.

The Congo had such a wonderful name,

Conradian and all that.

To call it Zaire

didn't have quite the majesty,

but there it was, the Congo.

'Mobutu was everywhere.

'He was the equivalent of Stalin.'

'You saw his picture everywhere.'

Part of the vanity of dictators,

with the exception of Mussolini,

who was half ugly

and half attractive,

most dictators are unbelievably ugly

or plain - Franco, Hitler...

'Mobutu looked the archetype,

the epitome of a closet sadist.

'Sort of guy, if you meet him

in a bar, you think, "Oh, my God!

'"Who are the poor women

who are associated with this fella?"

'And since Mobutu was

an extraordinarily practical man,

'down under the stadium,

which seated 100,000 people,

'were detention pens

and rooms and chambers

'where you could imprison as many

as a couple of thousand people.

'Before the fight came, the criminal

rate in Zaire began to go up.'

A few white foreigners

had been killed, driving their cars.

And Mobutu decided that this would be

a disaster in terms of publicity,

so on a given day he had a thousand

of the leading criminals in Kinshasa

rounded up and put in this stadium,

down in the detention pens.

'And then the legend has it, and I

suspect the legend may even be true,

'that he had 100

taken at random and killed them.

'And the reason was

a particularly simple one

'from Mobutu's point of view.'

Career criminals have connections who

protect them when they're in trouble,

and by making this kill

of 100 out of 1,000 arbitrarily,

Mobutu was saying "Your connections

are worth nothing. I am Jehovah.

'"I will blast you out of existence

if you fool around with me."'

'He made his point, Kinshasa was

one of the safest cities in Africa,

'in all the world, while the foreign

press was there for the fight.'

'To me, the drum was the communicator

since the beginning of time,

'I'm sure it was

the first message ever sent.

'The beat today

and the beats centuries ago

'are the only thing

that's kept us together.'

We had this thing, when we hurt,

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