When We Were Kings Page #8

'suddenly on the ground.'

'Now,

when we see George on TV,

'and know that after that knockout

'he went through two years

of the deepest depression,

'he almost didn't come out of it.

'To see the man who's come out of it,

'the way he reconstructed

his personality,

'it's hard to find anyone in America

more affable than George Foreman.

'Foreman has become

a fabulous person in American life.'

Just as the fight finished,

the monsoons, the African rains,

came, and they came so hard

that the waters were about

three feet deep in the dressing rooms

where we'd just been an hour ago,

I'd never seen such a downpour.

And we rode back

through the African night

from the boxing ring into Kinshasa

and there were crowds on the roads

standing in the pouring rain

leaping up and down because

news had got around that Ali had won.

'He stayed up all night

from what I heard,

'and in the morning he spoke to

African groups who'd come to see him,

'and they more than revered him,

he was a god.

'And he spoke to them

very simply and beautifully,

'and he said,

"Afro-Americans, in America,

'"we're not as good as you are.

'"Some of us are richer than you are,

'"but you have a dignity

in your poverty that we don't have.

'"We are spoiled in America,

'"we have lost what you still have

in Africa and you must keep that."

'And I thought, on top of everything

else he's a political leader

'and he's gonna be

a great political leader.'

I have a lot of things to do

in the Black neighbourhoods,

we have a lot of problems

we have to solve among ourselves.

Prostitution, dope, gang fights.

Knowledge of self. Black people

have no knowledge of themselves.

We have been made

just like white people mentally.

White people have made us

so much like them

it's hard to teach them

about themselves,

it's hard to teach them to unite

and marry and be with their own.

Black people

are now like white people,

we have to re-brainwash 'em now,

teach them about themselves

and their history and language,

to do something for themselves

and quit begging white people

for things they should do themselves.

I never heard Ali say

he would never fight again.

If he had said it,

and usually he told the truth,

I wouldn't have believed it.

He was born to fight,

born for the ring and loved it,

he truly loved fighting.

And...as happens with people who love

a thing too much, it destroys them.

It was Oscar Wilde that said

you destroy the thing you love.

It's the other way round,

what you love destroys you.

'He came back,

he had 22 fights.

'Some were most honourable,

some very difficult.

'Some were comedies and farces.

'He hurt himself in those 22 fights

after the fight in Africa.'

'There is a tendency

to look at Muhammad and say

'he's wounded, he's ill.

'There are no intellectual deficits,

it's a motor skills problem

'and he doesn't try

to hide his condition.

'He goes out and lets

the whole world see it.

'He doesn't feel sorry for himself

'and there's really no reason for

anybody else to feel sorry for him.

'He loves being Muhammad Ali,

'he truly believes

that he's doing God's work

'and he's as happy with each day

as anybody I know.'

'Today's young generation,

they don't know anything.'

Something happened last year,

they know nothing about it.

So there are these great great

stories, great historic events,

and I'm not talking

about 1850s stuff,

they don't know who Malcolm X is,

they don't know who JFK is,

Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson,

you can go down the line.

And it's scary.

'They're missing a lot if they don't

know the legacy of Muhammad Ali,

'because no matter

what era you live in,

'you see very few true heroes.'

Ali, boma ye!

Ali, boma ye! Ali, boma ye!

Ali, boma ye!

Back up, sucker, back up.

Come get me, sucker, I'm dancin'!

I'm dancin'! Follow me, chump!

I'm not there, I'm here!

Sucker, you ain't got nothing!

# In every heart

# There is a drum that beats

# Steady and strong

# It does not know defeat

# I feel its power

# And know for certain

the true belief

# In every soul

# There is a memory

# Of standing tall

# The proudest we could be

# I cannot fall

# For I recall

# We were born in majesty

# And when the long night

has been fought and won

# We'll stand in the sun

# And we will raise our hands

# We will touch the sky

# Together we will dance

in robes of gold

# And we will leave

the world remembering

# When we were kings

# When we were kings

# Now is the time

# Here is the mountaintop

# When one man climbs

the rest are lifted up

# When memories stay

# We're closer, yeah

# To our higher destiny

# And when we reach up

to claim the throne

# Every man will know

# We will raise our hands

# We will touch the sky

# Together we will dance

in robes of gold

# And we will leave

the world remembering

# When we were kings

# When we were kings

# Ooh

# When we were kings

# Yeah

# When we were kings

# Float like a butterfly

# Sting like a bee

# Float like a butterfly

# I remember... #

Years after the fight in Zaire,

perhaps ten years after,

I'd run into Ali on occasion after

that, but I remember this meeting.

Esquire was giving a party

for various people

who had distinguished themselves

in Esquire that year.

Ali, for whatever he'd done,

I was there probably because I had

a good story in Esquire that year,

maybe 25 of us, honoured guests,

I was there with my wife

and we saw Ali

and we were talking with him

and he couldn't have been nicer.

I remember I was 62 then,

cos he said, "How old are you now?"

I said "62," he said "Oh," same as

when we were jogging that night,

"Oh, I hope I'm as young as you are

when I'm 62," he went on like that.

I got so pleased and so vain that,

you know, I'm like a dog.

What did I have to do?

I had to go urinate, and I did.

I went away and once I was gone

he turned to my wife,

who's much younger than I am,

and he looked at her hard and said,

"You still with that old man?"

And for me that's always been...

That's Ali.

You love him even when

you turn your back on him.

I heard him once talking to the

Harvard senior class commencement.

He gave this extraordinary speech,

you know he was dyslexic,

and he would look

at a paper and say,

"What does this word mean?"

I'd say, "Appendicitis."

He'd say, "How d'you get a word

like appendicitis? It's so long."

Here he was delivering a lecture,

senior class day with these

and...he had these little cards

in front of him.

He gave this wonderful speech

about he hadn't had the opportunity

but they had and they should use that

to make the world a better place.

It was moving and funny, and a great

roar of appreciation at the end.

Then someone shouted out,

"Give us a poem!"

And everybody quieted down.

Now, the shortest poem according

to Bartlett's Quotations is called

"On the Antiquity of Microbes"

and the poem is "Adam had 'em."

Pretty short.

But Muhammad Ali's poem was

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