Muhammad Ali: ‘Why I Refused To Go To Vietnam’

Source:Iconic– The Greatest of All Time: Muhammad Ali.

You can also see this post on Blogger.

“Muhammad Ali on his decision to not joining the US army.”

From Iconic

“My conscious won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father… Shoot them for what? …How can I shoot them poor people, Just take me to jail.”

Source:Kaotik Calm– The Greatest of All Time: Muhammad Ali.

From Kaotik Calm

One thing that I respect about Muhammad Ali is that no one pushed him around, for the most part. Except for Don King perhaps with all the money he screwed Muhammad out of as his promoter in the 1970s. And Muhammad perhaps the most famous athlete in the world not just in the United States in the 1960s, who was at the heart of the American civil rights movement because of his race.

Because of Muhammad’s intelligence and the attention that he could bring to himself and because of how honest he was and wasn’t nice to the American establishment no matter the race, who knew how to get exactly what he wanted. And always said exactly what was on his mind so when he said he was against the Vietnam War in the mid 1960s. Like most people in his generation and was not going to fight against a country that never harmed him. Or denied him his freedom and constitutional rights because of his race and his complexion to fight against a country that never hurt him.

Muhammad wasn’t going to fight for a country that was trying to hold him down and when he said: “I’m not going to fight for a country that’s been trying to hold me down, because of my race to fight against a country that never called me Nigger”. and so-forth and he was being honest and serious. Muhammad was the Malcolm X of professional sports as far as someone who knew American history and the state of the African-American community.

Muhammad knew what African-Americans were going through and wasn’t going to take trash (to put it mildly) from anyone and be pushed around. Just like Malcolm X even if it meant his life. Malcolm was assassinated something that Muhammad has avoided. Muhammad was going to live his own life and try to help people that he felt he could and make a positive difference where he could and because of his intelligence. And his personality that he wasn’t going to sacrifice his own freedom and his own constitutional right to stand up for what he believed even if it meant getting his boxing career back, to fight for a cause that he believed was unjust.

What you see in this interview is Muhammad Ali being himself. And the interviewer bringing up for example all the money that not taking part in being drafted into the U.S. Army to fight in the Vietnam War and so-forth and losing his World Heavyweight Boxing Championship and his boxing license and the millions of dollars that came with that and Muhammad saying that: “Yeah, I could have that”. But I’m not going to take it at the cost of my freedom. Muhammad Ali wasn’t going to be bought.

You can also see this post at The New Democrat, on Blogger.

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Best of World Boxing: ‘Rivals- Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier’

Source:Best of World Boxing– Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier.

“Profile on the greatest rivalry in Boxing.”

From Best of World Boxing 

I realize football is very different from boxing, but the great NFL analyst John Madden once had a great quote about rivalries and what you need for a rivalry to even be a rivalry, let alone a great rivalry. And he was talking about the great rivalry between his Oakland Raiders and the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970s, the two best franchises in American Football Conference, if not the entire NFL in the 1970s.

What Coach Madden said for a rivalry to be great (and I’m paraphrasing) the two teams involved have to be good at the same time once the rivalry starts and then have to be good after that. Their games have to matter, to be important, to be well-played, and close.

What made the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier rivalry a great rivalry in the 1970s, was not only did they hate each other (even though secretly they respected each other) but they were not just good, or real good, or even great, but they were the two best heavyweight fighters in boxing in the 1970s. That’s why they had those three great fights against each other from 1971-75.

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