Muhammad Ali; The Activist

Many remember Cassius Clay as the best fighter of all time, but how I will remember him is as an activist. From converting to Islam in 1964, Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali. When Muhammad Ali was drafted for the Vietnam War he fought for his right to not go over seas. He claimed his religion has made him a pacifist and that he had no issue with the Vietnamese. Many people did have an issue with Ali calling himself a pacifist if he was fighting as a career. He said he would rather sit in jail for years than to go across the ocean and kill the Viet Cong. He traveled around the country hosting speeches at colleges against the war. Some of his most famous quotes due to the were,

 “I ain’t got no quarrel with the Vietcong. No Vietcong ever called me a nigger.”

“No, I am not going 10,000 miles to help murder, kill, and burn other people to simply help continue the domination of white slave masters over dark people the world over. This is the day and age when such evil injustice must come to an end.”

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”

April 28, 1967, Ali was suspended from boxing and stripped of his titles and his passport was revoked so he would be unable to box what so ever. His suspension lasted about three and a half years, and had his first fight back in Atlanta, Georgia against Jerry Quarry. It is believed that Ali’s best time would have been the years he sat out. In 1971 the Supreme Court revoked Ali’s convictions due to his religious beliefs.

In 1990 Muhammad Ali went to Iraq to negotiate the release of the 14 US hostages. That same year he lit the flame in the 1990 Olympics. In 2005 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is still currently active in civic and humanitarian enterprises. He has so far raised $45 million to help find a cure to Parkinson’s disease which he is currently living with.