Cassius Marcellus Clay Story

Trigger

Just watched the very recommendable PBS documentary on Muhammad Ali “INDEPENDENT LENS/ The Trials of Muhammad Ali”. Unfortunately, this video has expired on 5/5/2014. Why PBS does such nonsense again and again to expire great videos on their website beats me (I blogged here about it)!

I must admit that I was quite ignorant about Muhammad Ali’s interesting life besides boxing. I always liked him as a boxer and showman (fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee), but there is a lot more to his life. Now that I am sort of a neighbor of Muhammad Ali, who lives somewhere in Paradise Valley, AZ, I was even more curious to watch this documentary.

Three Cassius Clays In U.S. History

Muhammad Ali (3) was named after his father (2), but his father was named after the famous and courageous namesake emancipationist (1810 - 1903, other sources here, here) from Kentucky who grew up as the son of a slaveholder. The first Clay’s life was quite dramatic, e.g. two assassination attempts and so on.

If you are the second generation son named after the first Clay, the burden is on you! I think, Muhammad Ali accepted the challenge. :-)

I was previously not very familiar with the distinction between emancipation and abolition. If the former indeed distinguished themselves by advocating gradual, legal, and peaceful elimination of slavery, then I definitely prefer emancipation. Gradual does not mean slow.

The first Clay helped to found the first coeducational and open to all races (racially integrated) college (Berea College) in the southern U.S.

While the first Cassious M. Clay, a friend of Abraham Lincoln, was minister to the court in Russia he witnessed the Tsar’s emancipation proclamation of 1861 and he is said to have contributed to convince the Russian’s to side with the Union by threatening France and the UK not to take sides with the Confederates (Source). Is this a pure coincidence the Tsar’s emancipation proclamation and Lincoln’s proclamation only two years later? It appears Clay and Lincoln were very close at the time of Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation.

Conscientious Objection

I do not think there is any contradiction to be a boxer and a conscientious objectioner as well. I also believe that Muhammad Ali was honest and sincere about this. His frequent polemic remarks in public about the Vietnamese people and why he could not kill them sound more naive than anything else.

For his conscientious objection, Muhammad Ali risked his career. E.g. as the above documentary was pointing out, the group of white business men that supported his professional career abandoned him once he chose to become a conscientious objectioner despite being offered other options like domestic based National Guard, which another famous boxer of the time chose to perform military duty (forgot his name, possibly Joe Louis).

“Appearing for his scheduled induction into the U.S. Armed Forces on April 28, 1967 in Houston, Ali refused three times to step forward at the call of his name. An officer warned him he was committing a felony punishable by five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Once more, Ali refused to budge when his name was called. As a result, he was arrested. On the same day the New York State Athletic Commission suspended his boxing license and stripped him of his title [and the World Boxing Association stripped him of his title]. Other boxing commissions followed suit. Ali would not be able to obtain a license to box in any state for over three years.” (Source)

I tip my head to Muhammad Ali.

Supreme Court Overturned Decision

From the documentary, I also learnt that the SCOTUS overturned Muhammad Ali’s conviction as a draft dodger in an unanymous decision. I believe, this is very remarkable!

A dramatic story by itself:

“Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong provide an account of the development of the decision in their book The Brethren. According to that account, Justice Marshall hadrecused himself because he had been U.S. Solicitor General when the case began, and the remaining eight justices initially voted 5 to 3 to uphold Ali's conviction. However, Justice Harlan, assigned to write the majority opinion, became convinced that Ali's claim to be a conscientious objector was sincere after reading background material onBlack Muslim doctrine provided by one of his law clerks. To the contrary, Justice Harlan concluded that the claim by the Justice Department had been a misrepresentation. Harlan changed his vote, tying the vote at 4 to 4. A deadlock would have resulted in Ali being jailed for draft evasion and, since no opinions are published for deadlocked decisions, he would have never known why he had lost. A compromise proposed by Justice Stewart, in which Ali's conviction would be reversed citing a technical error by the Justice Department, gradually won unanimous assent from the eight voting justices.” (Source)

According to the above documentary, Justice Harlan was almost blind at the time so his law clerk had to read him everything. What a story!

Rumble In The Jungle

Just (5/8/2014) watched this video here capturing the great fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. I believe my father and I watched this fight together in 1974 by getting up in the middle of the night in Germany to follow it.

This boxing match is remarkable because it is an example of brain vs. brawns or it exemplified Ali’s tactical genius. A 32 year old butterfly in the ropes stung (knocked out) like a bee the 24 year old world champion in the 8th round.

Presidential Medal Of Freedom

It was not the womanizer and the so called first black president of the U.S. Bill Clinton, but George W. Bush who honored Muhammad Ali in 2005.