Muhammad Ali and his Role in the Civil Rights Movement - Part 2

Part 1 is here.

Another event that Muhammad Ali had a big role in, in terms of the Civil Rights Movement was his refusal to be drafted into the Vietnam War. In 1964, Ali failed to qualify for military service, because even though he passed the physical requirements, he failed the mental aptitude test. In 1966, the Vietnam War was expanding, and the United States needed more people for the war effort. The United States decided to lower their test scores for the qualification of military service so that more people could be qualified to take part in the military. These actions left Muhammad Ali eligible for the draft and induction into the U.S. army. Ali could do one of two things: He could follow the United States Government and report to Vietnam, or he could follow his heart and faith. His initial concern about entering the draft wasn’t exactly religious or political; he thought he was in danger of having his life turned upside down. But when he first heard that he was eligible for the draft, he stated that he would refuse to serve in the United States Army and was publically considered a conscientious objector due to his religious beliefs. Ali stated that:

"War is against the teachings of the Holy Qur'an. I'm not trying to dodge the draft. We are not supposed to take part in no wars unless declared by Allah or The Messenger. We don't take part in Christian wars or wars of any unbelievers."

Ali wanted to stay true to his religious beliefs, and not be a part of a conflict that wasn’t his. Ali also enraged the U.S. Government and caused controversy around the country and the world by saying: “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong, they never called me a nigger.” Many people were enraged by those comments and the media were livid over what he said. On April 28, 1967, when the U.S. government called him for military service, he refused to budge. Ali was warned that he was committing a felony punishable by five years in prison and a ten thousand dollar fine. When the U.S. government called him again for military service, Ali did not move forward. He was arrested and the New York State Boxing Commission, as well as other boxing commissions stripped Ali of his boxing license. He was basically banned from boxing in the United States. Newspaper writer Milton Gross of the New York Post talks about his refusal of induction by saying: “Clay seems to have gone past the borders of faith, he has reached the boundaries of fanaticism.”

At his trial on June 20, 1967, after 20 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Ali guilty, and he was convicted of refusing induction into the United States Army. Ali was sentenced to the maximum imprisonment of five years in prison as well as a ten thousand dollar fine. He was also stripped of his world heavyweight championship title and prohibited from fighting in state boxing commissions across the country. Muhammad Ali’s couldn’t fight in a boxing match for another three years. Over those three years, Ali fought to appeal his conviction by staying in the public spotlight and giving speeches at rallies in college and university campuses across the country, where there was a strong opposition to the Vietnam War. Ali explains why he refused to fight in Vietnam:

"Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?"

In 1970, Muhammad Ali was able to fight again and in 1971, the United States Supreme Court held a trial for Muhammad Ali. The Court of Appeal Board denied Muhammad Ali’s claim to attain conscientious objector status, but didn’t state the reasons as to which grounds were rejected and which were sustained. Therefore, by unanimous decision, the Supreme Court reversed Ali’s conviction of refusing induction into the United States Army.

Muhammad Ali’s refusal to fight in the Vietnam War averted attention from Ali’s racial views and it put him in a position where many people, including whites and white opinion-makers, could relate with him. Initially, Muhammad Ali was looked at with suspicion, especially around the time when Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965 and when he took the persona of the Nation of Islam. But when he refused to be inducted into the United States Army, it started a bond between Ali, and the white liberal media.

After Muhammad Ali’s retirement from boxing in the early 1980’s, The United States began to recognize Ali’s achievements inside and outside the boxing ring. In 1996, Muhammad Ali was chosen to light the flame at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. It was a proud moment for him and the American people, as around 3 billion people around the world watched him light the flame to start the Olympic Games. In 2005, Ali received the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony, and the United Nations Association of Germany awarded him the Otto Hanh Peace Medal for:

“Outstanding services to peace and international understanding, especially for his lifelong commitment to the American civil rights movement and the cultural and spiritual emancipation of black people throughout the world."

To this day, Muhammad Ali has devoted himself to humanitarian efforts around the world, as well as supporting education efforts of all kinds and encouraging people to respect and better understand one another.

Today, Muhammad Ali represents the living personification of Martin Luther King Jr’s message that all people are deserving of love. Sports Journalist Kevin Izenberg described Ali’s life:

“Ironically, after all he went through, the affection for Ali is largely colour-blind. Late in his career, he developed a quality that only a few people have. He reached a point where, when people looked at him, they didn't see black or white. They saw Ali. For a long time, that mystified him. He expected black people to love him and crowd around him, but then he realized white people loved him too; and that made him very happy.”

To sum it all up, Muhammad Ali just wanted to be loved and accepted by everyone. To himself, he was just a man with an opinion. In the 1960’s, America found it hard to accept anyone of colour, but now in this day, people have realized the things he had to go through to get to where he is. His greatest contribution was his ability to rally the African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. Ali never took crap from anyone and had a sort of an in-your-face style, which can be argued that it sparked the black people to stand up for what they believed. Ali stood up for certain principles: that equality among people was just and proper. He gave Black Americans a purpose to stand up for themselves. Ali stood up for his principles and sacrificed a lot for them. You can’t call someone a great man just because of what they achieved, but also what that man had to go through to achieve something. Muhammad Ali was a great man, because he inadvertently became a civil rights pioneer. He was a shining symbol of rebelliousness against an unreasonable social order.

Muhammad Ali and his Role in the Civil Rights Movement - Part 1

I've contemplated sharing this for a while, but I am finally going to share this piece of writing. This is my history essay that I have written when I was in my first year at university. I have written this essay around March of 2010, and it was the creation of many hours of research that I have personally put in. I can't remember what grade I received, but I'm sure it was a solid A-minus. It's nice to see the differences in my writing from then to now, and to see how far I have come along.

I have not changed the content in any way for this post. Everything is the same as it was when I originally submitted the essay. The only alteration I have made is the removal of references. If anyone wants to know the references I have used, I will be happy to provide those in a separate blog post. Due to the length of the essay, I have broken it up into two parts. Part 1 is below, and Part 2 will be posted tomorrow. Any comments are greatly appreciated.

The 1960’s were a time of unrest in the United States. There were protests across university campuses opposing the Vietnam War. A generation was starting to find a voice. The 1960’s were also the height of the Civil Rights Movement, where black people were trying to fight for equal rights to their white counterparts. Many leaders stood up to the cause of fighting for equal rights, such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, but there was one recognizable figure that used his popularity to stand up for what he believed and gave a sort of hope for African Americans during these tense times, and that man was Muhammad Ali. He was a young, brash man, who provided a great example on how to be an individual protester by speaking about his beliefs and his dislike for racism in the United States. Muhammad Ali played a big role in the Civil Rights Movement by expressing his views in certain events he was a part in, such as his affiliation to the Nation of Islam, as well as his opposition of the Vietnam War. His example rallied the African Americans to fight for black pride and black resistance against white domination, as well as for the equal rights they truly deserved.

Muhammad Ali was born as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in 1942 named after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr., to a working-class family in Louisville, Kentucky and began his boxing career at age twelve. He began to fight in the amateur ranks in boxing, and quickly became a rising boxer, having an amateur record of one hundred wins with five losses. He participated in the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Italy, where he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division by beating his Polish opponent. After he won the gold medal, he returned to his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, where he experienced the racism that was gripping the United States. He thought that he was going to be treated like a champion because he won the gold medal, but he was refused service at a “whites-only” restaurant, and then fought with a motorcycle gang. Disgusted by the racism and hardship he had to deal with, Cassius threw his gold medal into the Ohio River. What he did was an act of defiance, and it was a stand to the mistreatment of blacks in the United States. That single action is the beginning of his fight in the Civil Rights Movement. That action is what also intrigued Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X to invite Cassius Clay into the Nation of Islam.

After Cassius Clay’s first heavyweight bout with Sonny Liston, where he finally became the heavyweight champion of the world for the first time, he revealed that he had become a member of the Nation of Islam, and had changed his name to Muhammad Ali.  He got the name Muhammad Ali from the leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad. Muhammad believed that the name Cassius Clay was “a slave name” and wanted to change his name to represent a slave-trader, rather than a slave-liberator. It is widely assumed that Muhammad Ali was attending Nation of Islam meetings even before his match with Sonny Liston. This obviously sparked controversy in the United States, and few people accepted his new identity. He was hated not because he was black, but now also because of his newly found religious beliefs. He became a member of the Nation of Islam when the United States were looking at the Nation of Islam with suspicion, and even with hostility. He didn't help his cause with the white public of the United States when he started to flaunt and express his religious views. When talking about his new name, Muhammad is quoted as saying:

“Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn't choose it and I didn't want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name – It means beloved of God – and I insist people use it when speaking to me and of me”

Muhammad Ali became the most visible spokesman in the Nation of Islam, and those teachings became the core of who he was at the time. He spoke on a variety of issues. On the integration of white and black people, Ali says: “We who follow the teachings of Elijah Muhammad don't want to be forced to integrate. Integration is wrong. We don't want to live with the white man; that's all.” On the issue of inter-racial marriage, Ali says: “No intelligent black man or black woman in his or her right black mind wants white boys and white girls coming to their homes to marry their black sons and daughters.” On the issue of brotherhood, Ali says: “We're not all brothers. You can say we're brothers, but we're not.” On the need for a separate black homeland, Ali is quoted saying:

“Why don't we get out and build our own nation? White people just don't want their slaves to be free. That's the whole thing. Why not let us go and build ourselves a nation? We want a country. We're 40 million people, but we'll never be free until we own our own land.”

These views presented by Muhammad Ali were views that he felt strongly about. Ali embraced his black heritage when many African Americans were trying to run from it.

Obviously, the media, as well as white Liberals and black Americans came down hard in Ali and his views. Tennis great Arthur Ashe gave his opinion on Muhammad Ali’s ties to the Nation of Islam, saying:

“I never went along with the pronouncements of Elijah Muhammad that the white man was the devil and that blacks should be striving for separate development; a sort of American apartheid. That never made sense to me. It was a racist ideology and I didn't like it.”

Former heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson also added his opinion on Muhammad Ali and the Nation of Islam:

“I've been told that Clay has every right to follow any religion he chooses and I agree. But, by the same token, I have every right to call the Black Muslims a menace to the United States and a menace to the Negro race. I do not believe God put us here to hate one another. Cassius Clay is disgracing himself and the Negro race."

Another former heavyweight champion, Joe Louis chimed in with what he thought as well: “I've always believed that every man is my brother. Clay will earn the public's hatred because of his connections with the Black Muslims.” It seems that many people had something to say to oppose Ali and his religious views, but to many others, Ali is viewed as the prime symbol of black pride and provided a resistance to an unfair social order by preaching something that was different from mainstream values.

Part 2 is here.

Canada 3-1 Jamaica: Post-Game + Media Gallery

The Canadian Men's National Football Team finally returned to action at the National Soccer Stadium (usually known as BMO Field) where they faced off against Jamaica, who came up short in qualifying for the 2014 World Cup and were looking to start off on the right foot themselves. It was a spirited match, and Canada ran away 3-1 winners, which was their first win in about two years, and their first multi-goal game in a long while as well.

There were two things I noticed as soon as I entered the stadium. The first thing I noticed was the sheer amount of empty seats at the stadium. I felt like the match could have been promoted better, as I didn't really hear about the match a whole lot through the different types of media. However, the match did have some challenges when it came to attracting people to come out, such as the fact that it was a weekday match (Tuesday evening), and that they had to compete against the Toronto Blue Jays, who were playing in the Rogers Centre at the same time. It also didn't help that the Canadian team wasn't very good.

The second thing I noticed was that there was a strong contingent of Jamaican supporters at the stadium. Canada matches that take place in Canada (especially in Toronto) always had the issue where the team that they were playing had more supporters in the stadium than the Canadian fans. That always bothered me, and I made the joke that all the Jamaican supporters were actually Jamaican-Canadians, and I have a suspicion that I might actually be right. Name me one person that flew from Jamaica to Toronto just to go watch this friendly, I don't think you will be able to.

As for the match itself, I was pleased with Canada's performance. Canada were understandably a bit rusty at the beginning stages of the match, but the Canadian midfield imposed themselves and were in control (Hutchinson and De Guzman had solid performances). The Canadian defence were quite composed and even though they had some scary moments when Jamaica threatened the goal, they were able to shut them out. Milan Borjan had a stellar performance, making great saves and not being afraid to come out for the ball. The Canadian forwards had a tough time putting the ball on target, which echoed previous struggles whenever Canada played, but luckily for them, the scoring came from other sources.

It's worth noting that the response from Canada after Jamaica scored the first goal was something I have never seen from this team. They would usually wilt under the pressure of going behind, but they instead roared back quickly, and then put the game out of reach. Much credit to the coach, Benito Floro, for his role in inspiring the team.

The Canadian supporters in sections 112-114 were absolutely fantastic. They didn't stop singing for the entire duration of the match, and they brought an atmosphere that was sorely lacking whenever Toronto FC played at BMO Field. It was without a doubt, the best atmosphere at BMO Field this year, and the supporters deserve a lot credit for that.

Lastly, I have a couple of videos. The first one was taken immediately after the match ended where the Canadian players thanked the supporters for coming out to watch them beat Jamaica. The second video was taken outside Gate 3 after the match where more singing and chanting ensued.

Overall, it was an awesome time out. I met various supporters from here in Toronto, from Ottawa, and beyond. The match was also quite entertaining, and it was good to see Canada prepare for their World Cup qualifying with a win. This may be wishful thinking, but I hope this win lays the ground work for shaking off the "loser stench" that has plagued the Canadian National team for so long.