You know, as a kid, I watched boxing and played a lot of sports.
You could not get away from the name Mohammed (Muhammed) Ali. It was on the news, in sports news, constantly.
I only knew him as a boxer really, a sports figure in my public and high school days.
As that kid - I thought he was a loud one and always shooting off his mouth and certainly colourful.
It seemed to be his thing. I did not understand it.
-- I'd never seen an athlete do this kind of thing.
It was not until I became an actual boots on the ground activist I really learned more about Cassius Clay and his activism and LIFE story outside the ring that I really appreciated the breadth of his humanity.
There was a lot more to this guy than just punching people in the face for a living.
The guy had strong beliefs, stood by those convictions he had and ACTED on them.
Active is the key part of the word ACTIVIST I have told people for years.
Today I just wanted to take 3 hours or so of my time, read up again and remember him in words and in pictures and pay some respect to a human being who had a lot to do with life inside and outside the ring.
I realized today, that his 1 year anniversary of his death was yesterday. I had shared posts about him on Fascistbook as such a year ago and it came up as a memory, so I decided this project would be a good one today.
This is just my way of respecting the man, the boxer and the activist.
I hand selected most all the pictures in this post and inserted them where I try to show different aspects to the man's life I thought were powerful visuals.
RIP Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. / Mohammed Ali. | January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016)
The man, the activist, the boxer. The Human Being - not just being.
But Doing.
This brief overview is directly from WikiPedia:
--
Muhammad Ali (/ɑːˈliː/;[8] born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.;[9] January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and activist. He is widely regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of the 20th century. From early in his career, Ali was known as an inspiring, controversial, and polarizing figure both inside and outside the ring.[10][11]
--
--
Cassius Clay was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and began training as an amateur boxer when he was 12 years old. At age 18, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome and turned professional later that year.
--
--
At age 22 in 1964, he won the WBA, WBC, and lineal heavyweight titles from Sonny Liston in a big upset. Clay then converted to Islam and changed his name from Cassius Clay, which he called his "slave name", to Muhammad Ali. He set an example of racial pride for African Americans and resistance to white domination during the Civil Rights Movement.[12][13]
In 1966, two years after winning the heavyweight title, Ali further antagonized the white establishment by refusing to be drafted into the U.S. military, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War.[12][14] He was eventually arrested, found guilty of draft evasion charges, and stripped of his boxing titles.
--
--
He successfully appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned his conviction in 1971, by which time he had not fought for nearly four years and thereby lost a period of peak performance as an athlete. Ali's actions as a conscientious objector to the war made him an icon for the larger counterculture generation.[15][16]
--
--
Ali is regarded as one of the leading heavyweight boxers of the 20th century. He remains the only three-time lineal heavyweight champion, having won the title in 1964, 1974, and 1978. Between February 25 and September 19, 1964, Ali reigned as the undisputed heavyweight champion. He is the only boxer to be named The Ring magazine Fighter of the Year six times. He was ranked as the greatest athlete of the 20th century by Sports Illustrated, the Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC, and the third greatest athlete of the 20th century by ESPN SportsCentury. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he was involved in several historic boxing matches.[17] Notable among these were the first Liston fight; the "Fight of the Century", "Super Fight II", the "Thrilla in Manila" versus his rival Joe Frazier, and "The Rumble in the Jungle" versus George Foreman.
--
--
At a time when most fighters let their managers do the talking, Ali thrived in and indeed craved the spotlight, where he was often provocative and outlandish.[18][19][20] He was known for trash talking, and often freestyled with rhyme schemes and spoken word poetry, both for his trash talking in boxing and as political poetry for his activism, anticipating elements of rap and hip hop music.[21][22][23] As a musician, Ali recorded two spoken word albums and a rhythm and blues song, and received two Grammy Award nominations.[23] As an actor, he performed in several films and a Broadway musical. Additionally, Ali wrote two autobiographies, one during and one after his boxing career.
As a Muslim, Ali was initially affiliated with Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam (NOI) and advocated their black separatist ideology. He later disavowed the NOI, adhering initially to Sunni Islam and later to Sufism, and supporting racial integration, like his former mentor Malcolm X.
--
--
After retiring from boxing in 1981, Ali devoted his life to religious and charitable work. In 1984, Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson's syndrome, which his doctors attributed to boxing-related brain injuries. As the condition worsened, Ali made limited public appearances and was cared for by his family until his death on June 3, 2016, in Scottsdale, Arizona.
His time with Malcolm X has been well documented....
Ali the Activist:
Muhammad Ali was never one to back down from a fight. Inside the ring, his sheer toughness awed his opponents and, outside it, his determined eloquence provided moral leadership to many.
He stood against the Vietnam War long before that was a popular stance, spoke out repeatedly against racism and later campaigned against Islamophobia in the US following the 9/11 attacks.
--
For three years when he was in his sporting prime, Ali was banned from boxing by the US authorities after he refused to be inducted into the US Army because of his opposition to the Vietnam War.
It was a punishment Ali was willing to take, saying in response to a five-year prison sentence, which he successfully appealed, for refusing to fight: “So what? We [black people] have been in jail for 400 years.”
At age 18, the young Cassius Clay – as he was named at birth – got his first taste of how little his victories in the ring mattered in segregated America.
Just after beating Poland's Zbigniew Pietrzykowski to become the Olympic light-heavyweight champion in 1960, the young Cassius was refused a table in a "white people's" burger restaurant in his home town of Louisville, Kentucky.
He was so angry he later claimed to have thrown his Olympic medal into the Ohio river (although it is disputed he lost it).
Four years later in 1962, just after Ali had beaten Sonny Liston to become world heavyweight champion, he joined the radical black civil rights movement, the Nation of Islam (NOI), and changed his name to Muhammad Ali.
"Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn't choose it, and I didn't want it," he said. "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."
When Ernie Terrell referred to Ali by his birth name before their 1967 fight, Ali screamed in Terrell's face during it: "What's my name, Uncle Tom?"
His membership of the NOI was partly prompted by a friendship with Malcolm X, the leading black civil rights activist. They later fell out after Malcolm X clashed with Elijah Mohammad, the NOI's leader.
Ali himself later left the group and converted to Sunni Islam, and never got the chance to reconcile with Malcolm X who was assassinated in 1965.
--
He also publicly disagreed at first with Dr Martin Luther King's policy of urging black and white people to live together.
"I’m not going to get killed trying to force myself on people who don’t want me. Integration is wrong. White people don’t want it, the Muslims don’t want it,” said Ali.
--
--
Dr King’s ally Roy Wilkins responded by saying that “Cassius Clay may as well be an honorary member of the white citizen councils".
Yet in later years the views of the two men converged.
In 1967, when Dr King spoke out against President Lyndon Johnson’s escalation of the war in Vietnam, the press asked him why he was not simply focusing on the "domestic issue" of civil rights.
The great civil rights activist replied: "Like Muhammad Ali puts it, we are all – black and brown and poor – victims of the same system of oppression.”
--
Muhammad Ali's telegram to a jailed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr from 1967 (Getty Images)
--
And by the end of 1967, the two men were on good terms and supportive of each other with Ali sending Dr King, who had been sent to prison, a telegram of support.
He opposed the Vietnam War before doing so was as popular as it become. “My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people – some poor hungry people in the mud – for big powerful America,” he said. “They never called me n*****.
--
--
"I’m not going 10,000 miles from home [...] to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over.”
By the time he was thinking of retiring from boxing, the 38-year-old Ali had become a symbol of the civil rights movement, black pride and black power the world over.
He made goodwill missions to Afghanistan and North Korea, delivered medical supplies to an embargoed Cuba, and even travelled to Iraq to secure the release of 15 US hostages during the first Gulf War.
--
--
Ali also went to South Africa to meet Nelson Mandela upon his release from prison, an encounter the future president apparently found nerve-wracking.
"When I met Ali for the first time in 1990, I was extremely apprehensive. I wanted to say so many things to him," said Mandela in an interview.
"He was an inspiration to me, even in prison, because I thought of his courage and his commitment to his sport. I was overwhelmed by his gentleness and his expressive eyes."
After the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre, Ali spoke out against Islamophobia and terrorism.
He said in 2001: "I am angry that the world sees a certain group of Islam followers who caused this destruction, but they are not real Muslims.
--
--
"They are racist fanatics who call themselves Muslims, permitting this murder of thousands."
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk
A man with integrity, standing up for what he believed in, using his talent to open the world's eyes.
A role model and an inspiration and a true lover of and fearless fighter for freedom and justice.
RIP
If you liked this blog post - please Resteem it and share good content with others!
--
Some of my recent blogs:
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Image sources: MLB.com, Telegraph.uk.com, CNN.com, CNN Phillipines, Polish Press Agency,
You know, as a kid, I watched boxing and played a lot of sports.
You could not get away from the name Mohammed (Muhammed) Ali. It was on the news, in sports news, constantly.
I only knew him as a boxer really, a sports figure in my public and high school days.
As that kid - I thought he was a loud one and always shooting off his mouth and certainly colourful.
It seemed to be his thing. I did not understand it.
-- I'd never seen an athlete do this kind of thing.
It was not until I became an actual boots on the ground activist I really learned more about Cassius Clay and his activism and LIFE story outside the ring that I really appreciated the breadth of his humanity.
There was a lot more to this guy than just punching people in the face for a living.
The guy had strong beliefs, stood by those convictions he had and ACTED on them.
Active is the key part of the word ACTIVIST I have told people for years.
Today I just wanted to take 3 hours or so of my time, read up again and remember him in words and in pictures and pay some respect to a human being who had a lot to do with life inside and outside the ring.
I realized today, that his 1 year anniversary of his death was yesterday. I had shared posts about him on Fascistbook as such a year ago and it came up as a memory, so I decided this project would be a good one today.
This is just my way of respecting the man, the boxer and the activist.
I hand selected most all the pictures in this post and inserted them where I try to show different aspects to the man's life I thought were powerful visuals.
RIP Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. / Mohammed Ali. | January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016)
The man, the activist, the boxer. The Human Being - not just being.
But Doing.
This brief overview is directly from WikiPedia:
--
Muhammad Ali (/ɑːˈliː/;[8] born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.;[9] January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and activist. He is widely regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of the 20th century. From early in his career, Ali was known as an inspiring, controversial, and polarizing figure both inside and outside the ring.[10][11]
--
--
Cassius Clay was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and began training as an amateur boxer when he was 12 years old. At age 18, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome and turned professional later that year.
--
--
At age 22 in 1964, he won the WBA, WBC, and lineal heavyweight titles from Sonny Liston in a big upset. Clay then converted to Islam and changed his name from Cassius Clay, which he called his "slave name", to Muhammad Ali. He set an example of racial pride for African Americans and resistance to white domination during the Civil Rights Movement.[12][13]
In 1966, two years after winning the heavyweight title, Ali further antagonized the white establishment by refusing to be drafted into the U.S. military, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War.[12][14] He was eventually arrested, found guilty of draft evasion charges, and stripped of his boxing titles.
--
--
He successfully appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned his conviction in 1971, by which time he had not fought for nearly four years and thereby lost a period of peak performance as an athlete. Ali's actions as a conscientious objector to the war made him an icon for the larger counterculture generation.[15][16]
--
--
Ali is regarded as one of the leading heavyweight boxers of the 20th century. He remains the only three-time lineal heavyweight champion, having won the title in 1964, 1974, and 1978. Between February 25 and September 19, 1964, Ali reigned as the undisputed heavyweight champion. He is the only boxer to be named The Ring magazine Fighter of the Year six times. He was ranked as the greatest athlete of the 20th century by Sports Illustrated, the Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC, and the third greatest athlete of the 20th century by ESPN SportsCentury. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he was involved in several historic boxing matches.[17] Notable among these were the first Liston fight; the "Fight of the Century", "Super Fight II", the "Thrilla in Manila" versus his rival Joe Frazier, and "The Rumble in the Jungle" versus George Foreman.
--
--
At a time when most fighters let their managers do the talking, Ali thrived in and indeed craved the spotlight, where he was often provocative and outlandish.[18][19][20] He was known for trash talking, and often freestyled with rhyme schemes and spoken word poetry, both for his trash talking in boxing and as political poetry for his activism, anticipating elements of rap and hip hop music.[21][22][23] As a musician, Ali recorded two spoken word albums and a rhythm and blues song, and received two Grammy Award nominations.[23] As an actor, he performed in several films and a Broadway musical. Additionally, Ali wrote two autobiographies, one during and one after his boxing career.
As a Muslim, Ali was initially affiliated with Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam (NOI) and advocated their black separatist ideology. He later disavowed the NOI, adhering initially to Sunni Islam and later to Sufism, and supporting racial integration, like his former mentor Malcolm X.
--
--
After retiring from boxing in 1981, Ali devoted his life to religious and charitable work. In 1984, Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson's syndrome, which his doctors attributed to boxing-related brain injuries. As the condition worsened, Ali made limited public appearances and was cared for by his family until his death on June 3, 2016, in Scottsdale, Arizona.
His time with Malcolm X has been well documented....
Ali the Activist:
Muhammad Ali was never one to back down from a fight. Inside the ring, his sheer toughness awed his opponents and, outside it, his determined eloquence provided moral leadership to many.
He stood against the Vietnam War long before that was a popular stance, spoke out repeatedly against racism and later campaigned against Islamophobia in the US following the 9/11 attacks.
--
For three years when he was in his sporting prime, Ali was banned from boxing by the US authorities after he refused to be inducted into the US Army because of his opposition to the Vietnam War.
It was a punishment Ali was willing to take, saying in response to a five-year prison sentence, which he successfully appealed, for refusing to fight: “So what? We [black people] have been in jail for 400 years.”
At age 18, the young Cassius Clay – as he was named at birth – got his first taste of how little his victories in the ring mattered in segregated America.
Just after beating Poland's Zbigniew Pietrzykowski to become the Olympic light-heavyweight champion in 1960, the young Cassius was refused a table in a "white people's" burger restaurant in his home town of Louisville, Kentucky.
He was so angry he later claimed to have thrown his Olympic medal into the Ohio river (although it is disputed he lost it).
Four years later in 1962, just after Ali had beaten Sonny Liston to become world heavyweight champion, he joined the radical black civil rights movement, the Nation of Islam (NOI), and changed his name to Muhammad Ali.
"Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn't choose it, and I didn't want it," he said. "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."
When Ernie Terrell referred to Ali by his birth name before their 1967 fight, Ali screamed in Terrell's face during it: "What's my name, Uncle Tom?"
His membership of the NOI was partly prompted by a friendship with Malcolm X, the leading black civil rights activist. They later fell out after Malcolm X clashed with Elijah Mohammad, the NOI's leader.
Ali himself later left the group and converted to Sunni Islam, and never got the chance to reconcile with Malcolm X who was assassinated in 1965.
--
He also publicly disagreed at first with Dr Martin Luther King's policy of urging black and white people to live together.
"I’m not going to get killed trying to force myself on people who don’t want me. Integration is wrong. White people don’t want it, the Muslims don’t want it,” said Ali.
--
--
Dr King’s ally Roy Wilkins responded by saying that “Cassius Clay may as well be an honorary member of the white citizen councils".
Yet in later years the views of the two men converged.
In 1967, when Dr King spoke out against President Lyndon Johnson’s escalation of the war in Vietnam, the press asked him why he was not simply focusing on the "domestic issue" of civil rights.
The great civil rights activist replied: "Like Muhammad Ali puts it, we are all – black and brown and poor – victims of the same system of oppression.”
--
Muhammad Ali's telegram to a jailed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr from 1967 (Getty Images)
--
And by the end of 1967, the two men were on good terms and supportive of each other with Ali sending Dr King, who had been sent to prison, a telegram of support.
He opposed the Vietnam War before doing so was as popular as it become. “My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people – some poor hungry people in the mud – for big powerful America,” he said. “They never called me n*****.
--
--
"I’m not going 10,000 miles from home [...] to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over.”
By the time he was thinking of retiring from boxing, the 38-year-old Ali had become a symbol of the civil rights movement, black pride and black power the world over.
He made goodwill missions to Afghanistan and North Korea, delivered medical supplies to an embargoed Cuba, and even travelled to Iraq to secure the release of 15 US hostages during the first Gulf War.
--
--
Ali also went to South Africa to meet Nelson Mandela upon his release from prison, an encounter the future president apparently found nerve-wracking.
"When I met Ali for the first time in 1990, I was extremely apprehensive. I wanted to say so many things to him," said Mandela in an interview.
"He was an inspiration to me, even in prison, because I thought of his courage and his commitment to his sport. I was overwhelmed by his gentleness and his expressive eyes."
After the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre, Ali spoke out against Islamophobia and terrorism.
He said in 2001: "I am angry that the world sees a certain group of Islam followers who caused this destruction, but they are not real Muslims.
--
--
"They are racist fanatics who call themselves Muslims, permitting this murder of thousands."
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk
A man with integrity, standing up for what he believed in, using his talent to open the world's eyes.
A role model and an inspiration and a true lover of and fearless fighter for freedom and justice.
RIP
If you liked this blog post - please Resteem it and share good content with others!
--
Some of my recent blogs:
--
If you feel my posts are undervalued or you want to donate to tip me - I would appreciate it very much.
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Image sources: MLB.com, Telegraph.uk.com, CNN.com, CNN Phillipines, Polish Press Agency,