I've watched three rounds of Ken Burns four round documentary on Ali and have been struck by the many aspects of how his life influenced all who experienced him. Everyone of us is a complicated story, but only a few individuals are able to influence masses of people. Very few ever achieve the power I attribute to Muhammad Ali.
One of the blessings of living into older age is getting a much better perspective on time. When I was younger I lived life. I was there, and while I read widely about the things humans had thought, done, and created in the past, that was merely information I used to adapt in the living present. Living now (then) was everything. So, while I can appreciate and revere the actions and stories of Abraham Lincoln, I can't feel him the way I can feel Muhammad Ali. Because of technology, film, this documentary, it does make it easier to feel closer to people in the past captured by those cameras. What can't be changed is the real time evolution of the experience. When we read history we know many outcomes. Real life is full of surprises.
As I have watched the documentary and relived those times, it struck me how much my own experiences were most likely strongly influenced by Ali. I am twelve years younger than him, so I was 10 years old when Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston. Like the rest of the world I was shocked and amazed by the outcome of the fight and flabbergasted by the mouthy kid, gloating over his victory. We listened to it on the radio. I felt like I grew up with him as he backed up his cocky proclamation of being the greatest fighter ever by predicting when he would knock out his opponent before each fight. The fact that he made good on those predictions endeared him to young people who wanted to be taken seriously. Over that time he grew into a man confident about who he was and what he could do and say. He exercised his mind and citizenship as much as his body. A Black champion, he exemplified the righteous anger of generations of Americans enslaved. He demanded to be acknowledged as a man in charge of his own life. His aggressive affronts were tempered and diffused by the clown he played. He developed the technique of entertaining and instructing periodically interrupted by impatience and anger. His stand up routines in front of the cameras were not dissimilar to the style comedian Lenny Bruce developed, a sort of joke and jab.
Ali's routines worked their magic on the American people who were not used to seeing a Black man “act that way.” All of a sudden he had an audience, a huge white audience. His message was simple: work hard, reap what you sow, be true to yourself, be good to others who are being good to others, and kick the asses of those who don't play fair.
SHOOK UP THE WORLD
*
Reception was poor
atop the Frigidaire,
so we took the old RCA
cabinet radio down,
put it on the kitchen table,
slowly turned the tuning knob
through static, pops, musical
waves till we heard the boxing
announcers tone and holler,
the crowd noise and ringing bell.
*
Regularly, my dad and me
watched the Friday night fights
on TV, but this heavyweight title
bout between Sonny Liston,
the champ, and a brash young braggart,
Cassius Clay, the Louisville Lip,
wasn't on the tube. Clay ranted,
acted like a crazy man, but we didn't
believe he had a chance
against an uncaged bear.
*
We hunkered close
to the speaker, the ring
announcer's voice fading in
and out surfing the rise and fall
of AM reception. We imagined
the scene we couldn't see,
hearing infrequently, were surprised
Clay was hanging in. Clearly
doing what he said he would—
he'd come to win.
*
The champ sounded too slow
to catch up to Clay. He lunged
and was pummeled by The Lip's
lightning fast fists. Cut,
stumbling, out of breath, the bear
was done, couldn't answer the bell,
setting off a spray-swell of scratchy
erratic noise, the announcer's voice
clamoring for the new champ like
the dinging bell, static blurring
what we couldn't believe.
*
Brashious Cassius shook up the world,
so Muhammad Ali could live free.
The documentary clearly points out Ali's failings: his verbal and physical abuses, going after those he saw as preventing him from living his life; and his infidelity to his wife. The film doesn't make excuses for Ali's cruelty or insensitivity. It does give us a glimpse into where that might have stemmed from. Ali, according to his close friends and family, was a chip off the old block. Cassius Clay, Sr. was a smart, charismatic, entertaining alcoholic who burned with the rage of racial oppression and took it out on his wife and family when he was drunk. He was also a philanderer. Probably the best decision Ali ever made was choosing not to drink alcohol, but it looks like he inherited his father's appetite for and objectification of women. He also was a gifted entertainer who loved an audience, and he harbored a righteous anger over the oppression of Black Americans. He used those abilities to make people laugh and listen to rail against the oppression of Blacks. Initially he demanded respect for himself, and in the process discovered his voice, his status, benefited all Black people and all oppressed people everywhere, all the folks who'd been asked to wait outside or on the porch and never admitted into the living room of the “land of the free.”
Muhammad Ali embodied the struggles of all African Americans as well as all marginalized people. He became a leading voice in a social revolution whether he initially intended it or not. His stance against induction into the Army on religious principles made him a hero to me. For his refusal to serve after he was denied Conscientious Objector status, he was sentenced to five years in prison and stripped of his title. We all thought that was the most important thing in the world to him. We found out his belief in a higher power, his spiritual calling, was worth much more. Sacrificing a world that turns on finance and fame, that goal he'd worked to achieve his whole life, was something he had to do to hold onto what was most important, the beliefs in his heart. That is the definition of integrity. It's a stance everyone must respect whether one liked the man or not. His conviction and losing his livelihood forced him onto a new stage where boxing didn't exist, where he wasn't the Greatest anymore because he couldn't practice his greatness. That adversity made him an even greater role model for how to walk through this life.
In those three and a half years suspended from the sport, we got to know the real Muhammad Ali. Television brought him into our homes. He spoke about what he thought on a slate of American and world issues, told us about his family, and joked with whomever was interviewing him. No fights, no bragging, he put his game face aside and showed us the real Muhammad Ali.
My father loved Ali. He, too, resented the hypocrisy of the American myth. A student of history and a rebellious Irish Catholic, he hated injustice and championed civil rights. So, in high school when I decided ⁰I needed to publicly resist an arbitrary and unjust dress code the school tried to enforce to stem the tide of the “radical counterculture movement ruining the country,” I naturally thought that my beliefs were fueled by my dad and the civil rights demonstrations of the sixties. But after watching Burns' documentary, it hit me how influential Ali was on me from 1967 to 1971. That was the era that tested and defined his character. At the same time I came of age, 13 to 17, and now I believe that “ the fight” I consciously embraced in 1971 for my own rights was a way of testing myself, my resolve, my own character. The situation was thrust upon me, so I was forced to choose how to respond much in the same way it happened to Ali. Of course his decision was way more impactful than mine, but on my small stage and at a young age, the choice was still a difficult one to make. It wasn't easy to stand up to those in power: teachers, administrators, parents, or community members, those who wanted to force their will, their standards, on me and the entire student population, insisting we dress and groom the way they wanted us to look (or not to look!) just to receive an education.
I was the Student Body President, so I went to the Student Council and argued that as a student body, we could not stand by and accept these imposed standards that had no relevance to our education and infringed upon our parents rights as our guardians. The majority agreed, so I was chosen to go to the school board meeting and plead our case. It was a public meeting and held in the multipurpose room anticipating a crowd which they got. It was an intimidating affair for me since most people knew the issue of the school rules were the result of a situation that first started in regard to participation in football, and I was the student who “had caused the problem” by growing a mustache and sideburns besides the shaggy hair covering my ears and collar. When informed during the football season that I should cut my hair and get rid of the facial hair, I reminded the coach that I remembered playing with students when I was a Freshman who sported the exact same hair styles which he didn't have a problem with back then. Some of my teammates sided with the coach, but most agreed with me that our appearance didn't matter to play football. Nobody could see us in a helmet anyway. In the spirit of compromise I agreed to remove the mustache if that would appease the coach. He went along with that, but I knew he would find a way to get back at me. It’s just who he was.
After I presented the student body's argument against a dress code and the administration gave their rebuttal, the floor was opened to questions from the community. Some spoke in support of the school, but most spoke on behalf of the students and those parents who felt they could decide if their children were appropriately dressed and groomed. Some mustached men stood and asked the board members somewhat aggressively if the board thought their appearance was inappropriate or “unclean” as one administrator had suggested. As more voices raised and some tempers began to flare, the board went into a huddle and decided to abandon the idea of a school-wide dress code but gave complete authority to the coach to impose any dress code rule he thought appropriate for his teams. The football coach was also the basketball coach, so I knew what was coming. He held the power, and I had to make a decision. I chose not to play his game. I played my game instead, the Ali game of self sacrifice for a principle that felt like a moral. It was a struggle of wills, lines in the sand.
In a conversation before the season began, I told him that I'd refused to cut my hair when my father told me to, that it was a personal and political decision, so why would he think I’d do it for him if I wouldn't do it for my father? The coach smiled and said, “Maybe to play basketball?” I insisted that it had nothing to do with my ability to play the game or work with my teammates, and that I had always been a “coach's player.” He held his ground and mocked my argument. I told him exactly what I thought of him and refused to cave to his petty power trip. To add insult to injury, a month or two down the road, I walked into the gym to watch my teammates play a home game. After getting a haircut that day at my mother's request for senior pictures, I sat in the bleachers a few rows behind the team bench. As the teams warmed up on the floor before the game, the coach approached me in the stands and said, “You didn't tell me you were getting a haircut. Your uniform is hanging up downstairs. You can go put it on and play if you want.” I hadn't practiced with the team in six weeks. I asked if his rules had changed. “No, but you qualify now,” he said smiling. I reminded him that hair grows and we'd be back in the same spot in a few weeks. “Not if you cut it again,” was his reply.
Even for that guy, I found it hard to believe what had just happened. He was willing to bump whomever had replaced me. If I agreed to play his game, bow to his authority, he would give me a slot I hadn't earned. And I still harbored some irrational hope of playing my last year, so it was tempting for a minute or two. But I knew it felt wrong, and I think Muhammad Ali was with me, in my ear, “You know what's right. Don't choose the easy way. Don't give in for the wrong reasons. Don't play the man's game. Be true to yourself, what you believe is right. Your father respected your decisions. This man will learn to respect you, too. If not, others will, and most importantly, you will. A true champion stands up for the good of the people, for fairness, for justice. Life is more important than any game.” My parents gave me the foundation to be my own person. Muhammad Ali showed me what real courage looked like.
Everyone should be lucky enough to carry a hero like Ali inside them, someone who inspires freedom through their passion for truth and justice, someone who teaches them to take care of their brothers and sisters, to love one another, and never back down from the threat of evil. Many of our heroes like Muhammad Ali will exhibit flaws, will make mistakes. That's what humans do. How they react to those mistakes, what they do going forward, how they learn from them, that is what defines one's character. Ali was larger than life because we watched him become that man. Television brought him to us in ways we had never been able to do before. That and the mythic storyline of his life made him the singular most influential person on my young life. I wish you all that kind of hero, a teacher who rises and falls and gets up again, keeps struggling through all kinds of adversity. I wish you all that kind of romance.
I remember listening with my dad.. Excellent Mark..!