There was more to Muhammad Ali than boxing

Last updated on 17th June 2016

There was more to Muhammad Ali than boxing. An around 9 min. look at Ali's life & legacy from PBS Newshour, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-mCJgJF9I0.

What Muhammad Ali said when he, perhaps under the influence of the Nation of Islam leaders, Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X then, conscientiously objected to being drafted into the Vietnam war, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali, "My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn't put no dogs on me, they didn't rob me of my nationality, --snip--.... How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail." [This was in March 1966.]

Ravi: Here's a video having his above statements and more, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeFMyrWlZ68, 2 min. 36 secs. The video also captures how much he had to struggle financially and the kind of arguments he had to face, during this period.

Here's another video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB-1nDmHJ_8, 2 min. 32 secs, which has a short segment of Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali. Dr. King says at around 2:05 into the video (hopefully I got it right), "... We are all victims of the same system of oppression and even though we may have different religious beliefs, this does not at all bring about a difference in terms of our (concerns)". Muhammad Ali tries to hug Dr. King, saying, "He is my brother, real brother."

At around 1:40 in the above video, Muhammad Ali, wearing an FOI (Fruit of Islam, I guess) cap, says, "We believe in obeying the laws of the land. We are taught to obey the laws of the land as long as they don't conflict with our religious beliefs." .. "Whatever the punishment, whatever the persecution is for standing up for my religious beliefs even if it means facing machine gun fire (that day), I will face it before renouncing Elijah Muhammad and the religion of Islam. I am ready to die."

Here's another video, I Ain't Got No Quarrel With Them Viet Congs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B6BE6x9MmE, 10 mins

Ravi: I admire Muhammad Ali for standing up to the USA establishment at the time of the Vietnam war. He was punished for it losing three and a half years of boxing life at the peak of his career. But eventually his conviction was overturned. (From above wiki link), "In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction in a unanimous 8–0 ruling (Thurgood Marshall recused himself, as he had been the U.S. Solicitor General at the time of Ali's conviction)."

From the same wiki link, "Ali converted from the Nation of Islam sect to mainstream Sunni Islam in 1975. In a 2004 autobiography, written with daughter Hana Yasmeen Ali, he attributes his conversion to the shift toward Islam made by Warith Deen Muhammad after he gained control of the Nation of Islam upon the death of Elijah Muhammad in 1975. Later in his life, he embraced the spiritual teachings of Universal Sufism founder Inayat Khan."

[I thank Wikipedia and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extracts from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]