Muhammad Ali on Why He Refused the Draft

[villager]

[Gomez163]

1. Back then

Back in those days the sports media was 99 per centry against him. Only Howard Cosell supported him

[captainarizona]

2. ali and the supreme court

The justices on the supreme court wanted to find Ali guilty of avoiding the draft ;but were told that mormon missionaries would not be able to avoid the draft (like mitt romney) so they had to find him not guilty!

[larkrake]

3. the young blacks were cannon fodder in Nam

[captainarizona]

6. Detroit 1967

I remember the young black draftee's sitting on the airport runway refusing to oppress their brothers in Detroit! There are pictures of them ;but I am not computer literate enough to post them.

[Hoyt]

4. That was a defining moment for many back then. A real hero to me.

[gwheezie]

5. I have few heroes, Ali was one

I remember watching him win his Olympic title and followed his boxing career as a kid. My father would catch all his fights on a tiny black and white screen. I remember the beginnings of Vietnam and how fierce the tide turned for him from a national hero to a traitor. That's when Ali became my hero.

[13Dogs]

7. The Greatest

Boy, what a sad day. I just learned of Ali's passing and it has hit me hard. Tears streaming down as I write this. He was a living legend, someone who stood true to his beliefs no matter what, and challenged the powers that be, right to their core. And amazingly he ended up beating the bastards. They couldn't keep him down although they tried every nasty trick in the book. Just watch the video of him taking on the government over the Vietnam War. He kicked the evil war machine right where it hurts, just about the only person I've ever seen do that and get away with it.
A true inspiration to me as I grew older and understood more of what the world was really like. He taught me to stand behind my beliefs even if they weren't popular or condoned by the majority. To stay true to who you are no matter what. Without really understanding it at the time, he had more impact on me growing up then anyone I can name. Most importantly, he taught this white man that racism was wrong and ignorant, and that waging war against people you have no grievance with is unacceptable. And he went to jail rather than betray those principles. He exposed the warmongers as the true evil in this world, made them look small and stupid, and they hated him for it with a passion.
Beloved by any thinking person, he was truly one of the greatest human beings this world has seen. The world is weeping at the news...rest now Champ, your work here is done.

[Jarqui]

8. I had cut this quote for pasting but really appreciate the video when I arrived to post:

“I ain’t draft dodging. I ain’t burning no flag. I ain’t running to Canada. I’m staying right here. You want to send me to jail? Fine, you go right ahead. I’ve been in jail for 400 years. I could be there for 4 or 5 more, but I ain’t going no 10,000 miles to help murder and kill other poor people. If I want to die, I’ll die right here, right now, fightin’ you, if I want to die. You my enemy, not no Chinese, no Vietcong, no Japanese. You my opposer when I want freedom. You my opposer when I want justice. You my opposer when I want equality. Want me to go somewhere and fight for you? You won’t even stand up for me right here in America, for my rights and my religious beliefs. You won’t even stand up for my rights here at home.”

It was a very big deal that the heavyweight champion of the world refused to fight in America's war at that time - much bigger than someone doing so today. People were calling him a yellow nigger and attacking his character, etc. In fact, as should be obvious, taking the position he did took a lot of courage. Ali was sentenced to 5 years in prison for draft evasion, stripped of his title and banned from professional boxing for several years. It drained him financially as he hadn't made a bundle of money from fighting by that time.

But it was a gigantic shot in the arm for the anti-war movement. It didn't just help in America - he helped turn the whole world against the war and in doing so, brought more attention to the civil rights injustices. As a young student in the trenches for those causes, it was a gigantic deal to get his support. He turned heads. He made people who followed sports and others who hadn't given these issues the thought they deserved, think about it or think about his perspective. He gave those causes much greater momentum. In doing so, he changed lives for the better and saved some along the way.

I feel he was a great and beautiful human being through and through and I feel lucky to have experienced his life. Oh, and he was by far the best boxer I ever saw. In his prime, nobody comes close to him.