The Complete Muhammad Aliis a Fascinating Portrait of the Twentieth Century and the Beginning of the Twenty-First
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“Great,” James Baldwin Ishmael Reed “Great,” Sam Tanenhaus, The New York Times The Complete “Great,” Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic Wire A “modern-day Molière,” Backstage More than a biography and ‘bigger than boxing,’ The Complete Muhammad Aliis a fascinating portrait of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. MUHAMMAD ALI Ishmael Reed calls it The Complete Muhammad Ali because most of the hundred odd books about the champion are “either too adoring or make excessively negative assertions.” One biography blames Ali, along with Gerald Ford, for losing Vietnam, Ishmael Reed another calls him a “malicious buffoon,” while others—The Ali Scribes—make him into a Saint. Charting Ali’s evolution from Black Nationalism to a universalism, Reed gives due credit to the Nation of Islam’s and Black Nationalism’s important influence on Ali’s intellectual development. Instead of being dismissed as “lunatics” and “thugs,” Black The Complete Nationalists and Nation of Islam members are given a chance to speak up. Sam X, who introduced Ali to the Nation of Islam, said that without his mentor Elijah Muhammad, nobody would ever have heard of Ali. That remark cannot be ignored. The Ali phenomenon is also situated in the history of boxing and boxers from before the times of Jack Johnson, through Joe Louis and Archie Moore to Floyd MUHAMMAD ALI Mayweather. Reed includes Canadian fighters like Tommy Burns, George Chuvalo and Yvon Durelle. People interviewed include Marvin X, Harry Belafonte, Hugh Masakela, Jack Newfield, Ed Hughes, Emmanuel Steward, Amiri Baraka, Emil Guillermo, Khalilah Ali, Quincy Troupe, Rahaman Ali, Agieb Bilal, Melvin Van Peebles, Ray Robinson, Jr., Ed Hughes, Jesse Jackson, Martin Wyatt, Bennett Johnson, Stanley Crouch, Bobby Seale, and many more. ISHMAEL REED is a prize-winning essayist, novelist, poet and playwright. He taught at the University of California-Berkeley for thirty-five years, as well as at Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth. Author of more than twenty-five books, he is a member of Harvard’s Signet Society “Mr. Reed’s prose style and Yale’s Calhoun Society. He lives in Oakland, California. resembles the youthful Ali’s ring style. He is unorthodox, $29.95 brash, yet controlled.” New York Times, March 12,1978 isbn 978-1-77186-040-6 www.barakabooks.com Ali.couv..indd 1 2015-06-19 12:47 Ali.indd 2 2015-06-19 12:39 The Complete MUHAMMAD ALI Ali.indd 3 2015-06-19 12:39 “You Have No Partners in Pain.” Willie Pep Ali.indd 4 2015-06-19 12:39 The Complete MUHAMMAD ALI Ishmael Reed Montréal Ali.indd 5 2015-06-19 12:39 The cover photo was taken by the late photographer, Jose Fuentes, who often traveled with the champion. Unlike photos that are used as covers for the more than one hundred books on Muhammad Ali, some of them showing the champion in a playful pose, or brimming with confidence, this photo is different. Here is the champion at the end of his career. He has been humiliated by a fighter just out of the amateurs. He is about to take on his young conquerer in a return match. The outcome is uncertain. His handlers thought that it would be an easy fight. He has debts. And marital problems. In his next fight he meets Larry Holmes and receives one of the most brutal defeats in boxing history. He fights this and his last fight, while a debilitating brain disease is beginning to form. Here Ali is shown facing tragedy, majestically. © Ishmael Reed 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN 978-1-77186-040-6 pbk; 978-1-77186-047-5 epub; 978-1-77186-048-2 pdf; 978-1-77186-049-9 mobi/kindle Cover photo by Jose Fuentes Cover by Folio infographie Book design by Folio infographie Legal Deposit, 3rd quarter 2015 Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec Library and Archives Canada Published by Baraka Books of Montreal 6977, rue Lacroix Montréal, Québec H4E 2V4 Telephone: 514 808-8504 [email protected] www.barakabooks.com Printed and bound in Quebec Trade Distribution & Returns Canada and the United States Independent Publishers Group 1-800-888-4741 (IPG1); [email protected] Ali.indd 6 2015-06-19 12:39 DEDICATION This book is dedicated to: the great photographer, Jose Fuentes; Barbara Lowenstein, my agent; Shaye Arehart, and to Sam Greenlee Billy Bang, Jack Newfield, Reginald Major, Ed Hughes, Fred Ho, Clayton Riley, Emanuel Steward, Amiri Baraka, Oscar Hijuelos, Sam Greenlee, and photographer Charles Robinson whom I interviewed, but who didn’t live to see the publication of this book. Ali.indd 7 2015-06-19 12:39 Ali.indd 8 2015-06-19 12:39 INTRODUCTION The Curious History of an Icon I call this book The Complete Muhammad Ali because most of the one hundred books about the champion, the majority of which are worshipful, are either too adoring or make excessively negative asser- tions, like Jack Cashill’s blaming Ali and Gerald Ford for the loss of Vietnam. For Mark Kram, Ali is a malicious buffoon. For Thomas Hauser, he’s a saint, though Hauser’s opinion has changed. White sports writers have been generally hostile to black athletes, yet they monopolize the coverage of athletes and always seem to be searching for a white hope who would best the reigning black champion. In contrast to some of their copy, Jack London, who allegedly created the term “white hope,” was very respectful of heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. Authors of the two bestsellers, one of which was overseen by Yolanda Ali, and the other written by an Ali fan, disregard any information that would interfere with their reference for “The King of the World.” Others are those whom I call The Ali Scribes, liberal writers located in the Northeast, who base their admiration of Ali upon his refusal to fight in an unpopular war with- out noting that he was following the example of his mentor, Elijah Muhammad, who refused to fight in a “popular war.” World War II was seen as a war of “The Greatest Generation,” against the forces of fascism, while this coveted generation practiced their fascism against black soldiers, who had to fight both the “enemy” and white officers and GIs. Just as George Washington treated English mercenaries Ali.indd 9 2015-06-19 12:39 10 THE COMPLETE MUHAMMAD ALI better than his slaves, “enemy” prisoners were treated better in the south than black soldiers. When speaking of the white volunteers who came south to assist in registering of black voters, while in the media version blacks stood by passively like the characters in the film “Django Unchained,” Askia Touré could have been speaking of The Ali Scribes. Ali made the sacrifice, while they held meetings in a downtown pub deliberating about his choices. Askia Touré was one of those responsible for purging north- ern liberals from SNCC (The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee). He said it was done because while blacks were taking the risks, the liberals were calling their friends located in cities all over the North and giving the blacks directions from their tables in coffee shops, or in the immortal words of David Hilliard, a member of the Black Panther Party and one of the guardians of its legacy: “They needed a nigger to pull the trigger.” This could be true of The Ali Scribes; they celebrated Ali’s defiance of the draft, a sacrifice that they would not make themselves. The Ali Scribes’ genuflection before the champion was a factor in Ali believing in his invincibility—a belief that led to serious injuries in the ring, injuries incurred as a result of his staying in the game long after the powers that were responsible for his ascendancy had been shot. Sports commentator Bill Clayton even provided some punch stats to compute the number of punches Ali received with the decline of his ring abilities. According to Clayton’s calibrations, in the first Liston fight, Ali was hit with less than a dozen punches per round. In Ali-Liston II, Liston landed only two. Cleveland Williams hit him with only three punches during their bout. However, Joe Frazier hit him with four hundred forty punches at the “Thrilla in Manila,” Leon Spinks hit him with four hundred eighty-two punches in their first fight, and Larry Holmes connected with three hundred and twenty punches (Hauser, 2005). Ali’s legend hangs upon the act of defying the Selective Service, which still brings him either praise or condemnation from his sup- porters and enemies. His response to the press when asked whether he Ali.indd 10 2015-06-19 12:39 THE COMPLETE MUHAMMAD ALI 11 would serve in Vietnam (“No Vietnamese ever called me a Nigger”) was framed by a Nation of Islam (NOI) member Sam X, or Abdul Rahman. Though the Scribes give others credit for introducing Ali to the Nation of Islam, Ali has agreed with Sam X that it was him. My interview with playwright Marvin X shows that Elijah Muhammad controlled Ali’s life to such an extent that he told him when to speak and when not to speak, and Ali’s ex-wife, the late Sonji Clay, said that Ali divorced her because Elijah Muhammad ordered him to do so. And so, is Ali being praised for following orders? And what are we to make of his confession, made in confidence to the late Jack Newfield, that he didn’t become “a devout, true believer in Allah” until the mid-1980s, “‘when my career was over, and mini- skirts went out of style’” (Newfield,The Nation).