An Oral History on the Rumble in the Jungle Fight
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The Knockout That Shocked the World: An Oral History on the Rumble in the Jungle Fight Between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali on October 30, 1974 Interviewer: Will Yore Interviewee: Jerry Izenberg Instructor: Alex Haight February 11, 2019 Yore Table of Contents Interviewer Release Form ………………………………………………………… 2 Interviewee Release Form………………………………………………………… 3 Statement of Purpose……………………………………………………………… 4 Biography…………………………………………………………………………. 5 Rumblings in the Jungle and in the U.S…………………………………………... 7 Interview Transcription…………………………………………………………. 18 Interview Analysis……………………………………………………………….. 49 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………... 55 Appendix………………………………………………………………………… 57 Yore Yore Yore Statement of Purpose The purpose of this project is to obtain a historical comprehension of the fight between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali on October 30th, 1974. Interviewing Mr. Jerry Izenberg provides a firsthand account of the experience of attending the fight as well as personal memories between him and the fighters. This interview will allow historians to compare and contrast evidence provided by history books with that of someone who experienced the event live and was able to gain a full understanding of the perspectives of each boxer. Furthermore, this interview will contribute to historical discussions about the lives of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman as well as provide personal insight on what the fight meant to the participants along with those watching. Yore Biography Jerry Izenberg was born in 1930 in Neptune City, New Jersey. He attended Rutgers University on the Newark campus. During his education at Rutgers, Mr. Izenberg began his journalism career in 1951 when he got a job with the Newark Star Ledger. After working there for only one summer, he enlisted in the Korean War and served for two years. During his 60-year career, Mr. Izenberg covered numerous important topics throughout the world of sports, but among his most significant was his long-lasting relationship and writings about boxer Muhammad Ali. [See Appendix 1] He covered many of Ali’s fights, and the two became very close friends over five decades. Mr. Izenberg also developed numerous other personal relationships with professional boxers he covered. For example, he was also very close with George Foreman, who was Ali’s opponent in the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” fight. Mr. Izenberg does not only cover boxing. In fact, he is one of only three journalists to have covered every single Super Bowl, and he will be attending this year’s Super Bowl as well. Mr. Izenberg was inducted into the New Jersey Sports Hall of Fame in 1977. In 2000, he was also recognized for his work when he won the Red Smith Award from the Associated Press Sports Editors. In Yore 2006, he wrote an eight-part memoir for the Newark Star Ledger to commemorate 55 years of journalism. He was inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame, as well as the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2016. Also, in 2016, he was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame. Mr. Izenberg has also written 13 books over the course of his career, the most recent being “Once There Were Giants: The Golden Age of Heavyweight Boxing.” Along with his career as a print journalist, Mr. Izenberg has also been a writer, narrator, or producer of thirty-five network television documentaries. One of these, “A Man Called Lombardi”, earned an Emmy nomination. Mr. Izenberg is now semi-retired. He has four children and nine grandchildren, and now lives with his wife in Henderson, NV, where he continues to watch boxing and baseball, and still enjoys writing. Yore Rumblings in the Jungle and in the U.S. Newark-Star Ledger reporter Jerry Izenberg described Muhammad Ali as, “an aging ex- champ and a man who, without whining, had taken more crap from his own government than all the white-collar criminals in America.”1 Although this is a sentiment that can be attributed to Ali throughout his entire career, there are specific events that define his legacy as one of the most important and influential athletes of all time. The influence of professional athletes on modern society expands far beyond Ali and has been a trend throughout most of history with figures like Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens, and even more recent players like Colin Kaepernick making big impacts on the racial and cultural tensions of their given time periods. Out of Ali’s sixty-one career fights, the one that changed the world’s perspective on sports and civil rights at the same time was Ali’s bout with George Foreman on October 30th in 1974. This fight took place in a small African country named Zaire. The legendary fight is now known as the Rumble in the Jungle. However, to truly understand the Rumble in the Jungle one must examine the racial tensions of the time, Ali’s influence on the public, and the significance of the fight’s location as well as gain a first-hand perspective from a legendary reporter who was there. During the 1960s, racial tensions were no small aspect of American life, and Muhammad Ali did not shy away from the subject, serving as one of the most controversial figures of the time while still maintaining his reputation as one of the most revered athletes and public personalities. Sports writer George Plimpton noted that, “Ali’s behavior outside the ring is just as 1 Jerry Izenberg, "Muhammad Ali: Why they called him 'The Greatest' and why I called him my friend," New Jersey Real-Time Sports, last modified June 4, 2016, https://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2016/06/former_heavyweight_champ_muhammad_ali_dies_the_gre. html. Yore controversial; it has made him a historical as well as a sports figure.”2 The most notable development of the time period was the Civil Rights Movement spearheaded by figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X that began in 1954 and lasted all the way through 1968, finally giving African Americans the basic human rights they so desperately deserved. The progressive atmosphere of the period is best described by black revolutionary Eldridge Cleaver, when he stated that, “You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem.”3 This era greatly divided America’s population, but after all was said in done, justice and liberty were the victors of the tireless struggle. Although the two sides of oppression and equality split much of the country, this movement also served as a catalyst that brought thousands of Americans, black and white, together through the common fight for justice. There were countless protests and riots, culminating with the March on Washington on August 23, 1963, as well as the March on Selma from March 7-21, 1965. Both of these marches were led by Martin Luther King, who, along with Ali, was known as one of the most important figures of the period and to date. The movement was an achievement that was long overdue in American history and provided an extremely crucial stepping stone in America’s ongoing fight for equality. One theme of the 1960s that continually shocked the country and often kept it in shambles was the continual assassinations of major world figures. Over the course of the decade, multiple extremely important figures in the US were killed. This list most notably includes names such as President John F. Kennedy in 1963, black civil rights leader Malcom X in 1965, 2 George Plimpton, "Down But Determined to Fight His Way Back to the Top, Muhammad Ali Turned 1974 Into a Year of Great Triumph," SI Vault, last modified December 23, 1974, https://www.si.com/vault/1974/12/23/628163/muhammad-ali-sportsman-1974. 3 Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000), 221. Yore Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, and Robert F. Kennedy, again in 1968. This constant violence and turmoil within the country created a feeling of great hostility, and only further added on to the racial oppression that figures like King and Ali were vouching for. An appropriate reflection of the decade’s terror is reflected in a quote from President Lyndon Johnson in 1971 when he solemnly states, “It’s a terrible thing for me to sit by and watch someone else starve my Great Society to death…Soon she’ll be so ugly that the American people will refuse to look at her; they’ll stick her in a closet to hide her away and there she’ll die. And when she dies, I, too will die.”4 This is a view that was commonly shared by the American people, and is what sums up this dark period in American history. Another moment of controversy that solidified Muhammad Ali’s legacy came after the start of the Vietnam War, which began on November 1st, 1955. The war did not end until 1975, however, the issue occurred in 1967 when Ali was stripped of his heavyweight championship due to his refusal to enter the draft. Although Ali’s refusal to enlist was a major point of discussion and outcry from the American people, he is not the only one who looked upon the war unfavorably. Historians Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin describe the war as, “The most demoralizing for Americans, plunging the nation into its most bitter civil conflict in a century.” It would also lead to the deaths of more than 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese.5 Many often questioned the motivation for the US’s involvement in the war, and one often used explanation was that they were defending the country’s “credibility” which, at best, can be described as a “murky and ambiguous goal.” The common consensus around the war was that it was mostly unnecessary, and Ali was one of the first major figures to openly challenge that and 4 Isserman and Kazin, America Divided, 187.