Muhammad Ali

(intense electric guitar music) -

Keith

In May, Ali began a month-long tour of African countries. In Accra, the capital of Ghana, thousands gathered at the airport to catch a glimpse of the world's new heavyweight champion. (men singing in foreign language) Outside his hotel, Ali heard a familiar voice. "Brother Muhammad," called Malcolm X, who was on his own overseas tour. He greeted Ali enthusiastically. "I still love you," he told the boxer. "You left the honorable Elijah Muhammad," Ali said. "That was the wrong thing to do." There was little else to say. Malcolm walked away. Ali met with Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah, sparred with his brother Rudy, now known as Rachman, before thousands at a local sports stadium, and took every opportunity to engage the admirers who turned up everywhere Ali went. He also spoke out against integration in America, advocating for a separate state for Black people, and dismissed the sweeping Civil Rights bill under consideration in the U.S. Congress as counterfeit money. Later, he visited Nigeria and Egypt, where he and Herbert Muhammad met with president Gamal Abdel Nasser and prayed with 1,500 worshipers at Cairo's Al Hussein Mosque. The deep affection Africans showered on Ali during his five-week trip showed that his success in the ring and outspokenness beyond it had won him an enormous following well beyond the United States. Well, remember that the African continent itself was in the throes of liberation, you know, from colonial status to liberation time, and Muhammad Ali was a figure of liberation. -

Keith

Before leaving Africa, Ali received a cable from his former friend and mentor. "Because a billion of our people in Africa, Asia, and Arabia love you blindly, you must now be forever aware of your tremendous responsibility to them," Malcolm X wrote. "You must never do or say anything that will permit your enemies to distort the beautiful image you have here among our people." I frankly believe that Cassius is in a better position than anyone else to restore a sense of racial pride to not only our people in this country, but all over the world, and he is trying his best to live a clean life and project a clean image. But despite this, you find the press is constantly trying to paint him as something other than what he actually is. He doesn't smoke. He doesn't drink. In fact, if he was white, they would be referring to him as the all-American boy.