Last week, we lost quite possibly, boxing’s biggest name-- Muhammad Ali. Born Cassius Clay, this Louisville, Kentucky resident turned into the sport’s face, and for many people remains that face even a generation removed from his last fight. On Friday, thousands of mourners lined the streets of Louisville to pay their respects as Ali’s remains traversed the city. Some children--much too young to remember Ali’s accomplishments in the ring--ran alongside the hearse as it passed by.
It was no surprise when social media blew up as news of the boxer’s death broke. My Facebook and Instagram feeds were inundated with “RIP Ali” posts from people equally too young to remember who Ali was.
What caught me by surprise however were what people were typing. Quote after quote from Ali, which were, in a word, prolific. Everything from war to race to social justice and when-life-gets-you-down quotes. I genuinely had no idea Ali was such a fighter outside the ring.
Ali used his platform to spread messages of racial tolerance and world peace. Yes, hundreds of athletes have followed in his footsteps since then. But Ali, considering his career was birthed in the 1960s-- a time of deep racial tension in the country-- could have very well been one of the first modern athlete-activists, or at least one of the first to use his star power to push social justice to the forefront. Ali was much more than a braggadocious, trash-talking boxer who mouthed off against his opponents before every fight. In an age where athletes are either too cool to care, or their audiences too offended to allow it (see, for example, the backlash from fellow Spartans Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s Black Power Salute at the 1968 Summer Olympics, the “I Can’t Breathe” movement in the NBA in response to the death of Eric Garner at the hands of the NYPD, and St. Louis Rams players Jared Cook, Kenny Britt, Stedman Bailey, Chris Givens, and Tavon Austin defiantly putting their hands up during a pregame ceremony after a jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson, a police officer who shot unarmed teenager Michael Brown to death). Ali made people listen. He made issues matter. And he had the courage to speak about them. As a tribute to him, here are some of Ali’s most thought-provoking quotes:
1. "Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?” -- February 17, 1966 (Shortly after, he refused to follow his draft orders to fight in Vietnam. He was arrested, convicted of draft dodging, and suspended from the sport he loved for three years).
2. “Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.”
3. “I’m just hoping that people understand that Islam is peace and not violence.”
4. “I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”
5. "I am a Muslim and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino, or anywhere else in the world. True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so-called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion.” --2015 (Yes, 2015!), on the topic of Islamophobia and the alleged link between Islam and terrorist attacks.
6. “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” #instantinstaquote
Well said, Champ. Well said.
