Ali, he never stayed on the mat
Even when they made him give them his title back
Took away his means but not his will to fight
Sent a shock down the system when he spoke up for rights
It only takes one to stand against iniquity
Even a small axe can topple the heaviest tree
-Streetlevel Uprising, “The Pendulum Swing”
A lot of people are talking about Muhammad Ali right now. They’re recounting stories about the athlete who destroyed opponents in the ring and the entertainer who enthralled a national audience outside of it. They’re discussing his impact on society, particularly the civil rights movement. And some are talking about his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War.
Ali had already pissed off mainstream America – white America – in 1964 when he embraced Islam and radicalism, associating himself with the Nation of Islam. Frustrated with the inequalities of life that people of color face in these United States, Ali spoke out against the oppression present throughout society. Refusing to play the role of silent and pliant sports hero, he really upped the ante in 1967 by refusing to be inducted into the Army.
Via the draft, a country that treated a section of its people as second-class citizens demanded that those citizens, among others, go halfway around the world to kill and perhaps die, the surviving to return home and continue being treated poorly and be faced with the same lack of opportunities as before their service. No, Ali said. His sense of morality prohibited him from killing anyone and he felt that the real war was here, in his own country. A country where segregation had just been legally ended, lynching and church bombings were feared across the south, and people of color were subjected to widespread discrimination, insult, and violence. How, Ali reasoned, could he fight the Viet Cong, people who had never threatened him with brutality or uttered the dehumanizing racial epithets that he heard every day from people in his own homeland? How could he kill under the direction of a government working to keep people like him down? So Ali declared his stance as a conscientious objector, and his rewards for condemning war and shining a light on America’s biggest social problem were the loss of his livelihood, a prison sentence, and vilification by those who didn’t share his values of equality and peace.
A few years later, Ali’s conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court. By that time, the wheels had begun falling off the war effort. High casualties, reports of civilian massacres, violent images that the first televised war brought into American living rooms, the public doubts of generals and respected media members, and the growing peace movement had all stripped the luster from the American war machine. In 1973, the draft ceased and Ali stood as one of the factors that led to its demise. Yes, the horrors of the Vietnam War would likely have been enough to end the draft, but the public anti-war position of a hugely famous athlete must be acknowledged, as Ali inspired many, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to begin speaking out against the war.
In my studio, I have part of a wall covered with black-and-white clippings of people who fought to change the status quo. I call it the “Wall of Revolutionaries”. Muhammad Ali has a spot on that wall, the famous shot taken immediately after he knocked Sonny Liston to the canvas. He’s alongside other men of peace like Dr. King, Gandhi, Bob Marley, and John Lennon.
We still have not reached the place of full equality and peace that Ali tried to lead us to, but I believe we’re a whole hell of a lot closer than we would’ve been without him. Ali didn’t serve his country in the way his government wanted, but he served his country and the world through his humanity, pushing for justice, pleading for peace. As a boxing fan, I’ll remember Muhammad Ali, the boxer. But as an activist and human being, what I’ll really remember is Muhammad Ali, the fighter.