Above Muhammad Ali faces Ernie Terrell in the ring in 1967 before being stripped of his boxing title for draft evasion Right Ali signed this photo for a fan in Frankfurt Germany at the height of his career Now the situation was coming to a head By stepping forward and swearing the oath Ali would be turning his back on his own deeply held beliefs By standing still he would be branded a criminal Ali didn’t move An officer led Ali from the room explaining the consequences of refusal Ali would be arrested He risked a prison sentence He would be stripped of his freedom and almost certainly his boxing title Ali returned to the induction hearing He was being given a second chance to agree to military service Again his name was called But again Ali didn’t budge He was committed to refusing military assignment regardless of the consequences 8
It is in the light of my consciousness as a Muslim minister and my own personal convictions that I take my stand in rejecting the call to be inducted Ali explained in a statement I do so with the full realization of its implications I have searched my conscience Two months later Ali was formally charged with felony draft evasion He was sentenced to five years in prison fined 10,000 and stripped of his passport as well as his boxing titles But the champ’s fight was just beginning BORN CASSIUS CLAY Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr was born on January 17 1942 in Louisville Kentucky He was named for his father who in turn had been named for a famous but controversial Ali delivers a friendly punch to his father Cassius Clay Sr during a news conference on January 4 1980 9
Even as a young teenager Cassius Clay showed promise as a boxer His training regimen included sparring with friends and running alongside the school bus abolitionist of the nineteenth century Slavery was illegal in the 1940s but its echoes remained The South was segregated with blacks and whites legally separated along color lines Cassius grew up in a time and place where racism was rampant and many whites viewed blacks as second-class citizens Cassius’s father worked as a painter The family never had much money Cassius couldn’t afford the bus fare to school So he’d run instead He made it a race trying to beat the bus to school Cassius’s future began to take shape at the age of twelve when his bicycle a treasured gift from his father was stolen Cassius was furious He told police officer Joe Martin that he intended to fight the thief Martin who was also a boxing coach answered Well you better learn how to fight before you start challenging people Martin began training Cassius who thrived at the gym I was the first one in the gym and the last to leave he later said I trained six days a week 10
Just six weeks later Cassius at eighty-nine pounds had his first fight His father watched from ringside as Cassius won a three-round split decision over an older more experienced opponent It was a modest victory for the boy who would one day become the greatest heavyweight of all time BECOMING THE GREATEST Cassius threw himself into boxing giving his all to the sport whenever he wasn’t in school or sleeping His goal was simple He wanted to be the greatest nothing less Cassius woke up at four thirty in the morning to start training As a teenager he refused the temptations of drugs and alcohol Those he reasoned would get in the way of his goal He had little interest in other sports He didn’t like football because he got hit in football The same was rarely true in the ring Cassius was just too quick on his feet Nobody could touch him Cassius rose up the ranks quickly As a teenager he compiled an amateur record of 100 5 and won several major amateur titles along the way He was one of the sport’s rising stars He won a spot on the 1960 US Olympic boxing team Then afraid of airplanes Cassius considered not making the trip to Rome Italy He did go despite his fears and he fought in the light heavyweight division one of the weight categories into which boxers are divided 11
