Through haughtiness of leadership is a great nation first subdued. Decay is followed by defeat.
Events celebrating the life of Muhammad Ali are much deserved; but no matter how grand the tributes, they speak only half. When all is said and done, Ali, born poor yet grew to be great, will be revered. Meanwhile, the two presumptive contestants for the American presidency whose names also share the title of this piece will do well just to be remembered.
I grew up watching Ali. His boxing prowess was singular. He managed to transform the coarse sport into a work of art. But the most important blow he ever struck was done outside the ring. At the height of his athletic prowess and had everything within his grasp, he was drafted into the army during the Vietnam War.
The war was not going well for it had been going on too long with no victorious end in sight. The country was growing uneasy; incipient grumbling would soon erupt into widespread protest. Already, the national establishment had been shaken by the Civil Rights Movement. For those guardians of the old order, change was approaching too fast and from directions that until then had not even existed. They wanted to stave any more fluidity. They wanted to quell Black radicalism and also build public support for the war.
Having Muhammad Ali in army uniform and in their corner would serve both purposes. The establishment wanted to exploit Ali just as they did Joe Louis, the excellent Black heavyweight of a prior era. During WW II, Louis was put in uniform; but the only fighting he did was in the ring, performing insipid exhibitions to encourage support for the war effort and bolster troop morale. I dare not be too hard on Louis. It would be unfair.
His era was one where Black Americans were fighting to overcome every racial barrier imaginable. We were even fighting to be allowed to join the armed forces that we might fight on behalf of the nation that did not want us except as servants. Thus, Louis saw his efforts as assisting America against fascism abroad while also helping Blacks against American fascist racism at home. In hindsight, it appears he was made to play the fool. At that time, playing that particular fool was the only reasonable play he could make.
In the quarter century between Louis and Ali, much had altered. America, its role in the world, and the role of Blacks in America all had been revised by forces which no one fully understood, much less controlled. Ali would ensure that change would continue.
When he was drafted, he could have accepted his fate as had Louis. He too would not have seen the frontlines nor held a firearm save as a publicity stunt. The only fighting would have been within the familiar confines of a boxing ring. After that, he would have been allowed to resume his boxing career as the darling pet of the governmental establishment. He would have retained all he had and profited materially even more so had only he obeyed.
He did not. His conscious would not allow it. Where Louis helped defend America from fascist aggression, Ali could not see where America was defending anything worth defending in the Vietnam War. To Ali, America was aggressing against people who had done neither him nor Black America any harm. The American establishment pressuring him to don the army outfit was the culprit causing Black people more harm than anything the Vietnamese could ever muster. He saw no reason to fight people whose only transgression was that they were fighting for their freedom and dignity. If anything, he should support rather than oppose them. As a Black American, he was fighting for the same thing. He would be in moral dereliction should he fight to keep another man from that which he desired for himself.
Ali refused to go into the army in 1967. He refused to do what the government demanded of him. We would not bend and take the easy way. He stood by his conscience. The establishment responded harshly. They stripped him of his title. He was suspended from boxing. Sentenced to a 5 year prison term, he managed to stay out of jail through his persistence to appeal his case to the Supreme Court. During this legal trek, he lived with the threat of prison, ever present and ever near.
In 1971, reversing the lower court decision, the Supreme Court found that Ali’s stance as a conscientious objector to the war and his refusal to join the army were justified. He was exonerated.
This was the thing I most remember about Ali. He could have taken the easy way by placing his beliefs in the closet that he could continue being champion and making money. He had grown up poor and put upon because of his poverty and color. To gain so much yet to give it all up just for a thought, is a high and noble price to pay. He risked imprisonment, poverty and his popularity because he dared not depart from his convictions. His beliefs defined him more than his possessions. The sum total of the man was much more than what could be seen or touched by physical hand.
In the end, he was exonerated as he should have been. However, that outcome was far from certain. That a Supreme Court of eight elderly White men would overturn his conviction says something redemptive about America and the rule of law (Justice Marshall, the lone Black on the court, had recused himself from the decision.) However, that Ali would be willing to forfeit so much because of a simple belief says much more about the character and courage of this Black man.
As a youth, what I studied from Ali was how to throw a left jab and duck a punch. The skills came in handy growing up. However, what he and others taught me was that a Black man can and should take a heroic stand when his conscience so dictates. (Around the same time, my father made the hard decision to move his family into a White neighborhood in central Florida. He was not a boxer by any stretch of the imagination, but he too had grown up poor and felt the sting of racism throughout his life. He had joined the fight so that his children could stand as he couldn’t when he was young and that they would not feel the racist sting as bitterly as he had.)
As Black Americans, we have as much dignity and as much a right to stake a claim to political and religious freedom as any other American. We should not think that we are so inferior that we should be happy with merely getting by or going along with what others dictate. We have the right to be as independent-minded as the constitution of America says we can be. I never meant the man but this lesson was so intimate and close that I felt as if he were a member of my family. In a profound way, he was.
Ali ceased being a negro. He became one of the first personifications of the post-Civil Right Movement Black man. He risked everything because of his beliefs. He put moral conviction before material fame and public accolade. In doing so, he made the nation better because he forced it to recognize the variance between its egalitarian principles and racist practice and to take steps to narrow the gulf between ideal and reality.
I raise this observation not to deify the man after his departure. He was imperfect and his mistakes many. But he tried to do what is right even when it would dearly cost him. This made him more than a boxing champion. He remained a man of conviction and human fortitude throughout. He loved his fellow man. This was his greatest victory.
While Ali was a man of character, the best that can be said about the two others named in the title of this piece are that they are characters.
One must lament how low America has fallen in the nearly fifty years since Ali stood his courageous stand. That a young athlete less than 30 years old would show more fortitude and leadership courage than these two people over sixty years old who now vie to be America’s next president.
For a moment imagine either Clinton or Trump in a situation where they must decide between holding to a principle or to their worldly fame and fortunes. We know how they would decide. They would toss conviction to the gutter, quickly taking the expedient route Ali declined. As such, this Black man with the Arabic name has honored the American creed than Clinton and Trump can ever do. He is more a true American than they will ever be. He is more an American leader and hero than they; what he did was the epitome of American heroism and respect for individual freedom of expression and belief. Neither trump nor Clinton would ever attempt such a thing.
It would be inaccurate to claim that every American president has been a great or outstanding person. Most were mediocrities who benefited from political compromises best left unearthed. However, when America most needed leadership, it seemed that Fate smiled upon the nation. Presidents like Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt came to the fore. However, excellent leadership is not inbred. It is cultivated. With the rise of Clinton and Trump, Fate seems to have turned its back on America. Neither is anywhere nearly as august or great as the office they seek. They are both like unruly children who have absconded with their father’s shoes in hopes that somehow the boot might fit. Next week we shall see why this description is truer than those who believe that America still has the ability to promote good in this world would want the description to be.
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