Ali, Civil Rights and Vietnam

Ali, Civil Rights and Vietnam

By Mark Gibson

Few individuals encapsulate the United States in the 1960s to the extent that Muhammad Ali does. He would eventually become known by many simply as ‘the greatest’, largely due to his phenomenal boxing achievements and extraordinary interviews. However, it is for being exceedingly vocal and influential regarding issues of race and the Vietnam War draft, and the ban from boxing that he accepted as a result that made Ali such a cultural icon.

Under his birth name of Cassius Clay, Ali’s first success of the decade came in 1960 as he won Olympic Gold in Rome at just 18 years of age. He turned pro shortly after and in just four years defied the odds by defeating one of the most fearsome boxers in history, Sonny Liston, becoming the youngest man ever to defeat a World Heavyweight Champion.

Seemingly with the world at his feet, it was this same year that the newly crowned champ made one of his most dramatic stances in regards to race. He announced that he was changing his name to Muhammad Ali, given to him by Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. Ali’s reasoning was to make a public statement to remove his ‘slave name’, given to his family by their oppressors and display his commitment to Islam. Moreover, it was symbolic of Ali’s alliance with Elijah Muhammad who personally chose the name for Ali.

Ali’s name change was only a minor display of his religious beliefs compared to what would unfold, however. From 1966, he would be at the forefront of the biggest issue in the United States at the time. As the Vietnam War dragged on, the US Government expanded the draft, lowering the minimum mental aptitude needed. The new standards would now include Ali who swiftly rejected the call-up on religious grounds.[1] Aside from his own objections to the war as a conscientious objector, Ali also had concern for the most vulnerable in society who were drafted at a disproportionate rate and were worst affected by their participance in the war. Ali argued that the Vietcong ‘never lynched you, never called you nigger … you’ve got to shoot your enemies and when you get home, you won’t be able to get a job.’[2]

Conversely, just 3.2% of congressmen’s sons and grandsons would have to face combat in Vietnam.[3] This highlighted the possibility of fighting the draft using the legal system, so Ali attempted to do the same. Instead though, Ali was made an example of, his religious grounds for appeal were dismissed by the court and he was sentenced to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.[4] Although Ali avoided facing jail time, by the time the Supreme Court overturned the decision in 1971, in the intervening years, he had been banned by all of the boxing boards and lost his license to box and his titles.

Ali had been successful however in increasing awareness of the possibilities available to avoid combat in a highly unpopular war. Of 26,800,000 eligible males, 15,410,000 were ‘deferred, exempted or disqualified’ from combat, approximately 171,700 became conscientious objectors and over 500,000 became draft offenders by the end of the Vietnam War.^[5]

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[1] Benjamin T. Harrison, ‘The Muhammad Ali Draft Case and Public Debate with the Vietnam War’, Peace Research, Vol. 33, No. 2 (2001), pp. 69-86 (p. 71).

[2] Muhammad Ali, ‘The Black Scholar Interviews: Muhammad Ali’, The Black Scholar, Vol. 1, No. 8 (1970), pp. 32-19 (p. 32).

[3] C.B.D. Bryan, Friendly Fire, (New York: Bantam, 1976), cited in Benjamin T. Harrison, ‘The Muhammad Ali Draft Case and Public Debate with the Vietnam War’, Peace Research, Vol. 33, No. 2 (2001), pp. 69-86 (p. 73).

[4] Martin Waldron, ‘Clay Guilty in Draft Case; Gets Five Years in Prison’, New York Times (1967).

[5] L.M. Baskir and W.A. Strauss, ‘Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, The War, and the Vietnam Generation’ (New York: Random House, 1988), p. 5 and Benjamin T. Harrison, ‘The Muhammad Ali Draft Case and Public Debate with the Vietnam War’ (p. 73).