WEBVTT - Episode 1: RUMBLE YOUNG MAN RUMBLE 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:13.520 October thirtieth, nineteen seventy four. Kinshasa zaiir. 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.720 Here comes the Ali people out of the dressing room. 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.560 This is an awesome bar of George Foreman against the 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.640 varleyd boxing skills of Muhammad Ali. 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:27.440 Thirty two year old Muhammad Ali strides through the crowd 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:29.760 and finds his place at the center of the ring 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.239 for his title fight against the reigning heavyweight champion of 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:40.400 the World, George Foreman. Their heavyweight title bout is considered 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:43.760 by many to be the greatest sporting event of all time. 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:49.279 But what's less well known is that five weeks earlier, 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:53.840 in that very same stadium, James Brown headlined an epic 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:58.840 three day long pre fight music festival. This unique event 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:03.200 brought blackham American musicians like BB King and Bill Withers 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.679 to share the same stage with Afro Caribbean acts such 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:11.040 as Celia Cruz and African megastars like Miriam Mikiba and 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:12.800 Hugh Masekela. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:16.160 All the biggest Black artist on the planet due a 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:17.399 concert for this fight. 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.960 It was a musical homecoming for these musicians of the diaspora. 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:26.679 But all this black excellence in one stadium in Zaire 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.479 during a hot autumn in nineteen seventy four. How did 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:35.679 this come to be well? The two events were both 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:38.959 orchestrated and stage managed by, believe it or not, an 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.640 African dictator, Mabutu Seysei Siku. 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:47.320 Mubuchu is a darling of the West tied to nationalism 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.400 as a way to consolidate his power. 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:57.240 His full name was Kuku and Bindu Waza Benga. Translated 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:01.120 into English, it means the all powerful war who, because 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.480 of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:07.560 conquest to conquest, leaving fire. 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:08.080 In his wake. 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:14.400 Once the Belgian Congo, Mabutu had rechristened his homeland as Zayir, 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.800 That was the man who was running things well, him 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:23.800 and the famously colorful boxing promoter Don King. The fight 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:27.480 and the music festival were originally scheduled for the same 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:31.640 weekend to be televised across the globe. A music festival 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:35.799 to warm up the crowds and to reinforce the ascendants 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:39.520 of black culture on the world stage to mark the 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:43.880 reconnection of Black America and the Motherland, then to be 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:48.040 followed by the heavyweight title fight to crown a new 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:52.040 world champion for a dictator like Mabutu. It was a 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:56.960 rather masterful bit of international theater. The music festival was 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:01.400 called Zaire seventy four, a testimony to the growing power 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:06.160 and glory of Mabutu and his recently liberated African nation, 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:10.320 and the championship fight became known as the Rumble in 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:15.240 the Jungle. But as so often happens, Fate stepped in 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:19.000 to interrupt the carefully coordinated plans of mice and men 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:23.560 and Central African dictators. Fate also had plans for the 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:25.640 man called the People's champ. 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:28.160 We were scared to death for Ali. The people who 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.320 knew about boxing and cared about Ali were really scared 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:35.320 for George Foreman could literally kill him. 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.800 This is the story of what all went down in 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.960 Zaire in nineteen seventy four, how we get there, and 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:47.120 for so many reasons. This ultimately is a story of 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.480 excellence in the Key of Blackness. 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.640 Jane Brown said, Said Lois said, I'm Black and I'm Brown. 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:58.520 Among the numerous legends told lost moments will also be 0:03:58.640 --> 0:03:59.960 revealed in this podcast. 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:01.920 I'm Niko Ali Walsh. 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:06.080 I'm a professional boxer and the Muhammad Ali is my grandfather. 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:11.240 Intertwined with the cultural milestones will come portraits of greatness 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:13.520 and accounts of rare humanity. 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.840 All the Africans who have been spread around the world, 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.640 we know where you are, we haven't lost track of you, 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:22.559 and we all hid together on this earth. 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:27.400 All told, this is a tale of many battles, many fights, 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:31.760 the wars that rage through both African and American cultures 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.760 in this time, and how these conflicts tested people's values 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.960 and convictions brought into sharpest relief in the story of 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:41.720 one Muhammad Ali. 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:45.640 He was a craftsman with the skill of boxing, and 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:47.320 brilliant a brilliant mind. 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.400 He is our hero and will carry us through all 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:55.400 the soulful high points, violent lows, cultural chaos, and societal 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:56.680 craziness to come. 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:58.920 The military, they mutinied. 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:02.960 He will not sir in any capacity in a war 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:05.120 against fellow brown people. 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:09.479 His life was steadily becoming more and more endangered. 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.119 If fighting was the spirit of the times, you could 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:30.839 say the soul of seventy four was a rumble. Welcome 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.760 to Rumble, the story of Ali Foreman and the Soul 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:38.640 music of nineteen seventy four. I'm your host Zarren Burnett, 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:43.400 the third from iHeart Podcast School of humans. This is rumble. 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:54.600 I can't remember a time when I did not know 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:58.080 about the rumble in the jungle. My pops was a 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:00.440 huge fan of boxing. He told me this story of 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.840 the Ali form and fight like it was Arthurian legend. 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.839 The way he told it elevated their heavyweight bout to 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.520 the level of the champions of old. My pops also 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:11.719 gave me his name. 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:16.440 My name is Zaren W. Burnette Junior. I am a writer, observer, 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:22.040 and chronicler of American history. I particularly focus on African 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.800 American history because I'm an African American, but I focus 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:29.400 on American history because I'm an American, and of course 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.799 I'm the father of my son, Zaren Burnett the Third. 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:35.960 Now, back when I was a boy, when my pops 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.799 told me the story of the young brash Cassius Clay 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:42.760 taking on the former mob enforcer and leg breaker Sonny Liston, 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:45.760 it was like hearing about David and Goliath. And my 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:48.320 pops would also light up whenever he told a story 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:52.760 about Smokin' Joe Frasier, that was his other favorite boxer. 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:55.440 But as a kid, I was thrilled by the stories 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:56.159 about Ali. 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:58.440 When Ali came out, it was kind of an exciting 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:02.080 moment because he fought like a middleweight. He fought like 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:04.920 sugar Ay Robinson. He was real fast, he threw a 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:06.280 lot of punches and get out the wait. 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.039 By the time I came into the world, Ali was 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.960 considered the goat, the actual greatest of all time, so 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.800 naturally I was eager to hear his story. Ali was 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:21.000 like no one else, both inside and outside the ring. 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.280 He was a provocateur on purpose. 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.600 The perfect champ of his moment. In every way possible. 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:29.880 Ali was this new sort of fighter. 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:31.720 We were all young, so it was fun the white 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.840 young person coming there and kick all the old guy's asses. 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:37.160 And he was doing all his poetry and he was 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.080 telling all his hit It was like wrestling. He made 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:40.800 it like wrestling. 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:44.600 In nineteen sixty four. Ali made boxing seem less like 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.480 the mean, old brutal sport of face smashing violence. He 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.320 wasn't part of its dark and smoky, old fashioned past, 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.200 the one that wreaked a cigar smoke and spilled liquor. 0:07:55.520 --> 0:08:00.480 Ali's fights felt like the future arriving. His fights were different. 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:03.080 His style in the ring was different. 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:06.360 He wasn't a puncher, you know, he didn't hurt people anything. 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.080 He would beat you about, throwing eighteen punches so fast 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:11.040 that he would just be overwhelmed. 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.640 It always sounded fun, especially how Ali felt like change personified. 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:18.320 This is the early sixties, so this is also the 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.240 beginning of the Black power movement. Black young people are 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:23.240 feeling in all kinds of ways. So this is a 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:25.640 black young person who we can get behind. 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.440 These days. When you ask people about Muhammad Ali, especially 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.360 those who actually knew him, you still hear it in 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:34.880 their voices how Ali was special. 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.840 Ali was smart, he was bright, and he was handsome. 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:43.760 Ali was extraordinary in every way. I mean extraordinary boxer, 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:51.040 extraordinarily beautiful person, extraordinarily loquacious, and the master storyteller. 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.120 I loved Ali, not just as a fighter, but everything 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:54.880 that he stood for. 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.080 Ali is still refreshing because he's real. It's just no 0:08:58.160 --> 0:08:59.200 bullshit about the guy. 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:01.520 Ali is so handsome you want him to win. 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.640 Over the course of his career, Muhammad Ali stayed a 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:12.280 media presence, and as such, he gave many interviews. It 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:15.480 seems like the people's champ was always talking, always trying 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:19.800 to explain himself, and all those interviews revealed that Ali 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:23.720 was a man of complex motivations, as Ali tried to 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:28.280 tell the world, he was both the butterfly and the bee. 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:30.640 People in America just find it hard to take a 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.840 fighters seriously. They don't know that I'm using boxing for 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.360 the sake of getting over certain points you couldn't get 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.520 over without it. Being a fighter enables me to attain 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:43.000 certain ends. I'm not doing this for the glory of fighting, 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:44.360 but to change a lot of things. 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:47.120 That's a quote of Muhammad Ali from the book The 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.840 Fight by Norman Mahler. It's about the rumble in the jungle. 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.880 Mahler was a prolific fan of boxing, and, like many 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.880 of us, a huge fan of Muhammad Ali. In particular. 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.880 In the first chapter of the Mahler attempted to convey 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:03.800 what it was like to be in the presence of 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:04.920 the people's champ. 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.560 There's always a shock in seeing him again, not lives 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.800 in television, but standing before you, looking his best. Then 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.360 the world's greatest athlete is in danger of being our 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.480 most beautiful man, and the vocabulary of the camp is 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:21.960 doomed to appear. Women draw an audible breath, men look down. 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.920 They are reminded again of their lack of worth. If 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.120 Ali never opened his mouth to quiver the jellies of 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.360 public opinion, he would still inspire love and hate, for 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.319 he is the prince of Heaven, so says the silence 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:36.600 around his body when he is luminous. 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.440 In order to truly understand what was at stake for 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:46.199 Muhammad Ali in nineteen seventy four when he stepped into 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:50.359 that ring against Foreman in Zayir, we must first understand 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:52.240 that Ali at the time was. 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:56.320 The hero of the moment, the great freedom fighter, the 0:10:56.400 --> 0:11:03.360 person who would challenge American policy, who would represent freedom 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:05.080 for African Americans. 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.080 No matter where you looked in nineteen seventy four, the 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:11.600 sense of a fight about to burst out anywhere everywhere 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:17.720 was rolling through the culture like thunder. It was a 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.760 time of upheaval. To anyone paying attention, it was abundantly 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:25.560 clear the world was changing fast. Some folks were busy 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.920 fighting against that change. Others were out protesting and organizing 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.760 to fight to advance it. The rest were caught in 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:36.160 the middle. The war in Vietnam had reached the peak 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:40.160 of its unpopularity. After a decade of body bags sent 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.040 home to the United States with little to show for 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:47.160 their sacrifices. There were groups like the Weather Underground and 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:52.240 their terror campaign of homemade bombs. OPEC announced an oil embargoed, 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:56.480 effectively crippling the oil driven economies of the West. News 0:11:56.480 --> 0:12:01.439 cameras recorded the effect for everyday Americans. High and priceikes 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:05.920 at the grocery store, memorable blocks, long lines formed at 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:09.600 gas stations. This is when the Detroit carmakers began to 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:12.880 lose ground to the compact cars built in Japan. The 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:17.360 steel plants were closing, Big factories were shuttered. Layoffs in 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:22.200 industries across the board were daily headlines. Many cities were crumbling. 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.600 The site of them could inspire dystopian fiction. Things did 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:30.600 not appear promising for the American experiment. Even the President, 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:35.760 Richard Nixon, spent his days battling for his political life. 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:38.800 It was almost two years ago. In June nineteen seventy two, 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:43.320 the five men into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington. 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:47.160 It turned out that they were connected with my reelection committee. 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:50.360 Now he still didn't believe it in the spring of 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.680 seventy four, but Watergate that was a fight Nixon was 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:59.280 bound to lose. Meanwhile, there was the People's chamt Muhammad Ali. 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:04.640 Standing for principles and willing to give up everything for 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:05.520 his principles. 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:09.559 And there was the heavyweight champion of the world, George Foreman. 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:13.680 Very serious and quiet, incredibly confident. He was gonna talk 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.040 with his gloves, not with his mouth. 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:19.439 The two men were bound to fight. Everyone knew it. 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:20.680 It was just a matter of time. 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:23.480 What was going on in the world at the time 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:27.800 made this fight as important that anything else is going 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.280 on on the planet. So even if you don't fuck 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:32.520 with this, if this is not your first language, you 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:33.520 need to be here. 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.440 This show is about so much more than Muhammad Ali, 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:46.000 the man, the fighter, the cultural icon. Yet he is 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.280 the focus, and so it is with him, the people's 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:51.960 champ where our episodic journey begins. 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.599 They float like a butterflies thing, like a bit. You 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:56.520 gotta be a damn food to get in the ring 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:56.840 with me. 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:10.040 He was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Junior in Louisville, Kentucky, 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.640 on January seventeenth, nineteen forty two. 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:17.040 He grew up in a border state. The worst of 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:23.840 segregation passed him by. Although Louisville was segregated in neighborhoods, 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:29.800 most schools, parks, public spaces. But African Americans had the 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:34.200 vote and some labor power and were able to mitigate 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:39.160 the worst of the segregation of that era. Still, he 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.720 could look forward to less than full rights as a 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:43.440 human being. 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:48.000 That's Lewis Ehrenberg, author of Rumble in the Jungle, one 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.080 of the definitive books on the Ali Foreman fight and 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.880 Ali's place in boxing history. He is a fount of 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.920 all things Ali, As Ehrenberg explains, by the time Ali 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:01.800 was a young boy, he already fully understood the force 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:05.920 racism played in reducing the potential of his parents' lives 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.280 under Jim Crow. For Ali, his father. 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:13.760 In particular, was a very unhappy guy who he wanted 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.600 to be an artist. He ended up a sign painter. 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:21.000 It was difficult for him to earn a living. 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.960 Cassius Clay's parents warned to their son about the risks 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.000 he'd face in life, not just economic and professional, but 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:31.920 from believing himself to be free. After all, lynching's were 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:35.240 still a very real threat in the forties and fifties. 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:39.560 His father regaled him with tales of how African Americans 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:44.440 were treated when they stepped outside the black community, including 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.840 the fire bombing of a home bought by a black 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:49.840 family in a white neighborhood. 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.760 Now you might be asking yourself, as I wondered. Raised 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:58.960 with ugly racist violence as a constant threat, why would 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.120 young Casius Clay want to pick up boxing gloves. 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.640 At twelve years old? Someone stole my bicycle. I went 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.440 to a home show where the display cars and refrigerators 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:13.360 and household utensils and everything. And I went there and 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:17.000 I left my bicycle outside and came out. It was 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:22.000 drizzling rain that night, Saturday evening, about nine o'clock. My 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:26.240 bicycle was gone. I just got it for Christmas. I 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.000 asked somebody with the closest police officer, and they said 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:30.960 in the same building. I just came out. 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.000 Young Cassius Clay went back inside and he founded the 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:36.440 officer who would go on to become an integral person 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:38.840 in his formative years. The CoP's name. 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.240 Joe Martin, was training amateur boxes in a room about 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:46.200 this size, and he asked me to take out an 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:48.800 application and learned how to fight so I could beat 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.440 the fellow up in a joking fashion who stole my bicycle? 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:55.240 So I started boxing. 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.680 Ironically, a white cop teaching a young black boy to 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:00.560 fight was seen at the time to be a way 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.360 to keep him on the straight and narrow. His parents 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.440 were relieved because it kept young Cashius Clay from getting 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.800 caught up in any street crime or random trouble. Now 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.520 he had a focus. This marked the beginning of Cassius 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:17.399 Clay's road to future greatness, a road that was documented 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.680 by his most authoritative biographer. 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.480 My name is Jonathan Iig, and I am a writer 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.760 and the author of the Muhammad Ali biography called ali Alife. 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:30.920 Early on in the research and construction of the narrative, 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:33.000 I was struck with one question. 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.360 What made this kid think he could be special? First 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:38.240 of all, he just seems to have this appetite for 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.080 attention from a very early age, before he can talk, 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:43.080 you know, he's just standing up in the crib and 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:44.959 in the stroller, just wants everybody to look at him 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.800 all the time. And then when he gets to school 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.159 he has dyslexia. He doesn't really know it, but he 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.800 discovers that he can't really get the attention for his schoolwork. 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.720 He's not as good as he should be in terms 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.400 of you know, reading, writing, and arithmetic. But he can 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.040 make people laugh and he can make people pay attention 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:06.760 with his wordplay, and he seems to really need that, 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.400 so I think that's a key too. When he discovers boxing, 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.160 he doesn't really show what he interested in other sports 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:15.840 because it's not enough of a spotlight for him. I 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.159 guess boxing it's if you're the one winning, you're the 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:19.240 one getting all the attention. 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:22.679 And he was good, like so good that when the 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.440 fledgling fighter wanted to get on a local Louisville TV 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:29.200 show called Tomorrow's Champions Piece of k done, he moved 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:32.639 on to new goals, bigger goals. Casius Clay became an 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:36.760 amateur boxer on the rise. He won the Golden Gloves, 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:42.240 he won the National AAU, and eventually he qualified for 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:46.359 the nineteen sixty Olympics. He would travel to Rome to 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.919 represent the United States on the world stage, and he 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:57.240 won the goal. He was only eighteen years old when 0:18:57.280 --> 0:18:59.639 he returned home to the American South. It took him 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.439 only a few days to realize winning gold for the 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.359 US of A did next to nothing to change how 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:07.560 he was treated in Louisville, Kentucky. 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:12.479 It made me popular for a few days, but I 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:17.000 wanted to do something good with it. So I went downtown. 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:20.639 At the time, black people was marching to eat in 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:24.439 the white restaurants. They wanted rights to go where they 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:28.800 wanted to. And I said, so I'll take this medal 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.080 and I'll go downtown and I'll sit down at the restaurant. 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.040 I got him on the spot now, and then I'll 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:38.840 order something to eat. So I go downtown and I 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.720 have the medalon, and the lady was looking and I said, 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:46.560 I'd like a cheeseburger. She said, we don't serve negroes. 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.880 I said, and I don't eat them either. Just give 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:50.760 me the cheeseburger. 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:54.600 That's one version of the story Ali would later tell. 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.399 There were a couple others, like how Ali. 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:00.760 Went into a bar and the owner chased him out 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:04.800 even though Cassius Clay was wearing the metal. He also 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:07.600 said that he was chased out of the bar by bikers, 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:08.680 white bikers. 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.360 Then there was the story about the Ohio River. This 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.040 river held specific meaning. It had always been the line 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:22.560 that demarketed freedom when black people were enslaved in America. 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:25.840 Those close knew, if you can cross the Ohio, you free. 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.960 Now a whole legend has grown up around this. He 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:34.560 was so bitter, he threw his medal away. It's just 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:36.840 not clear what happened to the metal. He may have 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:39.280 just misplaced it, but he definitely stopped wearing it. 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.560 The way he tells it, Young Cashius Clay, well, he 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.359 took his gold medal and tossed it right into that 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:54.080 river and proclaimed himself free. And the river was his witness. 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:58.119 In his hometown of Louisville, segregation didn't stop local white 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.520 businessmen from making money off a piece of Young Cashu's clay. 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:04.880 If anything, That's what the South was best at, finding 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.240 ways to profit off a black body while limiting what 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:12.040 that same person could do with their body. It didn't 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:15.159 take long for Louisville moneymen to see dollar signs in 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:16.679 the form of Cash's clay. 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.159 Once he won the gold medal as a light heavyweight 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:24.159 at the nineteen sixty Olympics, he attracted the attention of 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:29.920 various white businessmen in Louisville. The owners of distilleries, newspapers, 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:33.320 et cetera, who put up money for his training, put 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:38.560 money in for bank account that would accrue earnings over time, 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:43.040 and in fact, Clay had a boost that few not 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:47.760 only African American athletes, but any American athlete had. He 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:50.400 was like the first corporate athlete. 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:55.600 What those white businessmen did not expect is that Ali 0:21:55.880 --> 0:22:00.600 was going to do Ali as a kid, Cash's love 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:04.040 to watch the pro wrestler Gorgeous George perform on local 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.679 Louisville TV. He studied how Gorgeous George hyped up an 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:10.679 upcoming match, boasting about what all he planned to do 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:14.600 next time he was in the ring. His hyperbolic bravado 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.080 stayed with Cassius Clay. He later said, you know. 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:20.399 He makes a lot of money with that kind of talk. 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:23.840 I'm gonna be like him and liven up the fight game. 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:28.760 Notable fight writer, best selling sports biographer, and ESPN commentator 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:33.359 Mark Krigel believes that Gorgeous George's influence was absolutely key 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:36.560 to who Ali would become as a boxer and as 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:37.480 his own hype man. 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:40.120 If you look at the wrestling construct, it's not an 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:45.240 accident that Muhammad Ali said that he learned from Gorgeous George. 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:51.720 I mean, Gorgeous George himself is like a very American archetype, 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:56.919 and Ali used that stuff. Glitz, the razzle, the braggadocio, 0:22:57.160 --> 0:22:59.000 whatever you want to call it. He used that to 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:02.679 connect with the audience. And the audience can hate you, 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:07.159 they can love you, but they can't feel neutral, and 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:08.760 that was part of Ali's genius. 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:12.879 Ali seized on the symbolic power inherent in the narratives 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:13.720 of pro wrestling. 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:17.480 You can't understand boxing. I don't think you can understand 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:23.200 American culture without understanding wrestling, and wrestling as a construct 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:24.840 requires a couple of things. 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:31.679 You need a babyface and a heel. The babyface is 0:23:31.720 --> 0:23:33.040 the protagonist, the hero. 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:38.120 The protagonist needs to have that great, resourceful sense of narcissism. 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:40.600 It would help them measurably if he has a sense 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:43.480 of humor, which Ali had in abundance. 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:47.320 And the heel is, of course the antagonist the villain. 0:23:47.760 --> 0:23:50.159 But you need other dynamics and a role playing for 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:52.480 the wrestling construct to be compelling. 0:23:52.840 --> 0:23:56.840 The protagonist, the leading man, whether he's the heel of 0:23:56.880 --> 0:24:01.000 the babyface, usually has a valet. For a great part 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:04.760 of Ali's career, that was co Cell. 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:09.320 As in the legendary sports commentator Howard Cosell and Cossell. 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:10.880 He was the star of. 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:14.080