Cassius X: Becoming Ali (2023) - full transcript
Life story on how Cassius Clay fought his way to become World Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali.
ELIJAH MUHAMMAD:
Cassius Clay.
He was box office.
Anywhere he went,
he could create a crowd.
I was truly infatuated
with this man.
You're standing in
front of my candelabra.
From the first moment,
I was in love.
Whatever you do, pay to get in.
The civil rights movement
is just about to explode.
Young Black folks are hungry
for something different.
White America wants
Cassius Clay to be the good guy.
He didn't know what Islam was.
MARK: Hearing Elijah Muhammad
really gave everything
that was going on in his
life at the time a purpose.
THOMAS: The Nation of Islam
were thought of
as an ominous, shadowy group.
MALCOLM X: White people who
are guilty of white supremacy
try and hide their own guilt
by accusing the, uh,
Honorable Elijah Muhammad
of teaching Black supremacy.
ATTALLAH: While he was like a
younger brother for my father,
he was a bigger brother for me.
And it was stopped
right in the middle.
When the Honorable Elijah
Muhammad cuts a man off,
well, then, he's
automatically cut off
with all of his followers.
CLAUDE: He would not follow
a student of the teacher.
He would follow the
teacher himself.
- I am the greatest!
- All right, Cass.
He is someone who says,
I want freedom.
And I have to do that
by tying myself
back to my identity.
Whatever you call me,
you're not gonna
call me out of my name.
And from now on,
my name is Cassius X.
I'm free to be what I wanna
be and think what I wanna think.
♪
♪
[crowd shouting]
A lot of these things
get lost in history,
but the Golden Gloves,
certainly then,
was the stepping stone,
usually to the Olympics.
And the Olympics, if you
succeeded, to a pro career.
[crowd shouting]
ROBERT: And Clay was
kind of on the cusp of
whether he was really
gonna be able to do this thing.
So the Golden Gloves
were kind of
his graduation, in a sense,
from being a...
You know, a kid boxer,
suddenly, he was
on a national stage.
♪
ROBERT: I think Chicago
and the Golden Gloves
was also one of the first times
that he was really
out in the world.
THOMAS: He meets somebody
who's selling copies
of the Nation of Islam
newspaper, "Muhammad Speaks",
on the street, and that's the
beginning of his introduction
to the Nation of Islam.
JAMES: The world is
beginning to hear about
this group of Black men
who don't drink alcohol,
don't use drugs,
open businesses,
take care of their family.
That was not the narrative
that white media was giving
to the world and
to African American.
MARK: For him to
hear these messages,
how white supremacy
functions, right?
And to double back on
this idea that you, Black man,
don't really know who you are?
It's an incredibly
powerful message.
Well, Keith, everything
looks set, forthright,
for a wonderful
Olympic Games here in Rome.
It certainly does, Sid.
The next big thing
is the Olympic Games.
[crowd cheering]
JIM: Sitting there,
summer, no school,
sampling the Olympics
on television,
and along came
Cassius Marcellus Clay.
♪
I had no preparation
for watching what I saw.
Shuffled his feet,
emoted demonstrably.
From the first moment,
I was in love.
ROBERT: He got
a lot of attention
because he was kind of, uh,
the mayor of Olympic Village.
JERRY: He got the medal.
And he's sitting on these
steps in the Olympic Village,
and he's holding a medal up.
And the athletes are walking by.
Now, I'm convinced half of them
can't understand
one world of English.
I'm Cassius Clay!
I'm pretty!
I'm gonna be the heayvweight
champion of the world,
and you're gonna come
pay to see me fight,
and you're gonna
blah, blah, blah...
And they don't know
what the hell he's saying.
But I notice one thing which
made me pay attention to him.
All the female athletes walked
10 feet past him, turned around,
and took a second look.
And I said, "There's some reason
to watch out for this guy!"
[indistinct chatter]
His exuberance caught
international press attention.
Tell me how you came to get
such a Roman name as that.
Well, as I understand, I'm
Cassius Marcellus Clay VI.
And my great-great grandfather
was a Kentucky slave,
and he was named after
some great Kentuckian.
I think the young Cassius Clay
would have never
thought twice about
whether or not his name
was a family name, right?
Was a slave name.
"Clay" was the
name of his father,
it was of his parents,
of his grandparents.
Since I've reached a
little fame in boxing,
most people want to know
where I'm from and, uh,
where did I get that name.
But really, I haven't
really checked on it.
So I see that I'm
gonna have to go look...
REPORTER: You'll
have to look it up.
See what it's all about,
now that I'm getting
a little interviewed.
That naming was the thing
that connected them to family,
to community, right?
To a larger history.
♪
THOMAS: Cassius Clay
comes out of the Olympics
with a gold medal,
and white residents of
Louisville get together
to back him financially.
GREG: Here you have
11 white guys that represented
the establishment of the city
that felt like they
wanted to protect Cassius
from the underworld
of the boxing industry
and make sure, in their words,
that he would "emerge rich"
from this once
all this was done.
I'm Will Faversham, vice
president of Brown-Forman,
and one of the founders of
the group of Cassius Clay.
I'm also his manager.
Now, you can look at
this and you can say,
okay, these people took an
interest in this young man
and wanted to make sure that
he wasn't exploited financially.
We wanna see that
people do right by him.
I'm W. Lyons Brown,
the chairman of the board of.
Brown-Forman
Distillers Corporation.
I'm also a farmer
and in the oil business.
Or you can say that this
is just a variation of,
well, we like horses,
and we buy them and
run them in the Kentucky Derby.
And now we've got a fighter
and we're grooming him
to see what he can win.
Of course, they wanted
to make some money as well.
It was a 50-50 deal...
It was unheard of at the time...
Where Cassius would
be receiving a salary,
all of his expenses paid,
so he didn't have
to worry about that,
nor did he have to worry
about getting pulled into
what was then a largely
mob-controlled boxing industry.
ROBERT: When he came
back to Louisville,
he kind of briefly
forgot where he was.
Maybe he thought
he was still, you know,
a gold medal champion in Rome.
He couldn't go out to
dinner with these members
of the Louisville sponsoring
group, these white guys.
These are segregated
restaurants.
They wouldn't even serve
him as an Olympic champion.
He was an international hero,
and that still wasn't
good enough for this place?
W. LYONS BROWN: My mother's
family, they were the Clays,
the same name as Cassius.
When the American Negro came
here as slaves, they went into...
They took the names
of the families.
Our families freed,
way back there...
We freed the slaves
in our families.
But I'm not sure that Cassius's
probably great grandparents
and some of my relatives, uh,
they were probably the owners
of Cassius's great grandparents.
CLAUDE: He would've been
raised in an atmosphere
fraught with,
underneath the surface
and not so underneath
the surface, terror.
He would've grown up, uh,
being told what he could
and could not aspire to be,
and it wouldn't have been
a long list of things
that would have been, uh,
expected of him as far as
the possibilities of life.
He would have been
contemporaries
of people like Emmett Till,
who was lynched in
Mississippi in 1955.
He would have been
contemporaries of
young Black people
who were the first
to integrate the high school
in Little Rock, Arkansas.
He would have been warned,
I imagine, by parents,
people in church
congregation, neighbors, uh,
about the dos and don'ts
of Southern race relations,
the sort of racial etiquette
that people had to live by
in order to survive.
♪
Cassius Clay needed a trainer.
And the sponsoring
group asked around,
and they were told, well,
there's a pretty
good trainer in Miami
named Angelo Dundee.
They made a deal.
Angelo opted for a weekly salary
instead of a percentage
of Cassius's purses.
That was a decision
he regretted later on.
Clay trained at the
5th Street Gym in Miami,
which was where Angelo Dundee
worked with all his fighters.
That was Angelo's home.
5th Street Gym,
it looks like a gym.
The windows are so dirty,
you can't see the street.
The stairs to the
second floor creak.
You get up there,
there's a million fighters,
because they had all the
fighters in South Florida.
He gets in there, and every day,
he is learning a little
bit about boxing.
THOMAS: Angelo Dundee
was the perfect trainer
for Cassius Clay.
He let Cassius be Cassius.
The great trainers understand
that each fighter
has different gifts.
And with Cass,
it was to emphasize
extraordinary
speed and reflexes.
Angelo would say, you know,
that was really great when
you threw your hook this way
and you did it just like this.
That registers with Cassius.
He says, okay, that's
how I'm gonna keep throwing
my left hook.
He had a wonderful
block of marble to sculpt,
but he knew how to sculpt it.
ROBERT: One of
the great advantages
of having a great trainer
like Angelo Dundee
was that opponents
would be selected
very, very carefully.
He was groomed through
his early fight.
He fought a lot of, you know,
big, tough-looking guys,
but they were... what were they?
They were lumberjacks, and truck
drivers, and deputy sheriffs.
Tomato cans, as
they're often called.
And he, you know, broke
every one of those tomato cans
on the way up.
And they were also picked
for particularly things
they could or couldn't do that
would teach him another lesson.
Cassius Clay was never just
kind of thrown into a fight
with somebody
who could hurt him.
So it was... it was
brilliant strategy.
They say that I am the
greatest that they've ever seen.
Most people predict me, uh,
as the type of fighters
Joe Louis was and a lot of 'em.
And "The Ring" magazine,
"Sports Illustrated",
and a lot of the other
nationwide magazines,
class me over Floyd Patterson.
MALE COMMENTATOR: The site
of the most lucrative fight
in the history of boxing.
27-year-old Floyd Patterson
defends the heavyweight
championship of the world
against Sonny Liston.
Sonny Liston was
considered to be
the closest thing to
Godzilla you had in fighting.
This was a devastating puncher
with a... a hostile aura
about him.
He was scary.
People went into the ring
to fight Sonny Liston
and they were scared.
This man is a bad man.
He is really trying to hurt me.
And he has the tools to do it.
MALE COMMENTATOR:
Sonny Liston moves out
to face the big chance
of a turbulent life.
People respected
Floyd Patterson.
People kind of liked
Floyd Patterson.
Floyd Patterson was
clearly a literate man
who had won an
Olympic gold medal.
MALE COMMENTATOR: Liston's
heavy jabs bother Patterson.
[crowd shouting]
MALE COMMENATOR: A
left to a grazing right
and a solid left
to the cheekbone
dropped the champion.
DAMION: Sonny Liston
demolished him,
knocked him out
in the first round.
That was the first time
that a heavyweight champion
had ever been knocked
out in the first round.
This made Sonny Liston the
most feared man in boxing.
MARK: Miami was an
incredibly segregated city.
And there was a Black
part of Miami, right?
And this is important
to remember.
And this is where,
you know, Cassius Clay,
obviously one of the few places
he can live in, hotels, right?
Because of segregation.
Early 1960s Black radio,
you would have been listening
to rhythm and blues music.
Some of the early
sounds of Motown.
You would have been listening
to some blues artists.
Um, you know, a kind
of heavy beat music,
not quite soul music yet.
[radio static, tuning]
MARK: And then suddenly you're
listening to Elijah Muhammad...
MALE ANNOUNCER: Now we
have the honor and privilege
of presenting to you
[unintelligible],
the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,
broadcasting to us
from Chicago, Illinois.
Which almost sounds like the
voice of God in that moment.
And the young Black folks are
hungry for something different.
ELIJAH MUHAMMAD:
If you're a young Cassius Clay,
who has an incredible
amount of self-confidence,
who's ambitious,
who sees himself as someone
who's going to make a
difference in the future,
hearing Elijah Muhammad
really gave everything
that was going on in his
life at the time a purpose.
ELIJAH MUHAMMAD:
Cassius Clay,
a young African American,
growing up at the time
that the civil rights movement
is just about to
explode in America.
The white community set up laws
that restricted the
African American community
from exercising their
constitutional rights.
He's growing up in segregation
in America at its worst time.
There are a number
of organizations
that were struggling, really,
to address the
crisis over civil rights.
Much of the leadership
would have been
coming out of the churches.
There was the
National Association
for the Advancement
of Colored People.
There was the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference,
to which Dr. King,
Martin Luther King,
uh, civil rights icon
and leader, was a part of.
There's the Urban League,
which, as its name suggests,
was involved in
improving conditions
of African Americans in cities.
And the Nation of Islam.
My father was a preacher.
And I used to sit and
look at him preach in faith.
The early Nation of Islam
teachings
really worked
along several lines.
First there were
daily living tips...
Advice, if you will.
Don't eat pork.
Uh, you dress a certain way.
You present yourself
a certain way.
That there was no such thing
as Heaven and Hell,
which runs counter to
the teachings of orthodox Islam.
That white people were devils
and Elijah Muhammad was
God's messenger on earth.
The Nation of Islam is very
flesh-and-blood materialist
in their understanding
of what evil is,
what good is, and so forth,
as opposed to other
religious belief systems
in which there is a
spiritual, unseen element.
It's a thoroughly
American phenomena.
The Nation of Islam
preached separatism.
Elijah Muhammad
made it very clear,
we tried to live with you,
you don't wanna live with us.
It was totally at odds with
the prevailing
integrationist sentiment
of Martin Luther King, Jr.
And other leaders of
the civil rights movement.
ELIJAH MUHAMMAD:
So if you don't wanna
live with [unintelligible],
here's the option:
Give us all that we need,
give us a certain amount
of land in America,
and let us build a
nation of our own,
so we don't have
to depend on you
and you don't have to have
a contradiction with us.
White America wasn't about
to do either of those things,
so the Nation had to go
about building a nation
through buying land,
building farms,
opening businesses,
opening restaurants,
different kinds of
local mom-and-pop business
in the Black community,
so that the Black community
was indeed controlled
by Black people.
ELIJAH MUHAMMAD:
[Audience cheers and applause]
CLAUDE: You know,
if you're Elijah Muhammad,
and your argument is that the
whole thing is rigged, right?
The whole thing is rigged
in favor of white people...
You're not gonna get rights,
stop asking them
for the right to vote,
stop asking for
civil rights and so forth,
because it's not
in the cards for you.
The system is not capable
of producing that for you
and it's not designed
to do that, okay?
If that's your argument and
you're standing in 1959 or 1960,
it's hard to argue
against that position.
[applause]
Their critique was a powerful
critique for a lot of folks.
But I think if you're 18, 19,
20-year-old
Cassius Marcellus Clay,
and you're hearing the
Nation of Islam's critique,
their critique itself was
the sharpest part of the sword.
♪
Cassius Clay's
true indoctrination
into the Nation of Islam began
when he met a man
named Abdul Rahman,
formerly known as Captain Sam,
who was in the Miami Temple
of the Nation of Islam.
He was selling
papers on the street.
They started talking.
Cassius invited Abdul
back to his hotel room
to show him his scrapbooks.
And the relationship
went from there.
JAMES: He didn't know
what the hell Islam was.
But now he's being
introduced to it in Florida.
It makes him feel
good about himself.
And he's learning history.
30% of the Africans that was
enslaved in the United States
were Muslims before coming here.
And these people
had family names.
They had surnames.
They had a history.
They had a culture.
The first thing that
was taken away was identity
and the first thing
to take away identity
is to take away your name.
They were not allowed
by threat on life
to continue using African names.
And to make you submit,
you became the property of
the individual who owned you.
And that meant you
took on their names.
In the Nation of Islam,
there's already
hundreds of thousands
of other Black men and women
who have gone through the
process of getting a new name
that would tie them back to
their ancient African roots.
Give the slave master
back his name, okay?
An X is better than whatever
the slave master
had given you before.
Just take the X.
And ideally eventually you
would have an original name.
That would have to come
from Elijah Muhammad.
He bestowed original names.
So there are people who could
go an entire lifetime with X.
Captain Sam invites Cassius
Clay and his brother to Detroit,
where the Honorable
Elijah Muhammad
was making a major speech.
And he's going to be
introduced, of course,
by his national
spokesperson, Malcolm X.
You are gathered
here this afternoon
to hear the Honorable
Elijah Muhammad's message,
which you knew in
advance was titled.
"Separation or Death."
Captain Sam took
them to a restaurant,
where Malcolm X indeed
was preparing his speech
for that evening rally.
And there the two met
for the first time.
Malcolm had no idea
who the young man was.
But that's where the two met,
and they seemed to have had
an impression on one another
in that short and
very brief meeting.
I think quickly they
recognized something
in one another, and as time
moved on, they stayed in touch.
My father had many people
in his life that would come by
and who would be
nurtured or guided
or where the
camaraderie existed.
We're not asking you to give
us some money to make us rich.
We put up businesses.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad
has set up more businesses
than any Black man in America.
For Cassius Clay
to be the student
of the national spokesperson
had to have had
enormous impact on him.
He's not trying
to build churches.
He's trying to build,
uh, businesses,
'cause businesses
make jobs for you
and churches don't make jobs
for anybody but preachers.
ATTALLAH: Cassius Clay
I mean, he had a million and
one questions all the time.
And my father didn't all...
Have all those answers,
but he was along the way
for those... that journey.
[audience applause]
GREG: The Nation, what
it represented, I believe,
to white America,
was a group of Black dudes,
you know, plotting
against white America.
And obviously white America,
white men in particular,
had been calling the
shots for a long time.
And they wanted
to hold on to that.
So they would look at any
kind of threat against that
as something to become
concerned about,
and certainly the Nation
they perceived as a threat.
ROBERT: Being aligned
with these scary people
drove a lot of basically
magazine and newspaper writers
to try to pry out
of Cassius, uh,
his affiliation with Malcolm and
Nation of Islam, but he didn't...
He just didn't talk about it.
He wouldn't talk about it.
He didn't hide it in
terms of his activity.
He moved around.
He went to meetings.
He read, he discovered.
And their people
just said, lay low.
♪
♪
THOMAS: Cassius Clay
fights Doug Jones in New York
at Madison Square Garden.
In those days, the way you
sold a fight to the public,
the way you sold tickets,
was through the newspapers.
And what happens?
There's a newspaper strike.
Cassius Clay was extraordinary
during that time.
He went down to coffeehouses
in Greenwich Village
and recited poetry.
He got on radio.
He got on television.
And the bottom line
was that fight,
in the middle of a
newspaper strike, sold out.
He was the coming fighter.
He was box office.
Well, Cassius, they
say that the Garden
is gonna be filled
for this event.
Uh, why do you think that,
uh, you were able to do that?
Because the main attraction
will be Cassius Clay,
The Louisville Lip,
and he has predicted that
Doug Jones must fall in six.
It was an extraordinary
marketing performance
by Cassius Clay.
This will be the 12th
straight prediction.
And people would like to...
Just to come to see if
this guy is really human.
Cassius Clay was
always fun to watch.
He was fun to watch
just sitting there.
I mean, he was certainly
fun to watch in the ring.
It was a kind of...
Part of that
following that watched
because they were waiting for
something bad to happen to him.
Introducing, from
Louisville, Kentucky.
He's wearing white trunks.
He weighs 202 1/2 pounds.
Cassius Clay. Clay.
Doug Jones was a
good, tough fighter.
The things that Clay had
done that bothered other guys
didn't seem to
bother Doug Jones.
MALE COMMENTATOR: Cassius
Clay has [unintelligible].
He's in the white trunks, 6'3.
Watch his speedy left hand.
He's got a beauty.
And here you have a
standing room crowd only
at Madison Square Garden,
which is credit to
this 21-year-older.
As I'm watching,
I'm scoring the fight,
and I'm thinking, "Oh my god,
this is... this isn't even fun."
MALE COMMENTATOR:
Jones in black, 188.
[unintelligible],
and there it is.
[crowd cheering, whistling]
MALE COMMENTATOR:
A good, solid run.
- This is scary, come on.
- Come on, Cassius.
Get your act together.
MALE COMMENTATOR:
Good one too by Clay.
45 seconds left in the round.
Clay, in white,
originally predicted
a knockout in six.
But then he decided
to cut it down to four.
This is the fourth round.
My sense is that Cassius liked
to make good on his predictions.
But he also understood
that boxing is a serious game
and saying something doesn't
mean that you can do it.
[crowd jeering]
MALE COMMENTATOR:
15 seconds to go.
Fans are probably booing
about the prediction.
[bell rings]
[crowd cheering]
MALE COMMENATOR:
Well, there's always
the possibility of a draw
at Madison Square Garden.
GREG: He won a close decision.
5-4, 1 even, in favor of Clay.
JERRY: A lot of people at
ringside don't even watch.
He never showed a
command in a fight.
It was a close fight,
so if you wanna
flip one or two rounds,
he just got the fight.
Well, he sure didn't
look like a contender
for the heavyweight
championship.
♪
JAMES: Malcolm X
is at the fight.
He has become a
mentor to young Clay.
CLAUDE: Malcolm X is
born Malcolm Little.
He's from, uh, Omaha, Nebraska,
born there in 1925.
His father dies at
a very early age.
Uh, Malcolm believes he
was killed by Klansmen.
His mother is institutionalized
for mental health issues,
uh, while he was a youth.
His family is scattered
into foster homes,
he and his brothers.
He gets in trouble with the law.
He serves about a
seven-year term in prison.
And it's there that one of
his brothers introduces him
to the Nation of Islam
and its theology.
When he comes out, uh,
in the early 1950s,
he's a dedicated true believer
in Elijah Muhammad's message.
ELIJAH MUHAMMAD:
♪
So much of the focus was on
this charismatic, you know,
6'6, red hair spokesperson,
you know, Malcolm X.
The Black people in this country
have been the
victims of violence
at the hands of the
white man for 400 years.
And following the
ignorant Negro preachers,
we have thought that it was
godlike to turn the other cheek
to the brute that
was brutalizing us.
And in the time
when folks thought that
Martin Luther King
was too radical,
in many of their minds, right,
Malcolm X was even worse.
Today the Honorable
Elijah Muhammad
is showing Black
people in this country
that just as the white man and
every other person on this earth
has God-given rights,
natural rights, civil rights,
any kind of rights
that you can think of
when it comes to
defending himself,
Black people should have...
We should have the right
to defend ourselves also.
My father was not one to
directly recruit anyone.
He would speak to those who
were already interested.
He adored Cassius
Clay at the time.
They were in touch all the time.
The conversations, you know,
to the house in Queens
and me being able to
speak to him on the phone.
And my father, being
17 years older than him,
was ahead of the curve
in terms of seeing what,
um, was around the bend.
By that time, my father was
already a global citizen.
My father's interest in the
African American well-being
did not start with
the Nation of Islam.
He was born into it.
It's already in motion.
It's not hatched because you
enter one entity or another.
♪
[clock ticking]
MALE NARRATOR:
Several police agencies
were watching the
Muslims closely.
The US Justice Department also
had them under surveillance.
CLAUDE: So everyone's
investigating
the Nation of Islam.
The FBI has the biggest file.
One part of this censure
of the Nation of Islam
is that occasionally
they raid a mosque,
uh, just to, you
know, show who's boss.
So this happened
in the LA mosque.
And one person,
Ronald Stokes, was killed.
In Los Angeles,
California last year,
the police shot Ronald
Stokes through the heart.
There were those Muslims
who demanded
as they would, you know,
they'd point to Old
Testament biblical justice,
eye for an eye.
They kill one of us,
we kill one of them.
JAMES: Malcolm wanted
to take it to the streets.
The Messenger told them, no,
that's not the way we do this.
We are a spiritual people.
This is a spiritual community.
We will take it Allah,
and the power of Allah will
deal with these, uh, devils
for what they have
done to Brother Stokes.
CLAUDE: It's a fissure
within the Nation of Islam.
Elijah Muhammad says, wait.
The devil's going to
get his comeuppance.
We have to wait for
Allah to work this out
in his own good time.
We can't be premature.
And then there are others,
and Malcolm X I think
leaned in this direction,
that said, all this
talk about Black manhood
and take care of yourself and
taking care of the community
and protecting yourself...
They came into
our... our sanctuary
and killed one of our brothers.
And we don't really want to
hear anything about patience.
Elijah Muhammad never
talked about revolution
or decolonization
or armed struggle.
That was not his
Nation of Islam.
That was Malcolm X.
JAMES: At this
point, Cassius Clay
has become a civil rights
spokesperson, in a way.
I mean, he's talking
about being a champion.
He's talking about knocking
out whomever he wants,
when he wants.
He's talking about how
proud he is of himself.
He's talking about
how beautiful he is.
And the big ugly bear
I call Mr. Liston.
He's too ugly to be the
world's heavyweight champion.
Women don't like ugly men.
They should be
good-looking like me.
And the press is going after
him for those statements.
And so now he is having to
defend himself as a Black man.
It's still rare to see
African Americans on television.
Uh, sports, particularly
boxing, had an outsize influence
on the way that people
saw... saw Black folks.
MARK: There's no
question that Cassius Clay
is a star in 1963.
He was a prototypical
21, 22-year-old
who had just come into celebrity
and just come into money.
And he carried himself that way.
Incredibly handsome.
He had his pick and choice
of women at that point in time.
Miss Dee Dee Sharp, we
understand you have become
an admirer of Cassius Clay,
the heavyweight challenger.
DEE DEE: I met him.
I said, "Hi, how are you?
Nice to meet you."
And he said, "You
don't know who I am?"
I said, "No, I don't."
"Well, I am the greatest."
I'm like, "Okay. That's...
Yeah, that's nice."
Who are you gonna
be pulling for?
Well, Cassius.
Well, it's kind
of hard to say that
with him sitting right here.
Is that the way you feel?
She... she knows
I'm the greatest
like she's the greatest.
You can't name a woman
in rock-and-roll
that sing like her.
And he said, "Well, now,
give me your address."
'Cause he... he talked crazy,
but he was an intelligent
person.
I said, "Okay, fine, all right."
And that's when we went
out on our first date.
My grandfather,
he was a minister.
He was a pastor.
My favorite gospel song...
♪ Yes ♪
♪ Jesus loves me ♪
♪ For the Bible ♪
♪ Tells me so ♪
We were taught strict
rules and regulations.
He did not play.
My mom didn't play.
You... you stepped out of line,
you got knocked out.
My mother was so strict,
she wouldn't even let me
and Marcellus go on a date
until my brother came with us.
He came in here in this
limousine with a chauffeur
and he rang the doorbell.
[doorbell ringing]
DEE DEE: And everybody
was crowding around the car
because they knew who he was.
They knew him as Cassius Clay.
But I... I still didn't...
[snickering]
I was infatuated, I think.
I don't know whether it was
love at first sight for him.
But I was truly
infatuated with this man.
♪
♪
Cassius was offered a lot
of money to fight in England
against Henry Cooper.
Let's go take it.
It should be an easy fight.
Cooper really was not expected
to be competitive
with Cassius Clay.
Cassius predicted a
fifth-round knockout.
Oh, Henry Cooper's nothing
but a tramp, he's a bum.
I'm the world's greatest.
He must fall in five rounds.
But if he talk about me,
I'll cut it to three.
[crowd cheering and applause]
JIM: Oh, I... I saw
the Henry Cooper fight.
And I learned a little bit from
that about what a trainer does.
MALE COMMENTATOR: So here we go.
The fight of the year.
Clay from the right-hand corner
against Cooper of Britain.
And Clay has said,
"I'll beat him in five."
We'll see.
Everything went as
he had planned it.
He was beating Cooper with ease.
Cooper was cut.
[bell rings]
MALE COMMENTATOR: So
the bell ends the second.
So Cooper is cut
underneath his left eye.
It's worse than a slight cut,
so a couple of left jabs
on his left eye.
Henry Cooper was
a valiant fighter.
He had a good left hook.
But he cut so easily, you know.
If you rubbed a terrycloth towel
across his face, he might cut.
MALE COMMENTATOR: Got his
left eye patched up now.
[unintelligible]
with that left hand.
And now he's cut
over the left eye.
Henry Cooper is cut
over the left eye.
And it looks to me like
a very bad cut indeed.
Cassius was really fooling
around, extending the fight,
so he could make good on his
fifth-round knockout prediction.
MALE COMMENTATOR:
Sitting down at the ringside
is one of Clay's
11 managers, Will Faversham.
And he told Cassius Clay
in the interval,
"Cut out the funny business
and get down to work."
And Cooper's eye
already bleeding again
in the fourth round.
And then, of course, at
the end of the fourth round...
[crowd shouting]
MALE COMMENTATOR:
The bell has sounded.
And he's up in
about three, Clay.
That was the end
of the fourth round,
and he hit him about two seconds
before the end of the round
with a left hook.
He took one cross too many.
And he still
doesn't know where he is!
He's still half out, Clay.
They're working furiously
on him in the corner.
Angelo Dundee, his trainer,
he really is giving
him a talking to.
Cooper hit him with
this hellacious left hook,
knocked him down, hurt him.
He was stunned.
If there had been another
minute left in the round,
Cooper might have been
able to finish him off.
MALE COMMENTATOR: Clay
knocked down two seconds
from the end of
the fourth round.
And he got up
just after the bell.
And he doesn't know where he is.
He's looking at his corner.
When a fighter has been
caught with a huge punch,
one minute is not sufficient
time to shake off the cobwebs.
Old-school trainers like
Angelo Dundee, they know that.
And now, uh, "Ref? Torn glove."
MALE COMMENTATOR: And
something extraordinary
has happened because referee
Tommy Little has gone over
to the timekeeper
to ask something.
If you look at the
full video of that fight,
the period between rounds,
which has been done
many times by many people,
the delay was only a
matter of six seconds.
And that really didn't
give extra time to recover.
MALE COMMENTATOR: Out
they come for round five.
And now round five
is the round in which
Clay thought he would
beat Cooper.
But now the crowd at Wembley
have been willing to pay for
a Cooper win.
Clay on the floor
at the end of the fourth.
And now fighting to preserve
his professional rank here
against Henry Cooper.
And now Cooper was
seconds away from stopping Clay.
And I think Tommy Little
will have to stop this
because Cooper's eye is really...
Well, it's absolutely
a terrible state.
And Tommy Little
is looking at it.
[crowd jeering]
MALE COMMENTATOR: And
he's had to stop the fight.
THOMAS: He'd just
beat Henry Cooper
the way he was supposed to,
opened up the cut,
the fight was stopped.
[bell rings]
[crowd jeering]
♪
THOMAS: Cassius Clay's goal
is to become the heavyweight
champion of the world.
But nobody thought he'd be able
to do it if he got in the ring
with somebody like Sonny Liston.
♪
MALE REPORTER: We've come to
Las Vegas to see if Patterson
can do any better than he
did last time against Liston.
With Patterson,
you get the impression
he's carrying the whole of the
United States on his shoulders.
Patterson exercised
the rematch clause.
I met the president
of the United States.
And he had said to me,
uh, "You want to try
to keep the title
because you represent
something good."
MALE REPORTER: In Las Vegas,
an eclipse of the sun is due.
But almost no one anticipates
an eclipse of Sonny.
[crowd cheering]
Floyd Patterson got knocked
out in the first round again.
Clay was at the fight.
And he jumped into the ring
and took the
spotlight from Liston.
He violated all of the...
The protocols of decorum.
And he made Liston mad.
♪
November 22, 1963,
John F. Kennedy,
um, the first and
only Catholic president
until Joe Biden,
um, is assassinated in Dallas.
For many Black folks, you know,
it's seen as the
death of promise, right?
He was the first
white politician,
really since
Abraham Lincoln, um,
to really publicly embrace
the cause of Black folks.
MALE REPORTER:
And now, the casket.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th
president of the United States,
leaving the White House
for the last time.
CLAUDE: The split between
Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad,
you could say it was
a long time coming,
but it needed a spark.
That spark was the
JFK assassination.
Elijah Muhammad says
to his ministers,
don't say anything about.
President Kennedy's
assassination.
We don't need
the heat, you know?
If you go and say
something off color,
you know, to the press,
even though right
before his death
we said all the awful things,
the worst things we could
think about, about him...
He's white devil number one,
he was responsible for,
uh, the civil rights movement
not making progress.
Despite all of what we said,
in this moment of national
mourning, don't say anything.
JAMES: Malcolm had a meeting.
People kept badgering him about
what he thought of the
death of the president.
And I thought he gave an
off-of-the-cuff statement
that would have
been meaningless...
Had it been anything else
except the president
of the United States,
it might have been meaningless.
Malcolm say he
thought it was a case of
"the chickens coming
home to roost."
That is, just as Kennedy,
according to Malcolm,
had done nothing while Negroes
were being killed in the South,
just as he's exporting
violence to Southeast Asia,
that same violence
and tolerance of violence
just came back and killed...
Took the president's life.
Um, Malcolm was disobedient.
Um, that was a very...
That was a statement
that was like
throwing gasoline on the fire.
MAN: Elijah Muhammad.
Minister Malcolm did
not speak for the Muslims
when he made comments on
the death of the president,
John F. Kennedy.
He was speaking for himself
and not the Muslims in general.
And Minister Malcolm has been
suspended from public speaking
for the time being.
Malcolm X was silenced.
And he suspected
that he would not
be brought back into
the Nation of Islam
and given his prime position
because he was seen as a
threat to Elijah Muhammad.
♪
In the normal
progression of events,
there would be no
way that Cassius Clay
would fight for the heavyweight
championship of the world.
He had not paid his dues.
Nobody wants to fight Liston.
He can beat anybody.
But boxing needed
the box office.
[reporters shouting questions]
ROBERT: Cassius Clay, he
did a lot of things, you know,
stomping around Miami.
He would go up to Liston's camp.
"Oh, the big ugly bear!
I want the big ugly bear!"
Anywhere he went,
he could create a crowd.
DAMION: Liston got really upset
when Clay showed up at his house
late into the evening
and sat on his front
lawn and berated him,
called him names, and
challenged him to a fight.
Liston decided that he was
going to make his title defense
against Cassius Clay,
and that he was gonna
teach him a lesson.
Don't you have any
respect for him at all?
As a fighter?
As a fighter?
I think he should be locked up
for impersonating a fighter.
He whoops me...
You tell it to your camera,
your TV man, your radio man,
and you right there
in the whole world,
if Sonny Liston whoops me,
I'll kiss his feet in the ring!
Hell, out of the ring,
on my knee!
Tell him he is the greatest,
and catch the next jet
out of the country.
[shouting, laughter]
The drama
was about just how badly
this monster was gonna destroy
this bubbling,
beautiful, innocent kid.
JIM: My father died
when I was five years old.
My Nashville-born,
Memphis-raised mother
had an anti-racist consciousness
that was certainly the position
from which she was raising me
and my older brother.
When I read in the newspaper
that Clay would challenge Liston
for the heavyweight
championship on Miami Beach,
my mother told me, she said,
"That's going to be an
extremely expensive ticket.
That's going to be something
that you and I can't afford."
I began saving car washing
and lawn mowing money.
Here's a very young,
Black, Southern man,
who is using a slave name
to taunt the white
establishment.
You couldn't have fabricated
a more perfect hero
for the 11-year-old Jim Lampley.
♪
THOMAS: White America wants
Cassius Clay to be the good guy.
He's this charming,
entertaining, brash young man.
[audience laughter]
Uh, move that way a little bit.
You're standing in
front of my candelabra.
[audience laughter, applause]
He's loads of fun.
He's gonna come in and
once again, we'll, you know,
have a guy, if he were to
become heavyweight champion,
but he's not gonna become
heavyweight champion,
because there's no way
he can beat Liston.
But if he were able to,
you know, once again,
we'd have a heavyweight
champion who's fun,
we can enjoy,
and get along with.
Ladies and gentlemen,
for those of you out there
who won't be able to see
the Clay/Liston fight,
here is the eighth round
exactly as it will happen.
Clay comes out to meet Liston.
And Liston starts to retreat.
If Liston goes back any farther,
he'll end up in a ringside seat.
Clay swings with a left,
Clay swings with a right.
Look at young Cassius
carry the fight!
DAMION: I think his appearances
on a number of these shows,
in some ways, it kind of
took some of the spotlight
off of his unique boxing skills.
♪
DEE DEE: I was in
San Francisco performing.
I was doing a show with, um,
Stevie Wonder, The Ronettes.
I was in my dressing room.
He said, "Well, y'all,
wait a minute, wait a minute."
And just had this box, and
he just popped out the ring.
I'm like, "What are you saying?"
And he said,
"Will you marry me?"
I'm like, I said yes.
I said yes.
The fact that he wanted to
marry me, it was shocking.
♪
In the last couple of
months prior to the fight,
I loudly trumpeted to
everyone in my neighborhood
that I was going to the fight,
and that I was going to be there
when Cassius Clay was
going to upset the world,
and, um, prove that
he was the greatest,
and become the youngest
heavyweight champion
of all time.
♪
My neighbors took
great pride and delight
in, uh, ridiculing
me and abusing me.
Liston was the real thing.
Liston was a
legitimate destroyer.
Liston was not a
talking pretty boy
like this show-off
from Louisville.
ATTALLAH: I had a
conversation with Cassius.
And he asked me had
I ever been to Miami.
And I said, "Nope."
So it was my
parents' anniversary.
So we thought, as a family,
that this would be a cool time.
And so since my parents,
while we had traveled
quite a bit,
they had never had
a honeymoon per se.
So we called it a "family moon."
JAMES: He came to Miami
as a guest of Cassius Clay,
um, who was his friend and
his student and his brother.
And Malcolm was suspended from
the Nation and he was silent.
And he was going
through a lot of crisis.
And so Clay invited him
to bring Betty and the kids
and come down there and
have a little vacation, relax,
get this off of your mind.
Malcolm was very much of
part of Cassius Clay's life.
ROBERT: And so
there were probably
a couple of opportunities
where they were seen together.
Somebody sees Malcolm X,
and recognizes him,
and writes a story.
Is Clay a Black Muslim?
Ticket sales [whistles]
right into the toilet.
For the first time, the
idea that Cassius Clay
might be a member
of the Nation of Islam
pervades the mainstream
press in a significant way.
And the promotion is starting
to get worried about this.
And everywhere you go,
the rumors are
persisting more and more
that this fight's
gonna be a financial flop.
Now, we're only
a few hours away.
Uh, you go along with this?
Well, I don't know what you
mean by a financial flop, Bob.
We may not make a nut,
but it'd probably be the
biggest indoor, uh, gate
in the history of boxing.
You wanna have a
good guy and a bad guy.
You know, Liston is the bad guy.
Cassius is supposed
to be the good guy.
Then all of a sudden
now, maybe, just maybe,
he's a member of
the Nation of Islam,
or he's certainly hanging out
with these guys.
Is there any one thing
that you can point to
that you've come to realize in
the last, uh, five or six days
that might have caused this?
The Muslim thing
might've slowed it down.
DEE DEE: My grandfather,
who had never been
on a plane in his life,
flew down to Florida.
He said, "But I wanna
stop you from marrying him.
He is going to become a Muslim."
It just didn't register.
ROBERT: One of the
promoters of the fight,
he sees Malcolm at training.
Calls him aside.
He says, "Mr. X,
I'll help you if you help me."
"This fight is
going in the toilet.
"And the longer
you're there at training,
"the deeper it's
gonna be flushed.
"Do me a favor, I'm begging you.
"Go home now,
"and I'll put you in any seat
in the arena you wanna be in
the night of the fight."
Malcolm was savvy enough.
He knew enough to do it.
And Malcolm went home.
I do recall my
father coming home
a little sooner than planned,
because of course
him going to Miami,
we knew he was going
to see my big brother.
And, um, the reason,
you know, people think
that my father was disappointed,
he understood exactly
why his presence
was a bit, um, tender.
My father was dedicated
to Cassius Clay
winning the fight
with Sonny Liston.
[indistinct chatter]
Well, I'd read all the stuff
about what had happened
at the weigh-in.
When the doors bang
open at the weigh-in,
and here he comes with
an African walking stick...
Bang, bang, bang,
where's the ugly bear?
Liston doesn't know what to say.
He went mad.
Joe Louis was flat-footed,
and Sonny Liston is flat-footed.
[unintelligible]
Very hard to take it seriously.
But the older reporters
who wanted to believe that,
he was so scared.
He was freaking out.
The doctor somehow
cooperated and said
his blood pressure
went through the roof.
And the general question
was, was he even fit enough
to fight that night?
The fight is $2500 for each
contract on the platform.
[indistinct chatter]
JIM: I got a pretty good ticket.
The vast majority of
white Miami... all of Miami...
Wanted Clay to lose.
In my opinion, the fights
are always won with fists
and not with mouth talk.
I pick Liston to win
by the fifth round.
JIM: A lot of
white people thought
this kid was looking
down at them.
They hated the idea
of a Black man saying,
I am the king of the world.
I'm gonna upset the world.
I'm gonna do whatever
I want to do.
I'm the greatest
of all time, etc.
Athletes didn't brag
like that back then.
♪
JAMES: Malcolm,
after leaving, came back
to be there for the fight,
because he felt that
the spiritual power
was on his brother's side.
ATTALLAH: My father
would make sure that
he trained him differently
than Angelo Dundee
or Coach would...
How to focus on
prayer and intent.
JAMES: The prayer rug is simply
a clean place to make prayer.
You take Wudu before prayer.
You wash your hands
up to your wrists.
You wash your face, you wash
your ears, you wash your hair.
That I'm coming before God,
and I would like to come
before God in my purity,
at least my physical purity.
It is really just focusing
in, like, today's mindfulness,
in owning the moment...
Not just proclaiming the
moment, but owning the moment.
And so there is a breathing,
there is a centering,
there is a focus,
there's a... a direction
towards the intention.
You're not winning just to win.
You have to remove
the ego in the process.
♪
[crowd shouting, whistling]
♪
Uh, when he first entered
the arena, he was booed.
[crowd jeering]
And... and there was no
massive booing for, uh,
the former mob enforcer.
Somehow he was okay.
[crowd cheering]
MALE COMMENTATOR: There we see
the spotlight on the
world champion, Sonny Liston,
and his entourage leading him
down from dressing room to ring.
The instructions I got
before I left New York...
Rent a car at the airport,
drive back and forth
between the arena
where the event is being
held and the nearest hospital
so that you will waste
no, uh, deadline time
following Cassius Clay
into intensive care.
MALE COMMENTATOR:
There he comes.
Up the ring he bounces in,
calm, cool, collected.
MALE REPORTER: The challenger,
the challenger,
Cassius Marcellus Clay.
22 years of age, unbeaten.
19th straight,
going for all the marbles
in the boxing business.
There really is nothing
in sports
like a heavyweight
championship fight.
Just kind of full of
electricity and bloodlust.
Two men half naked,
coming out in front of you,
trying to hurt each other.
- I want a clean bout, men.
- In the event of a knockdown,
the man that is down
must take an eight count.
ATTALLAH: I did not
understand boxing.
I understood him, right?
So you're rooting for
someone that you love to win,
whatever "win" meant.
I didn't know competition
at that point in my life,
but I knew that
this was his aim,
and he certainly did not have
a problem orating his aim.
Good luck. Shake hands.
[bell rings]
[crowd shouting]
And in the first round, uh,
he... he made Sonny look clumsy.
[crowd shouting]
Your first round in the
ring with Cassius Clay
was an introduction
to something new.
And he's looking pretty good.
He's got the left hand
working, pop, pop.
MALE COMMENTATOR:
Awkwardly fast.
Good long left lead.
It might be the champion
a bit off balance.
There's never been a
heavyweight who combined
that height,
that range, those long arms,
the hand speed, the foot speed,
with that level of confidence.
There's no precedent for this.
He's the first of his kind.
MALE REPORTER: The challenger
is jabbing all over, body...
And a right hand!
The best punch of
the fight so far!
[crowd shouting]
ROBERT: And it hit me
Clay was bigger than Liston.
MALE COMMENTATOR: We're
down to the closing seconds
of this first round,
and the long left lead is
making the difference so far
by Mr. Clay.
[bell rings]
[bell rings]
[bell rings]
[crowd shouting]
Things that shocked everybody
around me didn't shock me.
MALE COMMENTATOR:
Ladies and gentlemen,
we're looking in
with our overhead camera
into the corner of Cassius Clay,
who is still doing the talking.
I'm saying to myself,
"Well, Sonny's trying
to figure him out.
That's why Sonny's
not doing anything."
From the radio cast, it
was just a matter of time
until Sonny Liston
knocked him out.
Yeah, he might be
having a little trouble
figuring out his style.
But we all know Cassius
is gonna get tired,
the body blows will hurt him,
and that he's gonna
get knocked out.
[bell rings]
JOE: I hope that Clay
don't get too much confidence.
Soon he's gonna get knocked out.
MALE COMMENTATOR:
But this youngster
has his own style
and it's confusing for
the champion to fathom
this early in the fight,
at least up to now.
Completely outclassed, Joe,
with the speed,
his awkward style,
his boxing, his natural ability.
JIM: And then in
the second round,
he wasn't quite as commanding.
But in the third round...
The way I remember it,
in the third round,
he landed that right hand
and cut Liston on his cheek.
MALE COMMENTATOR: Another
jarring right hand that time.
Another one!
Sonny wobbled! Sonny wobbled!
Cassius has him hurt!
DEE DEE: I had never
really seen him go at it
the way he did.
It was...
My mouth was, like...
He beat the hell
out of that man!
[laughs]
He... he beat that man
like he stole something.
MALE COMMENTATOR: Sonny has
a big mouse below his left eye.
He has a cut below the eye.
And he's getting hit with
all the punches in the book.
So now he has a tactical
advantage in the fight.
[bell rings]
[crowd shouting]
Liston thought he was
gonna knock him out early.
Once he saw that his power
didn't intimidate Clay,
he... he got a bit scared.
Yeah, I still have
notebooks with blood on it.
Uh, Liston's blood.
MALE COMMENTATOR: We're
going into Sonny's corner.
Joe, I don't know
whether you can see it.
Look closely, look hard.
They're working on the
cut below the left eye.
It's very difficult
to get a shot.
I'm saying, well, it's not
a serious cut, but he is cut.
I wonder what he's
thinking about, being cut.
The first thing I notice
is the cut has turned black.
To stop the cut, they
used a drug called Monsel.
It's a liquid.
You put it on a cut,
the cut will turn black.
Well, Monsel is banned
for one reason...
It's dangerous in the eyes.
[bell rings]
What happens if it
gets on Sonny's gloves?
[crowd shouting]
It's in the middle of the
round when, all of a sudden,
"I can't see!
I can't see! I can't see!"
Clay can't see.
ROBERT: I think he
freaked a little bit.
He thought he was going blind.
[bell rings]
MALE COMMENTATOR: Now
we have four fast rounds.
[crowd shouting]
MALE COMMENTATOR: At this
point, we're going over
to look into
Cassius Clay's corner.
Let's go back to, uh, Joe Louis.
Joe, look at that
shot right in there.
What do you think is going
through this youngster's mind?
He's 12 minutes into the fight.
JOE: Well, he's
talking a lot now.
I don't know if he's arguing
with his trainer, you know...
MALE COMMENTATOR: Dundee
that he was arguing with, Joe.
Angelo now is toweling
him off a little bit
while he gets him ready.
JERRY: There is no
quarreling with the fact
he could not see.
JOE: I think that there's
something wrong with Clay.
- [bell rings]
- JOE: Something with Clay.
There's something
wrong with Clay.
- MALE COMMENTATOR: His eyes.
- His eyes are bothering him.
Ladies and gentlemen,
we don't know exactly
what happened.
They're yelling from
Cassius Clay's corner.
Something got in his right eye.
Uh, however,
he's blinking badly.
Sonny's got a tad of R&R!
JIM: I didn't take
a transistor radio.
I wasn't listening to
any commentary of any kind.
So I was totally lost at
sea trying to figure out
what was going on.
[crowd shouting]
MALE COMMENTATOR: Still
having some problems with his...
With his eyes.
He's blinking and
bouncing away continually.
You had the sense that,
well, this... this fight is even.
[crowd shouting]
I suppose it
could go either way.
[crowd shouting]
MALE COMMENTATOR: As
Sonny's still moving in,
Cassius still bouncing out
to the way, blocking him.
[bell rings]
Then it became clear he
had recovered from that.
MALE COMMENTATOR: We note
that Sonny's flat-footed stance
most of the time, easy target.
Of course, his eyes cleared.
MALE COMMENTATOR: Easy!
[crowd shouting]
MALE COMMENTATOR: Seconds
remaining in the sixth.
[crowd shouting]
[bell rings]
[crowd cheering]
MALE COMMENTATOR: The crowd
now cheering the challenger.
Let's get over to our
champion, Joe Louis. Joe?
JOE: Well, I think
that the corner
has to get worried
a little bit now.
MALE COMMENTATOR: Now
they're working, as we note,
with our camera shots in
there, below the left eye.
They've already worked
below the right eye.
There you see them.
Joe Paolino trying to
keep that cut closed.
And do you feel as though Sonny
being busted up a little bit,
cut up a little bit
around the face...
Will this make a difference
in Liston's thinking?
JOE: Well, it has to make
a difference because Liston,
I think he don't see too well
out both of his eyes.
[bell rings]
MALE COMMENTATOR:
The ref is stopping it.
That might be all,
ladies and gentlemen!
Get up there, Joe!
Get up there!
Get up in the ring!
He's out. He's out.
He's not coming
out of his corner.
- He said, "That's it!
- That's enough!"
What he really meant was,
I'm not going out there.
And he spit out the mouthpiece.
[cheering, whistling]
It was, you know,
almost otherworldly.
ROBERT: Sonny Liston has quit.
Cassius Clay is the new
heavyweight champion
of the world.
He started capering and running
around the ring, you know?
"Eat your words!
I told you I'm
king of the world!"
It was just a magical moment.
[cheers and applause]
He points and he said, "I
fooled you, I fooled you,
I fooled you, I fooled you."
And it's just bedlam.
- JIM: It was electric.
- It was exhilarating.
I was shouting in the car all
the way back to southwest Miami.
MALE COMMENTATOR: Hold it,
he's yelling behind us.
Cassius, come here, come here!
Come here, come here!
Hey, I'm the greatest
thing that ever lived!
I don't have
I got up on the roof of
the house and began shouting,
"I've upset the world!
I'm the greatest of all time!"
Now, I just turned 22 years old.
I must be the greatest!
And my mother
eventually came outdoors
and started yelling
at me, "Get down here!"
You know, "Get off of the roof.
You're going to get
us both arrested."
Um, you know, "You know how
our neighbors feel about this."
- I told the world!
- I talk to God every day.
And God [unintelligible].
- Cassius, wait a minute.
- Wait a minute, Cassius.
JIM: That was as thrilling
as any moment in my life,
because Cassius Clay
was Cassius Clay.
He was my hero.
I am the greatest!
MALE COMMENTATOR: All
right, Cass, thank you.
Thank you, Cassius Clay,
the heavyweight champion.
The scene turns blank for me,
because I have I don't know how
many minutes to write my story.
So, uh, I have my
little Olivetti typewriter
in front of me on a bench.
Uh, and, um, I start typing.
I just remember the
first word, "Incredibly."
"Incredibly, the
posturing, braggart kid
was telling the
truth all along."
[cheers and applause]
After the fight,
I told him that I was
going back to the hotel.
He said, "I'll be
there in a few.
Wait up for me."
And he never came.
ROBERT: He goes back to
the Black hotel with Malcolm.
They eat vanilla ice cream.
They're having...
They're celebrating.
Nobody's drinking.
DEE DEE: My mother told me
that I had to give
back the ring.
And I said, "Mom,
I can't do that."
She said, "No, you gonna do it.
And you're gonna do it now."
When I finally saw him
early in the morning,
it all came to a head.
I said, "I have to
give it back to you."
He said, "Well, what about"
I said, "No, nothing. I can't."
He asked me why and I made
up some kind of an excuse.
But I didn't wanna say that it...
It was because you
were becoming a Muslim.
I didn't wanna say that.
I felt it would hurt too bad,
and that... that wasn't me.
I'm not like that.
[indistinct chatter]
The story really
developed the next morning,
which was the routine press
conferences after a big fight.
[unintelligible]
- I'm ready.
- Just keep quiet and relax.
That's right.
One of the young reporters said,
so, could you finally tell us,
are you a card-carrying Muslim?
Cassius kind of jerked up.
And... and then he
kind of lashed back.
And he said, why are you making
such a big deal out of this?
I'm a clean-cut boy.
I don't fornicate,
I don't drink, I don't smoke,
I don't run around.
Uh, I'm with this
really nice group of people.
I don't have to be
what you want me to be.
I'm free to be what I want to
be and think what I wanna think.
Red birds should
stay with red birds.
And bluebirds should
stay with bluebirds.
And people should not go to
places where they're not wanted.
And all hell breaks loose.
Ah, it didn't bother me a bit.
I knew what my lead was
gonna be the next morning.
"The lost-found
Nation of Islam..."
They had a guy who's
considered the baddest,
most celebrated
man in the world,
the heavyweight
champion of the world.
Not only that,
but he knocked out Goliath
and he didn't need five
smooth stones to do it.
I don't believe in
forced integration.
Ain't gonna never work, man.
You knew it ain't gonna work.
You always knew it
wasn't right, but I never did.
Now that I done found out,
you seem to be shook up.
And after the Liston fight, uh,
Cassius Clay is happy to
embrace the Nation publicly
in ways he could not
before the fight.
And the Nation, this
new heavyweight champion
claiming to be a Muslim,
is happy to embrace him.
♪
Malcolm X and Cassius Clay
went to New York.
ROBERT: He gets up
and he says, fellas,
I have to tell you something.
I am a member of the
lost-found Nation of Islam.
And from now on,
my name is Cassius X.
I ain't gonna keep Clay.
Clay is a slave name.
JAMES: And so Cassius Clay
becomes Cassius X,
meaning I don't know
my original African last name.
And so I take X to
represent that anonymity.
So he is the symbol
of transformation,
someone who says,
I want freedom.
I want to have
self-determination.
And I have to do that by tying
myself back to my identity.
They went to the United Nations.
And this was an important moment
because Clay took the idea
that he was champion
of the world seriously.
[reporters shouting questions]
MALE REPORTER: Soon
after, the new champion
came to New York and was
shown around the United Nations
by his friend Malcolm X.
Malcolm X goes to the
UN to deliver the case
of white supremacy's
damaging of Black America
to the UN,
to see it as an international
human rights crisis
what white America had
done to Black people.
Cassius has been following
the religion of Islam,
Muslim religion, for the
past four or five years.
Introducing Clay to
African diplomats in the UN
serves a few purposes.
Uh, one is to broaden
Clay's horizons.
He had not really been involved
in international travel
and that sort of thing,
so it was to impress
upon this young Black man
that Malcolm is tutoring
that there's this larger world,
a larger world of Black people,
and Africa, and Africa
is becoming independent,
and so forth, and you
just need to know about this.
I can look at people
from all over the world,
regardless of race,
creed, or color,
and talk intelligently
with them,
and most of all, recognize that
all of my brothers and sisters
are these people
I haven't recognized
over my lifetime.
These weren't just
dignitaries walking up.
These are people
that were already
a part of our family, our life.
This is all separate
from the Nation.
This has nothing to do
with the Nation of Islam.
Being a follower of
the Muslim religion
had something to do with your
winning the championship?
- Well, I would say so.
- Uh, our religion is what...
The only thing that
I can give any credit
for pulling me through.
I have heard many
people attempt to presume
that my father was trying
to recruit, um, Cassius Clay
in order to repair
his relationship,
his own relationship,
with Elijah Muhammad,
which is absolutely incorrect.
They were preparing
to be in alliance
so that they continue
studying and working,
and it was stopped
right in the middle.
♪
[radio tuning]
THOMAS: Cassius Clay was
in New York with Malcolm X.
Elijah Muhammad
announced on the radio
that he had given Cassius
the name "Muhammad Ali."
Cassius Clay is a name
no more, is that right?
Yes, sir! It's Muhammad Ali.
"Muhammad" means
"worthy of all praises"
and "Ali" means "most high"
in the Asian-African language.
Part of it was a power play,
that here was Malcolm
at the United Nations,
showing this man around.
And I'm gonna take him back.
I'm gonna name him Muhammad Ali.
And he's going
to take that name,
and that's going to reassert
my primacy in this battle.
Anybody special
gave you the name?
Yes sir, my leader and teacher,
the Most Honorable
Elijah Muhammad.
That moment, I think,
helped cement the rupture.
Malcolm saw the
writing on the wall.
He didn't tell...
He didn't try to get Cassius
Clay/Muhammad Ali to become
sort of personally
loyal to him, Malcolm X.
And... and probably
could not have.
And Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali,
uh, decided he would not follow
a student of the teacher.
He'd follow the teacher himself.
MALE INTERVIEWER: There's
been great publicity given
to the fact that heavyweight
champion Cassius Clay
is one of your followers.
Do you think he's
a sincere follower?
Well, Cassius is
following Elijah Muhammad.
And I'm no longer a follower
of Elijah Muhammad myself.
The last time my father
spoke with, uh, Cassius Clay,
uh, directly, he was in New York
on his way to see
us as a family.
I knew, I anticipated his visit.
And it was cut short.
He was summoned to meet
with Elijah Muhammad.
And... we were kind of stood up,
if you use that term.
But my father knew
what that meant.
THOMAS: There was a
special bond between them.
And it speaks to the
power of Elijah Muhammad
and the hold that he
had over Cassius Clay
that, uh, when Elijah
and Malcolm separated,
Muhammad Ali went with Elijah
and completely
rejected Malcolm X.
Would you clear this
up for me, please?
Have you and Malcolm X,
the man who helped convert you
to the Black Muslim movement...
Have the two of you split?
When the Honorable Elijah
Muhammad cuts a man off,
well, then he's
automatically cut off
with all of his followers.
And, uh, a lot of
people call it a split.
It's not a split.
He's just one individual
who, as we say, went astray.
And, uh, when, say,
like, two governments split,
one leader takes half,
another leader take half.
Malcolm X is just there.
And this is not a split.
He's not big enough
to be called a split.
♪
People would not accept
the name Muhammad Ali.
MALE REPORTER:
Cassius, did the bus trip
take anything out of you,
and was it worth
the $1800 it cost you?
Muhammad. My name is Muhammad.
Y'all keep calling me Cassius,
but I'm tired of telling you.
You know, you intelligent.
My name is Muhammad Ali.
Every time I referred
to him in my stories,
um, as Muhammad Ali,
it would be struck out,
and it would be
changed to Cassius Clay
by the "Times",
you know, edit desk.
MALE REPORTER: Champ, Liston
hopes you don't have another
hernia operation.
See, now you'd rather say
"Champ" than "Muhammad".
[laughter]
And to his credit, you know,
he always doubled down
on that fact, right?
And it spoke to the fact
that ultimately
for Black people,
whatever you call me,
you're not gonna call me
out of my name, right?
My name is Muhammad Ali, right?
And that, I think,
had an incredible impact,
particularly on
young Black folks, right?
Who, whether it
was their own name,
or names they'd come to adopt,
you are going to
call me my name, right?
That's the basic
show of respect.
MALE INTERVIWER:
Why don't you like
to be called Clay anymore?
Oh, Clay was not my name.
Once we follow the belief
and hear and
understand the teachings
of the Honorable
Elijah Muhammad,
then come into
knowledge of ourselves,
then we want to be called
after names of our people,
which are names to
fit us Black people.
And "Clay" was a
white man's name.
It was a slave name.
It hurt me because
he was willfully eliminating
a part of his identity
that... that was important to me.
And I felt like he was
robbing something from me.
I wanted to learn so
that I could figure out
whether it was possible for
me to sustain this love affair
for Cassius Clay under
the banner of a new name.
If you're on the right
side of race relations,
ultimately it became a
badge of honor for you
that you did say "Muhammad Ali"
and didn't say "Cassius Clay"
because that was the
way he wanted it.
[drum music]
ROBERT: In the summer
of 1964, Muhammad Ali
actually went to Africa.
They went to
Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt.
And there was
a point on that trip
where something remarkable
happened.
They were in Ghana.
One day, Muhammad and his
traveling party got in a car
and they decided to just
drive through the countryside.
And as they drove
through the countryside,
there would be drums beating
and messages were transmitted.
And people would come
out of the countryside
and stand on the road
and line the road
just to be there
to see Muhammad Ali.
And that had a
mesmerizing effect on him.
In that moment, it
registered in his brain
that this is something
bigger and more powerful
than I conceived of.
This isn't just being
heavyweight champion
of the world.
I'm back in my
spiritual homeland.
That's really the moment
that Cassius Clay
became Muhammad Ali.
♪
[traffic]
ATTALLAH: When I was in
New York, living in New York,
and I saw in the news that
Muhammad Ali was coming to town
to unveil his artwork
at the Waldorf Astoria,
I said to my housemaid,
"I know him."
She said, "You
know Muhammad Ali?"
I said, "Yes, he's
my big brother."
And I thought to myself,
"Is it dangerous?"
Not, "Would he not accept me?"
But is it dangerous
because of the forced division
to go see him?
So I did.
I went downtown and I
stood across the street
and watched the
crowd come his way.
And somehow or
another, he felt me
and turned around
and beckoned to me.
And we were together
from that point
until he was unable to engage.
In that first 24 hours,
after all of the public things
that he was there at the
Waldorf Astoria to address,
we talked about everything.
And we continued talking.
He entrusted me the way
I know he trusted my dad.
His big question...
One of his first questions when
we were away from people was,
did my father know he loved him?
And it was a painful... it
was a painful couple of hours.
♪