Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali: Inspiration Is Personal
Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali were my mentors.
A middle class white boy growing up in Atlanta and raised in the Baptist church, I saw early on these men were monumental spirits: greater, wiser, more noble than the many millions of white racists and moral pretenders who despised them. That they were black men fighting the uphill battle of the millennium not only didn't keep me from knowing this, but was part of why I knew it, and made me know it more.
Righteousness is not a team sport. It is not about color or tribe, region or religion. It is about justice and truth in a world of moral laws and being willing to stand up for them. And I knew early on that these men had no equals.
Born in Atlanta, Martin Luther King grew up and preached in his father’s Ebenezer Baptist church a few miles from the white Baptist church on Ponce De Leon where I was taught Sundays about God and Jesus. In the early days of the civil rights movement, there would be hushed voices at the back of our church services where well-dressed black people trying to come in to worship God were being turned away.
The sermons preached on Jesus’ words, “What you do unto the least of these, my brethren, you do unto me,” were not being lived in the body and spirit of white Christians, especially in the south. Jesus’ words were not only being ignored but turned into a poisonous bigotry, a violent hatred, and I saw firsthand the hypocrites Jesus spoke of.
I witnessed racism all around me as a child in the way black people were treated and spoken to. I had no need to be taught of it by Martin Luther King or anyone else, because I saw it everywhere. But when this native son spoke up, I knew I was hearing the truth and gospel from an undeniable and selfless prophet, that here was the black Moses sent to free his people. And in doing so, awaken white people to their own fearfulness and hidden darkness, release them from their own self-deluded hell.
In his sermons King spoke of freeing both black and white men and women from the bondage of hatred, because those who hated were just as much in prison as those they hated.
His ministry was far-reaching and universal and applied to the world wherever there was racial division. As Jesus was hated for his message of love and truth, so was Martin Luther King, and both would die for it.
I listened to Cassius Clay’s famous fight with Sonny Liston on the radio in 1965 with my mother and brother, the very short bout with the phantom punch later portrayed with Clay standing over Liston taunting him to get up and fight him. I had never heard anyone talk like he did, shouting: “I am the greatest! I am the greatest, the greatest in the world! No one can defeat me, I am the greatest!”
My mother was appalled at his lack of humility, that he would brag and rave with such defiance and boldness and declare such things. “That’s not the way a champion behaves,” she said. “Joe Louis was a humble champion, he didn't brag and act like that,” but somehow I knew there was something else going on here, a new emergence, a new announcement to the world.
Muhammad Ali was not going to be the quiet, humble, subservient black pawn of the white masses. He was not going to be used and stepped on and beaten down like Joe Louis had been. Louis had been stripped of his life by the American government, used to campaign for the army, hounded until his dying day to repay a piddling amount of taxes, forced to debase and cheapen himself as a wrestler at the end and a song and dance hack.
Ali saw what had been done to Jack Johnson and Joe Louis and wasn’t having any of it. He wasn't going to be like anyone before him, and after him there wouldn't need to be anyone quite like him again. He singlehandedly took on not only the established norm for black boxers and athletes, but declared he wasn't going to play the federal government’s game of becoming a black man inducted into the service to kill yellow people in Vietnam who hadn't attacked America and were not his enemy. “No Viet Cong ever called me nigger,” he said. “If I want to die, I’ll die right here, fightin’ you.”
He knew very well he might die because he refused to bend over, as did Martin Luther King. They both wanted to live, and had plenty to live for, but knew they hadn't been put here to live ordinary, comfortable lives. They came with an unyielding conviction and a message burning out of their souls, like Jeremiah, and were going to deliver it.
On television I watched Dr. King’s I Have A Dream Speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the March on Washington in 1963. It seemed surreal and archaic that a man would have to dream about his people one day being given the same rights as another people in this country. These were American citizens, human beings, why would they have to ask for their God-given and constitutional rights? Was this country so backward, so blind and lacking in righteousness? If so it was not the country I believed it was.
King organized a bus boycott in Montgomery after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white person. He organized non-violent protests in Albany, Georgia and Birmingham, and marches in Montgomery and Selma where the country watched in amazement white police armies beating with clubs, turning fire hoses and setting German Shepherds on passive black men, women, elderly and children, exercising their right to peacefully protest.
In 1967 Dr. King was convicted to speak out against the Vietnam War in a speech called “Beyond Vietnam,” as he believed it a moral abomination, both for America and toward the Vietnamese. Not only did he see the war itself as immoral, but that most of the boys dying in it were poor black and white kids who couldn’t afford college and were being grabbed up in the draft and slaughtered. “We have guided missiles and misguided men,” he said.
But it was one thing to have sit-ins and marches and speak out against inequalities. When he began to call America on its involvement in an immoral war in Vietnam, he raised the stakes and made even greater enemies in high places. J. Edgar Hoover considered King a “radical” and worried about the effect a powerful and charismatic black leader could have on a black population already on the march for personal freedom. Young Americans were revolting against a war they saw as criminal and unconscionable, and King’s voice speaking against it could be the incendiary spark spinning the whole revolution out of control. Hoover treated King as a foreign agent and had him shadowed and wire-tapped.
When Muhammad Ali became a conscientious objector and refused to go into the draft, the boxing commission revoked his boxing license, clearly from political pressure. Sports announcer and lawyer, Howard Cosell, who had nothing to gain by doing so, railed against the boxing commission, saying they had no legal grounds to keep Ali from fighting. He was incensed at the injustice and arbitrary prejudicial punishment against Ali, arguing publicly against it until Ali’s license was reinstated, and then continued to rail against it.
Not only was Ali banned from boxing for four critical years in the prime of his career, denied making a living at the peak of his boxing prowess. He was also under the very real threat of going to prison for draft evasion.
In April of 1968 Dr. King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C. as he continued to speak out against poverty in America and the War in Vietnam. On April 3rd at the Mason Temple in Memphis he gave his great “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop” speech. There was a profound and prophetic aura about him that day. Death threats he was receiving had reached an even more serious pitch than he was used to. Looking back at it, you can see from his demeanor and message he had a sense this would be his last public speech. From his emotion and voice, a shining, ethereal light on his face like the reflection on Moses’ face on the mountaintop, he knew the end was near:
“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”
And the next day, April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King was shot and killed standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis by a sniper’s bullet.
At sixteen I mournfully watched the funeral procession, the horse-drawn carriage plodding through the streets of downtown Atlanta. Streets the great man and I had both walked, where he had grown up before me. I could not imagine the anguish of his wife, dressed in black in a black veil, following the casket. I’m sure they had talked much of this day. Was it not obvious that so much bigotry and hatred had not been able to bear the righteous words of this great spirit and man? When did he ever say a word that was not genuine or true, that was not backed up by the word of God?
We had lost not only a great leader in this country, a great black leader, but the Moral Conscience of the 20th Century.
A friend I grew up with said on the phone it was a “good thing” King had been killed. “He preached non-violence but all he caused was violence and riots,” he said, as the King’s assassination had sparked riots all over the country now.
Yes, it wasn't the fault of racism or the violence of white racists, it was King’s fault for trying to change things that was the problem, he was to blame for the riots now. When speaking to racist people your case was always being made for you.
I took everything said against Dr. King personally, with great disgust, and still do. I was sick to my core at age sixteen of this bullheaded ignorance, this team white bigotry, this us against them maliciousness, especially from professed Christians. With the racist mentality and spirit there was always an angle from which black people could be blamed for the way they were treated, going all the way back to slavery. It was the end of that “friendship.”
In 1971 I was working as a bellman in a summer job at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Atlanta, when there was a buzz through the hotel lobby. “I’ve never gotten an autograph in my life,” the doorman said, “But I’m getting this one,” and I saw him running to the front desk where Muhammad Ali stood with his bodyguard, another massively huge black man wearing a Muslim robe and hat.
I waited to approach him and did with a scrap of paper and pen and he shook my hand with his huge hand, leaning against the counter in a black pinstripe suit, a bigger man than I imagined, looking immaculate and as beautiful as ever. I was struck by his aura, by the presence and power of that remarkable body, and I’m not a small man.
“I sure would like to see you box again,” I said to him. “I miss seeing you fight, Champ.” He gave me a quick read and smiled, took my paper and pen, asking my name. “Well, we’re trying to get a match up here in September,” he said in a casual, confiding way. “Looks like we’re going to do it. You box?” “Naw,” I said, “I’m a football player, always played football.” He signed for me: To Ron Smith, from Muhammad Ali, handing it back. “Well, don’t get into boxing,” he said with a single head shake, like a big brother giving me sage advice. “It’s a rough racket.” “Don’t worry, I won’t,” I laughed. “You are the greatest,” I said to him, and he grinned and patted my shoulder.
I don’t know what I expected, but I felt a fearless humanness and largess from the man, an immune generosity of spirit that matched his gifts. My color didn’t seem to matter to him—I was a man and fellow traveler who happened to be a different color, and for those few minutes he made me feel part of his circle, which I am.
I was inspired by this playful, bold, hilarious, unbelievably gifted athlete. I loved his antics and his determination to be himself no matter what, to not let anyone or any group or way of thinking define him. He would blaze his own trail through the corrupt boxing world, through a sea of angry racists, through a white society horrified to see a black man declare he was the greatest fighter who’d ever lived, which he was, and undoubtedly the funniest. He made me laugh and realize anything was possible every time I saw him. When he stepped into the ring he was historic, abolishing all precedents, dancing, feinting, rope-a-doping, revolutionizing and awakening the sport, entertaining us and giving us his brilliant spirit in a way we’ll never see from another heavy weight boxer or any athlete.
After the Supreme Court ruled in his favor the boxing commission returned his boxing license. Two months later he fought Jerry Quarry in a three round fight in Atlanta, a warm-up bout for the big ones coming later with Frazier, Foreman and Norton. He quickly tore this big white brawler apart, dancing and moving around him, jabbing him up and making him look like an amateur, closing Quarry’s eyes and rearranging his face. When the fight was called Ali went straight to him and hugged him, confiding something in Quarry’s ear, talking to him for a minute or so. Quarry listened attentively, nodding the whole time, then hugged Ali with childlike gratitude. Whatever Ali said to him, gave back to him, it was clear Ali had affection for him, and Quarry for Ali.
My autograph’s stapled to the Atlanta Journal front page story with the photo of Ali landing a blow on Quarry’s embattled face. It’s the only autograph I’ve ever gotten or will ever get. Every time I look at it I chuckle about those few minutes of conversation with him, and his genuine advice not to get into boxing, because “it’s a rough racket.” I believe he was doing me a favor in case I had any illusions of stepping into the ring with him.
The racist white governor of Georgia at the time, Lester Maddox, more of a racist clown than anything, flew the American flag at the governor’s mansion at half-mast to protest Ali’s fight that day. Another typical and expected act from another garden variety racist dressed up in a cheap suit.
The southern writer, Thomas Wolfe, said: “We are all searching for our fathers.” Losing my father at fifteen, I was searching for living fathers who exemplified the character, strength, dignity and greatness I felt from my own father. I came across many white leaders who didn’t inspire me, whose characters and goals lacked conviction, seemed small, petty and comfortably self-consumed compared to these two men.
The two men who came up on my radar of greatness were Martin Luther King, Jr. and Muhammad Ali. They were my brothers and fathers, my people, and still are.
Mark Twain said: “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great.
A man’s character can be judged not only by who he is, but by how he takes on the moral challenges in his life. I was inspired by two very different men fighting similar battles, in different walks of life, not merely for their gifts, but for their courage in taking on forces of evil in our society, at a time when these evils had to be confronted head on. I was inspired by a fighter and a man of peace.
They connected with my vision of a world not stunted by ignorance and oppression. They were magnanimous souls fighting Herculean struggles in a small-minded, hate-filled, blind and dreary world, and were willing to risk their lives to change it. Being black men in a white man’s world required even greater courage to be who they were to achieve it, and I will always admire them more for that.
I learned early on that righteousness is not a team sport. And that inspiration is personal.
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Ron Clinton Smith is a film actor appearing in Hidden Figures, True Detective, Just Mercy, Boy Erased, and Genius: MLK/X, and a writer of stories, songs, poetry, screenplays, and the novel Creature Storms.
