06-04-2016, 10:28 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-04-2016, 11:51 AM by TeacherinExile.
Edit Reason: Provide link and add comments
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Muhammad Ali was one of the few sports figures (Roberto Clemente being another) that I consider a legitimate hero, owing not so much to his iconic status in the ring, but much more so (in my opinion) to his courageous opposition to the Vietnam War. In the prime of his boxing career, he refused to be drafted into military service.
An excerpt from The Washington Post today: http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-spo...spartanntp
In 1967, after Mr. Ali had been heavyweight champion for three years, he refused to be inducted into the military during the Vietnam War. Despite the seeming contradiction of a boxer advocating nonviolence, he gave up his title in deference to the religious principle of pacifism.
“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam,” Mr. Ali said in 1967, “while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”
He was supported by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who supported his decision to become a conscientious objector as “a very great act of courage.”
Mr. Ali’s heavyweight title was immediately removed, and he was banned from boxing for more than three years. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but a prolonged appeals process kept him from serving time.
Mr. Ali’s decision outraged the old guard, including many sportswriters and middle Americans, who considered the boxer arrogant and unpatriotic. But as the cultures of youth and black America were surging to the fore in the late 1960s, Mr. Ali was gradually transformed, through his sheer magnetism and sense of moral purpose, into one of the most revered figures of his time.
After the onset of his Parkinson's disease, I realized just how brutal the sport of boxing is, and have not watched it since...
An excerpt from The Washington Post today: http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-spo...spartanntp
In 1967, after Mr. Ali had been heavyweight champion for three years, he refused to be inducted into the military during the Vietnam War. Despite the seeming contradiction of a boxer advocating nonviolence, he gave up his title in deference to the religious principle of pacifism.
“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam,” Mr. Ali said in 1967, “while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”
He was supported by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who supported his decision to become a conscientious objector as “a very great act of courage.”
Mr. Ali’s heavyweight title was immediately removed, and he was banned from boxing for more than three years. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but a prolonged appeals process kept him from serving time.
Mr. Ali’s decision outraged the old guard, including many sportswriters and middle Americans, who considered the boxer arrogant and unpatriotic. But as the cultures of youth and black America were surging to the fore in the late 1960s, Mr. Ali was gradually transformed, through his sheer magnetism and sense of moral purpose, into one of the most revered figures of his time.
After the onset of his Parkinson's disease, I realized just how brutal the sport of boxing is, and have not watched it since...