On This Day in History: April 28
Muhammad Ali rejects the draft
He could hit you so hard your grandchildren would be born dizzy. But Muhammad Ali’s most important fight was for the liberation of his people.
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: April 28, 1967--
“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong,” Ali said upon learning he was subject to be drafted into the U.S. Army. He was opposed to the war on numerous grounds, including religious ones, and refused to “go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people” when people of color at home were fighting for basic human rights.
And many alabastards misplaced their excrement.
It was on April 28, 1967, that the 25-year-old Ali presented himself in Houston for his scheduled induction into the Army, but when his name was called, he refused to step forward. Three times he was called, and three times he refused. An officer then warned Ali he risked five years in prison, but the boxer would not budge.
Ali was arrested, stripped of his title as heavyweight champion, and lost his boxing license. At his trial two months later, he was found guilty of draft evasion after only 21 minutes of jury deliberation. Years of appeals ensued, until the conviction was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court in 1971.
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The conviction prevented him from boxing for over three years. His trainer Angelo Dundee said, “He was robbed of his best years, his prime years.” But for Ali the sacrifice was worth it, and he became a popular public speaker and civil rights champion, energizing the movement. In 1970, Ali was presented with the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Award for his efforts.
Despite the lengthy, government-enforced hiatus, Ali’s return to boxing would be triumphant, eventually regaining the heavyweight championship title in “The Rumble in the Jungle” bout against George Foreman in 1974.
Ali’s refusal to be drafted, to be cowed into submission by an oppressive system, had a profound effect both in terms of turning public opinion against the war in Vietnam, and in promoting racial justice. He was a persistent thorn in the side of the American government; both the NSA and FBI illegally spied on him.
“It’s not bragging if you can back it up,” Ali once said. And he could.
The NEW and IMPROVED Bantam Books version of ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN is now available for pre-order.
He was a real hero; the kind of role model whose biography Republicans are probably removing from school and library bookshelves as I write.
I have a lot of respect for him for standing up for what he believed was right.