Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight: Cassius Clay vs. the United States of America FROM THE PUBLISHER
In 1966, Muhammad Ali announced his intention to refuse induction into the United States Army as a conscientious objector. This set off a five-year battle that would strip him of his world heavyweight title, bar him from boxing, and nearly send him to prison--all at the peak of his career as the greatest boxer in history.
Ali defiantly proclaimed his refusal to go to war with the assertion that it violated his beliefs as a Black Muslim. The subsequent legal battle proved to be a test tougher than fighting Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, and George Foreman combined. The struggle that followed Ali's principled stand, one of the pivotal moments of the Sixties, reverberated across lines demarcated by generation, class, race, and religion. This was the beginning of a divided and controversial period in American history, one that would mobilize young and old, blacks and whites, liberals and conservatives. At the forefront of this era, Ali's decision to fight the draft was a challenge not only to the status quo, but a catalyst for those who wished to change the system.
Set against the dramatic backdrop of these turbulent times, the book's fascinating cast of characters includes such names as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Robinson, and J. Edgar Hoover.
SYNOPSIS
Photojournalist Bingham, who has written a biography of Ali, and investigative journalist Wallace ( chronicle the five-year battle that ensued when the heavyweight champion boxer refused to serve in the US military in 1966, saying it would violate his beliefs as a Black Muslim. They set the story in the turbulent times of the civil rights movement, cultural upheaval, and resistance to the Vietnam War. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Here, Bingham (Muhammad Ali: A Thirty-Year Journey), Muhammad Ali's best friend and favorite photographer, contends that the former heavyweight champ's greatest legacy is that, owing to his conversion to the Nation of Islam and subsequent refusal to enter the military during the Vietnam War, Ali served as a touchstone for the racial and antiwar upheavals that rocked the Sixties and changed our country. Bingham offers a friendly portrayal of the conscientious objector/Black Muslim minister Ali but doesn't beyond a shadow of a doubt answer the question of whether his motives for evading the draft were self-serving, racial, or religious--though it is easy to imagine that at the least they might have evolved from the former to the latter. One cannot deny Ali's influence on his times, though. And neither can one deny that, whatever his motives for refusing military service, he paid a great price by being banned from boxing for three and a half years during his prime. While not "The Greatest," as its subject proclaimed himself, Bingham's book deserves a place in the sports collections of most public libraries. With a foreword by Ali himself, this book ably supplements the Hauser and Remnick biographies.--Jim G. Burns, Ottumwa P.L., IA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\
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