JAMES DAY: For three years,
Muhammad Ali was the
undisputed World's Champion of
heavyweight boxing.
He won the title in a match
with Sonny Liston in 1964.
He lost it in 1967, in a bout
with a New York boxing
commission, which summarily
removed the title from him
when he refused induction
into the United States Army.
He won the next round in the
courts. They overturned his
conviction. But he failed to
regain the title from the man
who had inherited it during
his four years of idleness,
Joe Frazier. Their 15-round
bout in 1971 resulted in a
decision favoring Frazier. As a
fighter, Muhammad Ali has
a style in the ring that is as
distinctive as his
theatricality out of the ring.
Both help to make him one of
the most colorful and
controversial fighters in the
history of the game.
♪ [Theme Music] ♪
JAMES DAY: Ali, what does it
take to be a world champion,
other than winning fights? Does
it take something more to
be a world champion?
MUHAMMAD ALI: That's a
good question. Whether it's
a world champion in boxer, a
basketball player, or a track
star, or a horse -- even animals
-- I've found out that --
this Mark Spitz, for example,
he's a world champion.
But what made him the world
champion was that he
seemed to, at the right time,
when the pressure's down,
at the last few yards, he can
get that lead, he's got enough
left to make it. I fought
Ken Norton, our last fight.
The fight was even up until the
last round, but I had something
that he didn't have -- although
I'm much older -- and that
was the last-minute kick.
JAMES DAY: What's that
last-minute kick?
Is that something --
MUHAMMAD ALI: Just the stamina,
the strength, the mental --
JAMES DAY: It's more than
training though, isn't it?
MUHAMMAD ALI: The mental
capacity to realize what's
involved, and how important
it is, and make your body do
something it's really too tired
to do, your mind makes you do
it. Mark Spitz, this Olympic
track star I was mentioning,
he wasn't that much greater
than all the people in the
world, but sometime he won by
just that much. And the champion
is just one who can come out
at the last minute and close
the show. As they say, the star
closes the show. A 14-,
15-round fight, and it's even,
and usually this champion, you
can depend on him to come
through at the last few seconds,
and find some
energy from somewhere.
JAMES DAY: Is that
mental discipline?
Is it discipline, or is it...
MUHAMMAD ALI: Not only
that. It's mental and physical.
His body's in physical shape
to do it, plus mentally, too.
You know, he's got himself in
condition, where both fellows
may be -- sometimes
the will can outdo the skill,
and sometime the fellow's will
is stronger than the man
who's actually better
physically, and the
determination and -- weakens
the other man, just to see
him so determined.
JAMES DAY: Well, you've got to
have self-confidence.
You've got to build up your
self-confidence.
MUHAMMAD ALI: And you have to
have that, too. And this what
Joe Frazier had: a lot of
self-confidence, and my skill
outdid his will the second
time. But Joe Frazier takes a
lot of punches, and he just
keeps coming, until a man just
gets disheartened,
and he gives up.
JAMES DAY: Hmm. When you
first began fighting, when you
were young, did you have
an image of someone or
something that you were
fighting against?
MUHAMMAD ALI: No, not fighting
against. I styled myself after--
which has changed now, but I
don't think about it now,
because I've become much more
popular and wealthier than
this fighter -- but Sugar Ray
Robinson was one who at that
time looked so great to myself,
and I styled a lot
of myself after him.
JAMES DAY: He was
kind of a hero, then.
MUHAMMAD ALI: And a lot
of my moving, to myself in
boxing. And everybody who
understands boxing,
white or black, or I don't care
what country or what who,
they'll tell you Sugar
Ray Robinson was the best
pound-for-pound, rhythm,
class, footwork, speed,
beauty, everything in one.
JAMES DAY: Mm-hmm. Well, I
understand that you took up
boxing almost accidentally.
It had to do with the
theft of a 60-dollar bicycle,
and your reporting it to a
policeman in Louisville.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Right. So, I
was at a home show, where
they sell cars and display
frigidare's and stuff, and the
kids go to eat the free popcorn
and peanuts. And there, my
bicycle was outside. I went out,
it was raining that night,
and somebody stole it and I
reported it. And there was a
policeman, they told me it
was in the basement of the
same building where the home
show was. Joe Martin,
he told me to fill out 
a boxing application,
and he'd look for the --
JAMES DAY: He was a
policeman and the man who
instructed in boxing?
MUHAMMAD ALI: Right.
He had about 60 boys,
and he had an amateur show
called Tomorrow's Champions in
Louisville. I fought on this
show about 35 times.
JAMES DAY: You made
your debut on TV, then.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Yeah, Tomorrow's
Champions. As strange as the
name of the show was, T-- the
first fight I was supposed to
have, was with a fellow named
James Ellis, who was also once
the heavyweight champion,
but he lost it. And the two
fellows from Louisville,
Kentucky, owned this show,
and the name was Tomorrow's
Champions, and we were
world champions; it's
really strange.
JAMES DAY:
How old were you then?
MUHAMMAD ALI: I was about
12, and he was about 14.
JAMES DAY: So, you started
boxing, then,
when you were 11 or 12.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Yes,
I've been boxing
probably since I was 12.
JAMES DAY: Now, you hadn't
thought of taking up
boxing before this.
MUHAMMAD ALI: No,
no. I didn't --
JAMES DAY: You came from a
family -- you're father was,
what? A commercial
artist, wasn't he?
MUHAMMAD ALI: A good sign
painter. Made good money.
My mother was just
a housewife.
JAMES DAY: And he didn't
grow up in any kind of poverty,
or the kind of grinding poverty
sometimes is the case --
MUHAMMAD ALI: No, we -- you
know, we could always use
money, you know, same as
Rockefeller and all the rest,
they can always use money...
But we weren't actually in
poverty, but we were scuffling
and we made it.
JAMES DAY: Mm-hmm. There were
two boys in the family,
is that right?
MUHAMMAD ALI: Right.
JAMES DAY: Mm-hmm. And,
your -- your name, Cassius
Marcellus Clay, you --
you abandon, because
it was a slave name.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Well, this is the
name given to my -- this great,
great grandfather, or
somebody, by his master. And --
JAMES DAY: So, actually it
was a slave name. That is,
Cassius Marcellus Clay
was the name of --
the master of --
MUHAMMAD ALI: Yeah, he was a
-- happened to be a rebel.
He was a bad slave fighter, they
say. Fought against slavery.
And after claiming the teachings
of the Honorable Elijah
Muhammad, and getting the
thorough knowledge of myself,
then it was kind of embarrassing
calling yourself after a
slave name. Like to see -- I
mean, just if you saw a black
fellow in Dashiki in a robe
and an afro -- afro haircut,
and you asked him his name, and
he says, "George Washington,"
it just don't go. All people
have their names. Chinese have
Chinese names, the Germans have
Germans names, so I said become
Weinstein or Goldbridge and you
know it's a Jew, here come 
Whitecloud or Silvermoon and you
know it's an Indian, but if I
said here comes Jones, Clay,
Washington, you don't know what
color, so I wanna be
Elijah Muhammad,
our religious leader, teaches
us that we must go back into
the names of our ancestors,
to be respected worldwide.
And it made sense, and
since I've accepted the name
Muhammad Ali, I've been invited
to probably sixty-something
Islamic nations that don't
recognize nothing. No sport.
JAMES DAY: Mm-hmm. Your
brother, his name was
Rudolf Valentino Clay. Obviously
not from a slave master
in this particular case.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Well, it was a
-- it was a Caucasian name,
and probably not from that
master himself, but it is of
that -- everybody black today
that have white names,
they are not names probably that
their great, great grandfathers
give them, but it
is a particular name of a
master or somebody.
JAMES DAY: You graduated
from high school in Louisville,
where you were born. Had you
any thought then to what you
might become, other
than a fighter?
MUHAMMAD ALI: No, my purpose,
at the age of 12, was boxing.
And I was real lucky that --
I'd made my mind up then.
Every kid at the age of 12
should find out what he wanted
to do and start,
because life is real short.
JAMES DAY: That's
very unusual, at the age of 12,
to know what you want to do.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Yeah, I really
knew that I wanted to be a
fighter. Be a fighter, not only
a fighter, but a fighter who
stayed with his people, married
his own race, and didn't sell
his people and forget them,
because he could get rich,
like many of them. Many
celebrities, and black and
white women, and -- and movie
stars, that marry out of their
own race, and seem to feel
their own people are not good
enough after they get rich, and
this is a thing among black
people, how we're known for
leaving once we make it in
Hollywood, a movie, or
whatever we are. So I wanted
to be one world --
JAMES DAY: You felt
this way at that very early age?
MUHAMMAD ALI: With 12 years
old. Yes, this didn't just
come up. These are things that
I've stood for and represented,
it was always in me. And the
Honorable Elijah Muhammad and
hearing the teachings of
Islam brought it out,
but this has always been
in me, freedom for my people
and standing up, being
independent.
JAMES DAY: And you were
going to be a champion,
from the very beginning.
MUHAMMAD ALI: I didn't really
know, but I was determined to.
And usually when a person is
drunk with the wine of success,
if 99 times they fail, the 100th
time they're gonna succeed,
and I was drunk with the
wine of success. Had a few
failures, even after they took
my title for three years for
the Army. I still didn't
give up. And I'm back now.
It's like old new to the draft
case. I'm here, everybody
calls me the name "Muhammad";
they didn't want to at first.
The draft --
JAMES DAY: Why do you suppose
they resisted that?
All the press said, you know,
"Muhammad Ali, also known
as..." and so forth.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Some had
different reasons. Some didn't
wanna wake up the masses of the
blacks, like Lew Alcindor,
his name was now Kareem Jabbar,
big basketball -- Joe Tex,
his name was Yusuf Hazziez, a
great rock and roll singer.
Walt Hazzard, great basketball
player, I forgot he's got
another name. Abdul-Rahman
or something. And many
black people find after they
have white names and they're
waken up, and they don't want
a white name; it's so true.
So, a lot of them didn't
wanna call me this, I guess,
because they didn't want the
name to spread, and a lot of
them did it out of ignorance,
and a lot of them did it
because they were just so used
to Clay and didn't wanna
change it. Like, most movie
stars and people I find, don't
have new names because
they changed them before
they got real big.
JAMES DAY: Yeah. Budd Shulberg,
in his book about you, says
that thinking is the key to
the ring. What goes through
your head in a fight? Is it
-- are you concentrating
on the fight itself?
MUHAMMAD ALI: I'm
concentrating --
JAMES DAY: On the opponent?
MUHAMMAD ALI: Round by round.
I take it round by round.
I watched a man to 
see how tired he's getting,
how much stamina he's got.
JAMES DAY: But it's more
than instinct, it's more than
training. Your mind is working.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Oh, yes.
Boxers are some of the most
brilliant people in the world.
Whether they can read or write
or know how to speak, because
you're in the ring, and you're
being hit at, and you have to
sometimes just assume the
man's gonna punch a move before
you do, because sometime
you're that close, and it's hard
to wait for him to do it and
get away. And it takes a lot of
thinking to come out of the
ring. Like myself, I mean, like,
I have no scratches or marks,
really. There's no real features
turned, but I've been fighting
now for 20 years, and I've
been in a ring 180 times, plus,
I mean, there's thousands of
times, with the training and
getting ready for each fight.
And if you look at my face,
you don't see nothing.
JAMES DAY: Do you -- do you have
mental preparation for
the fight as well?
MUHAMMAD ALI: Well,
you have to be ready.
If your body's ready physically,
you have to realize what's
involved, how much
can be lost if you lose a fight.
Like, I was lucky to get another
shot at Norton; I was lucky
to get another shot at Frazier.
You have to realize what's
involved, and losing sometimes
make you get your mind ready.
My mind wasn't ready for the
first Frazier fight, or the
first Norton. Second time, I got
serious and did a lot better.
JAMES DAY: Yeah.
MUHAMMAD ALI: But mental --
mental ability plays a lot,
knowing when and what to do.
JAMES DAY: What about the
theatricality? It's made you
both colorful, and also
controversial. The --
the poetry, all the theatrics.
Do you regard fighting as
essentially
show business?
MUHAMMAD ALI: Well, it's kind of
hard for an ordinary person
to do both. I've been blessed
to have the natural ability
to write poems, predict
rounds, and create things
that people like to hear.
JAMES DAY: Did you predict
rounds, or simply fight to
end it in that round?
MUHAMMAD ALI: Well--
JAMES DAY: You couldn't very
well predict it, could you?
MUHAMMAD ALI: Well, all
tricksters, again behind
something, move their hands
faster than I, and I -- I
predicted 15 times when I
would stop a -- knock a
man out, and about twe--
eleven of them was right.
And even one time, a funny
thing happened with Archie
Moore -- he was an old man
at the time, you
remember Archie Moore.
JAMES DAY: Yes.
MUHAMMAD ALI: And -- hey,
I'm not saying that you're an
old man, but Archie Moore,
around your time. He must
be in his 50's now, Archie. And
I predicted round 4.
I said, "when you come to the
fight, don't block the aisles
and don't block the door, for
you all may go home after
round four." And Moore was
falling in the third round,
and I grabbed him. I said,
"don't you fall, don't you
fall." And the fourth round,
I got him. But there have
been a few fights where it
seemed like I may have gotten
the man earlier, and I lightened
up just to wait for the next
one, this happened. But
this is not carrying a man,
some will say, it's just up to
me. If I'm taking the chance
on losing myself, if I don't
get him now, but it's up to
me to do it if I wanna.
JAMES DAY: Well, you've been
pretty flamboyant outside
the ring as well. Colorful,
flamboyant, outspoken.
The Louisville Lip, you were
called for some time. You're a
very quiet man. Now.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Well --
JAMES DAY: And I think 
you're probably a quiet man
most of the time.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Well, you
know, I do a lot of campaigning.
Like president Nixon,
any president-
JAMES DAY: It is campaigning.
MUHAMMAD ALI: When he's --
when he's trying to get in
office, he walks the streets,
he goes to the -- to taxicab
drivers, and he goes to the
factories and the hardhat men,
and he picks up the babies,
and once you get in office,
you need a necktie, and a
government apartment to see him.
JAMES DAY: Mm-hmm.
MUHAMMAD ALI: But pamphlets say
"vote for me," and "how you
doing, fella?" And after he
gets in office, you don't have
to do that no more.
JAMES DAY: I see.
MUHAMMAD ALI: So, all
the talking about how.
But I'll think up something
for the next fight, like Frazier
fight, we got in a little
floor scuffle. That just comes.
These things come. I don't
know who the next fight
might be. George Foreman.
JAMES DAY: Mm-hmm. But
that's good for business,
so to speak.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Yes. I have
something for George Foreman.
JAMES DAY: You do?
MUHAMMAD ALI: Yes.
I gotta get George Foreman.
I have a new one to promote
that fight. I'm gonna get him,
because after he was in that
Olympic games, John Carlos
and these black brothers
who was holding up their fists,
he was going around carrying
the American flag, and no
flag-waver will whip me.
Don't you think that
will sell the fight?
JAMES DAY: I think so. And
selling the fight's important.
Ali, you take -- despite these
tossed-off little couplets
of yours, you do take
poetry seriously.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Yes, I wrote a
poem about this show.
JAMES DAY: You did?
MUHAMMAD ALI: Yes,
we were coming over,
and I asked her what was the
budget. I had to come all the
way from south side of
Chicago to here to fight,
so I wanna rest. So, she kept
saying, "we have no budget,
we have no budget." And I sees
her -- and then I was gonna
get a couple cups of coffee, and
I had to even buy the coffee.
JAMES DAY: You did?
MUHAMMAD ALI: Terrible. So
I wrote a poem. I said,
"I love your show, and I admire
your style, but your buzzard is
so cheap, I won't be
back for a while."
JAMES DAY: I've been
knocked out in the first round.
You -- you've been invited
to be a professor of poetry,
have you not?
MUHAMMAD ALI: Yes, I was invited
-- I thought it was a joke at
first, but they're real serious;
they wanted me to teach poetry
at Oxford University...
JAMES DAY: Did they?
MUHAMMAD ALI: ...one of the
highest seats of learning in
the world. I've read a lot of
poems.
JAMES DAY: Serious poems,
in this case.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Yes, I got one, I
like it here, entitled "Truth".
It says, "the face of truth is
open. The eyes of truth are
bright. The lips of truth are
ever closed. The head of truth
is upright. The breast of truth
stands forward. The gaze of
truth is straight. Truth has
neither fear nor doubt.
Truth has patience to wait. The
words of truth are touching.
The voice of truth is deep.
The law of truth is simple.
All you sow, you reap. The
soul of truth is flaming.
The heart of truth is warm.
The mind of truth is clear,
and firm through rain and storm.
Facts are only its shadow.
Truth stands above all sin.
Great be the battle of life.
Truth, in the end, shall win.
The image of truth is Elijah
Muhammad. Wisdom's message
is his rod. The sign of truth is
the crescent, and the soul
of truth is God. Life of truth
is eternal, immortal is its
past. Power of truth shall
endure. Truth shall hold to
the last". That's the type of
stuff that gets me in Oxford
University. But these poems,
I don't have for boxers. Like,
for boxers, I give them what
they wanna hear. Like, I
have a lot of speed and a lot of
endurance. If you're
signed to fight me,
increase your insurance.
JAMES DAY: Yes, I
remember that one.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Stuff like that,
you know. Somebody told me
Joe Frazier was awful
strong; I told him to try Ban
roll-on. Stuff like
that, you know.
JAMES DAY: Ali, what strength
do you get from Allah,
from your Muslim religion?
MUHAMMAD ALI: Well...
JAMES DAY: You do get --
you draw strength from it.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Allah is the
term that we, throughout the
world, which in numbers, some
probably 800 million, is the
proper name for the divine
supreme being, which many say
God, we refer to him as
Allah. And all the strength --
just the remembrance of Allah
is great; just praying,
if we can, five times a day.
At least in the mornings,
and when I wake up and when I
go to bed, and in a taxicab,
or just every moment I
have before a meal, helps you.
And all strength and all power,
everything, comes from Allah.
We have in our prayer,
my sacrifices and my prayers,
my life and my death, all
follow. And so everything,
I go with Allah in mind, and
the freedom and the justice
and the equality of 40 million
black people in the country
and everything that I do,
everything that I'm saying now,
this is on my mind, I'm
hoping that somebody
can be influenced.
JAMES DAY: I thought that the
black Muslims did not believe,
or, did not approve, of
boxing, of fighting.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Well, we
don't use the word, number
one, black Muslim. It's Muslim.
The Islamic teachings has
no color distinction. We
actually have white Muslims,
brown Muslims, red
Muslims, yellow Muslims,
and black ones. So I wanna get
that clear. It's up to Allah,
God and his messenger, to decide
who's true or not. But the
Honorable Elijah Mohammad
and the religion of Islam,
we do not promote and do
not back sports. But I was
a minister at the time that
I was boxing, and I was
expelled by the Mohammad,
and told if I weren't boxing,
to get it out of my system, and
when I'm finished with the job
I had to do, and things that
we're obligated to, then he'll
consider me back.
JAMES DAY: I see.
MUHAMMAD ALI: So, I'm
standing, as soon as I can --
JAMES DAY: So you're no longer
a minister, but you -- you may
be accepted back as a minister.
MUHAMMAD ALI: As soon
as I'm finished with the title,
I'm gonna do all I can, if it
means get on my knees and
crawl to him, and ask him to
allow me to represent him.
JAMES DAY: When -- you lost
your title, of course, when you
refused induction into the
draft. What went through your
mind in that day in Houston,
when you did not step forward,
and you knew that --
MUHAMMAD ALI: Before
I stepped forward?
JAMES DAY: No, you did
not step forward.
MUHAMMAD ALI: You mean
after I didn't step forward?
JAMES DAY: After you didn't step
forward. What went through
your mind? What -- you knew
that there was quite a bit at
stake, on the one hand, and you
knew that you had convictions
on the other.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Well, I have
to tell you, what happened after
that really don't mean too much.
It's what happened before when
I was standing up, waiting for
the man to call me.
JAMES DAY: That's what I mean.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Oh.
JAMES DAY: What -- what went
through your mind, before you --
MUHAMMAD ALI: Well, I thought
about all the black people
that's been here for 400 years.
The lynching and raped and
killed, by the Americans, who
the only enemy we've actually
knew. No Japanese, no Vietcong,
no Chinese. And then I saw
this little young white fellow,
my age, acting as though he
was God, telling me to step
forward, to go to Vietnam to
shoot some Asiatic people
that never called me nigger,
never lynched me -- this is
in my mind -- never put dogs
on me. I'm going to make -- to
think of something to make
me strong. Never -- I fought
in the Japanese war, my brothers
fought in the German war, the
Korean war, we still, the
Chinese, the Vietcong, the
Japanese, are more citizens
than American to us, and there
I've got all these black
people waiting to see what
I do, and they're waiting to
be slaughtered. And the white
ones, too. For nothing,
unjust now that they see,
which it was. Now I'm gonna
be called to step forward,
like God told me don't kill
nobody, and now here was
a man telling me to step forward
because the flag's over
his head, and he's not God,
so what do I -- and I
really believe in God? Allah?
Do I really believe the truth
that Elijah Muhammad teaches?
And when he asked me to step
forward, I just stood there.
And with time I thought about
that, and I -- I was -- the two
men before he called me, I was
just anxious. I just couldn't
wait until he called me,
just to say no. And then I
knew that it was wrong, and
it was against my beliefs,
I would rather went to jail
and the Supreme Court and they
saw that I was serious, and they
gave me justice and let me
go, on the belief that I was
serious in what I believe.
JAMES DAY: Mm-hmm. Does
patriotism mean anything
to you, out of allegiance
to a nation, or...
MUHAMMAD ALI: My allegiance, I
think, should be -- and this is
me speaking, not as a
representative of Elijah
Muhammad, because I don't know,
uh, what he himself will
say, or anybody that represent
him. But me, speaking
individually, patriotism,
I would just -- obeying the law,
as long as it don't conflict
with my religious beliefs.
And obeying God's law, which
should be satisfactory to
any country. No stealing,
no killing, no outright misusing
people, and you treat those
like you wanna be treated.
So, when you say "patriotism",
I don't know what American
patriotism would mean. You know,
like, if they say, "stand to
salute the flag," I do that out
of respect, 'cause I'm in the
country. And like, this nation
goes to other countries, they
stand and salute the flag.
And I would do that.
But in my heart, I wouldn't say
I love the flag. As a matter of
fact, I don't love the American
flag. I'd be crazy to say I love
a flag that's brought my people
here, and the same flag
that's mistreating our people,
and poverty, and the same
flag to respect everybody,
even -- I bet you today,
I can say on your show, two
ordinary black men can go
downtown in a city and open
a coffee shop or a clothing
store. If two Vietcong,
can go and open, and they'll
do better business than the
black Americans. It's a shame
to say, but it's true. So,
I've been here 400 years,
and fought in all the wars,
and serving so faithful as a
slave building the country.
And the day the enemy,
the so-called enemy, who was
out to destroy you yesterday,
and did destroy you, he's freer
than the poor slave.
So we have a write to protest
a lot of these things that
we're supposed to
be so patriotic.
JAMES DAY: Do you think the
fact that you have been world
champion, that you are
very much in the public eye,
that you are a personality,
puts a greater responsibility
upon someone like you, for
the -- for your part in the
struggle, for --
MUHAMMAD ALI: Right,
that's a good question.
Now, the reason is...I was
awful -- I've been to all these
black movies they're making,
you know? These low-rating
black women, their nude
scenes with white men,
and black men in nude scenes,
and showered white women,
and selling dope, and
Super Fly, and all these --
Cotton Comes to Harlem, even the
titles. Nigger Charlie, and
Cleopatra Jones, and
Blackenstein, and Blackula and
all these things which are
really pretty much showing the
worst of our society. Charlton
Heston wouldn't do them.
Clint Eastwood wouldn't do
them, Burt Lancaster wouldn't
do them, Anthony Quinn wouldn't
do them. I turned on these
type movies, because of this
image they're talking about.
Cigarettes, whiskey,
partying, women of all kind,
mainly white, things that many
of our black men do.
Many of our black women,
which the masses look up to,
singers like Diana Ross,
The Supremes, or somebody like
Leslie Uggams, or
somebody like...we can go on --
JAMES DAY: You need good
models. Good models.
MUHAMMAD ALI: You know, people
do things that -- the masses,
are not good for the youth.
It helps them, they think,
but it don't help the masses.
So, anything that's gonna hurt
the little children, like
cigarettes or whiskey, or
taking pictures of blonds,
and smiling, or going --
you never see me having
parties after my fights,
on the bar, set up the bar
up and all that. We go have
some orange juice and
say a prayer to Allah and
be at my brother's and that's
it. But I'm trying to be one
who can be not a prosti-- male
prostitute like many people
have to do. Most black
women get a job downtown,
they gotta things they don't
wanna. Models, black models
and movie stars have to do
things they don't wanna do.
A lot of black men have to do
things get hit, they don't
wanna do. I wanna be one
example -- I've known with
Time Magazine, Life Magazine, I
only got as big as you can
get in America, I'm on the
satellites, I'm on your
TV show, wherever you
want to go, Sports Illustrated,
every book, I'm the
highest-paid, and I'm 100% a
follower of Elijah Muhammad,
100% free, and I don't --
JAMES DAY: Independence
means a great deal to you.
MUHAMMAD ALI: Oh,
yes. To us, black people.
To show other black people
coming up, and to show those
who are here that you don't have
to necessarily, you know,
do this to make it. And
sell yourself and your people.
'Cause I'm as old as you can
get. Just my name alone,
I followed the oldest most
craziest black man, and I'm
totally free and independent.
And I hope some can see
this and see that they don't
have to crawl and kiss people's
boots so much. Just
to make it --
JAMES DAY: Ali, your friends
have said about you that you
could have become anything
you might have wanted to
become. Is there anything
else that you might have
wanted to become,
or that you hope to become?
MUHAMMAD ALI: Well,
if I was back at 12 years old,
and I had a chance, and they
told me I wasn't gonna make
it to boxing...unfortunately, I
didn't study in school like
I should, and I didn't have
a -- I wasn't enthused to read
and write and work. I'd
hate reading. I hated all that
book work, I hated all that
studying and tests and stuff.
I don't know what I would have
done. If I had my choice,
just to see it, and if that
mean I could have been it,
I'd been a doctor.
JAMES DAY: A doctor; why?
MUHAMMAD ALI: I like to help
people. If I see a man's sick,
just to know that I can operate
on him and help him or a
person in pain, I can relieve
them. Or I probably would
have been a lawyer, or just
a policeman. I see a lot of
things happening today I wish I
was a policeman. I would jump
out of a car and stop it.
You see things happening.
See a fellow going through the
street doing 100 miles an
hour, 50 miles an hour with
their children. You wish you
could just pull him over and
lock him up. So -- so I
would've probably been a
policeman. Anything where I
can help people. So, when I
fight, my only thought is,
"what can I do to help
the black man with this title?
I won't be here long; what can I
say, where can I go,
what appearance can I make?
And -- so let me -- God, let me
whoop this man tonight, 'cause
I wanna take this and not sell
out my people, and not use
them, or go over with the white
people, but I wanna stay
right with my people to help my
people, and use this to
influence, to help them.
So this is why I fight, just to
help my people.
JAMES DAY: Thank
you very much.
♪ [Theme Music] ♪
