On February 25, 1964, a young man named Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr entered a boxing ring in Miami and stood opposite Sonny Liston.
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n the early 1960s, sport was one of few areas in American life where blacks could be on equal footing with whites. But in many respects, sport reflected the old order. Black athletes could become stars, but only within guidelines dictated by the establishment. The heavyweight championship was the most coveted title in sport. The man who held the crown was supposed to be a role model. That meant being modest,
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Cassius Clay, the Louisville Lip, lands a left on Sonny Liston, the Big Bear, Miami Beach Convention Centre, February 25, 1964
respectful of authority and accepting of a class structure that denominated black Americans as second-class citizens. Clay himself later said, “Many black people thought it was better to be white.” He defied that stereotype. In 1961, he’d met a man named Sam Saxon, one of a small group of adherents known to the media as Black Muslims who followed the black separatist teachings of the selfproclaimed messenger of the Nation of Islam, named Elijah Muhammad. Clay accepted Saxon’s invitation to attend a Nation of Islam service at a Miami temple and thereafter was indoctrinated with the tenets of the religion. The Nation of Islam taught that white people were devils who had been genetically created by an evil scientist with a big head named Mr Yacub. It maintained that there was a wheelshaped Mother of Planes half-a-mile wide manned by black men in the sky, and that, on Allah’s chosen day of retribution, 1,500 planes from the Mother of Planes would drop deadly explosives destroying all but the righteous on Earth. Neither
of these views are part of traditional Islamic thought or find justification in the Qur’an. Moreover, while the concepts of Heaven and Hell are central to traditional Islamic doctrine, the National of Islam rejected both. More significantly, as far as most Americans were concerned, Islam adheres to the premise that hearts and souls have no colour. Nation of Islam ministers preached that, for black Americans, integration meant destruction. It wasn’t public knowledge that Clay was a convert to the Nation of Islam at the time he fought Liston, but the young fighter felt that a powerful force was on his side. Betty Shabezz, the wife of Malcolm X, a follower of Elijah Muhammad, later recalled, “My husband indoctrinated [Clay] continuously about the fact that, not only was he young, strong and skilful; he was a man who believed in God. They talked continuously about how David slew Goliath, and how God would not allow someone who believed in him to fail, regardless of how powerful the opponent was.” the red bulletin
Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo, corbis
Liston was heavyweight champion of the world and a cold, menacing presence. After a stint in prison for armed robbery, he’d found employment as a strong-arm man for organised crime. Then the Mob decided to promote him as a fighter. He won and successfully defended the heavyweight championship by knocking out Floyd Patterson twice. Each time, he needed only slightly more than two minutes to accomplish the task. Many in the boxing community thought of Liston as unbeatable. “I remember being very nervous that night,” Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer David Halberstam later acknowledged. “Clay seemed so young and vulnerable. And I remember caring about what would happen to him, being frightened that a dark shadow would fall over him, because Liston seemed to be what he was supposed to be.” Clay later admitted, “Just before the fight, when the referee was giving us instructions, Liston was giving me that stare. I won’t lie; I was scared. Sonny Liston hit hard and he was fixing to kill me. But I was there. I didn’t have no choice but to go out and fight. The first round, I was dancing, moving back and side-to-side. I hit him with a couple of combinations, and he got me once with a right hand to the stomach. At the end of the round, I went back to my corner and I felt good because I knew I could survive.”