How kids playing war made Muhammad Ali refuse to join US Army and fight in Vietnam
He told the kids he wasn't against the Vietcong because 'they just like you and me'
MILLIONS of words have been written in tribute to Muhammad Ali following his death on Friday at the age of 74.
But none of them can match Ali’s own words.And The Sun has the book they all wanted – The Greatest, My Own Story.
Today, in part two of our exclusive adaptation, the world’s greatest boxer reveals the real reason he proclaimed: “I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong” – nine words that got him sent to jail, banned from boxing and vilified by critics.
OF all the controversies that aroused people against me or for me, none would have the effect on my life or change the climate around me like the “poem” I read on a TV hook-up one warm February afternoon in Miami in 1967.
I was in training and looking forward to my third defence of the world heavyweight title — this time against 6ft 6in Ernie “The Octopus” Terrell, so named because he wrapped his long tentacles around opponents, smothering their blows and hugging them half to death.
A TV reporter had been sent up to ask my reaction to the fact the Draft Board in my home town of Louisville, Kentucky, had just promoted me from 1-Y — deferred status — to 1-A, making me eligible for immediate induction to the US Army.
I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong
For two years the Army had labelled me a “nut”. Now, without testing me to see if I’ve gotten wiser or worser, they tell me I’m all right.
It was as if in the two years they left me alone I became one of the 30 smartest men in Louisville.
I gave my reply: “I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong.”
Up to that day in 1966, outwardly at least, the extent of my involvement in the war had been a TV spectator.
But I had seen a series of pictures in a magazine showing the mangled bodies of dead Viet Cong laid out on the highway like rows of logs.
A white American officer was walking down the aisle of the dead, taking the “body count”.
The only enemy alive was a little naked girl, searching among the bodies, her eyes wide, frightened.
I clipped out that picture. The face has never quite left my mind.
Children are the special love in the life of a heavyweight champion. They have ways of making him know what love is.
A reporter told me: ‘Be careful what you say’
So walking back from the gym in Miami, I enjoyed children calling out: “Hey, Champ! You gonna get Terrell? You gonna beat him up?”
This time I walked quite a while before I saw any of them.
First I heard them screaming as though in a wild fight.
Then, turning the corner, I found a gang of youngsters hurling bottles and stones in the direction of the three other frightened, running children.
Before I got up to them they had hemmed in the little group and were pelting them with sticks and stones.
I took one child by the collar and asked him what was the matter.
“We just playing,” he said sheepishly.
His buddy explained: “They Viet Cong. We Americans. We just playing.”
I went over to one of the little “Viet Cong” — the one who had been especially frightened — and lifted her up on my shoulder.
One stubborn boy was still protesting: “She on the Viet Cong side. We against them, ain’t we, Champ?”
“No,” I said. “We ain’t. We ain’t got nothing against no Viet Cong. They just like you and me.”
He looked at me to make sure I was serious, decided I was, then turned around, informing the other children: “We ain’t got nothing against no Viet Cong.” I held the little girl, whose name was Patricia Ward, on my shoulder and carried her to the porch.
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She was the raggediest of a group of raggedy children.
At first she only looked at me with big, frightened eyes and I saw a strong resemblance between her and the little Vietnamese girl in the magazine.
Teams of photographers and reporters had come down from Chicago, New York, Philadelphia.
Bob O’Hara, a little hawk-faced reporter I’d known from Louisville, called me aside: “The buzzards smell an animal about to breathe his last. Be careful what you say.” Children danced around the yard.
I looked over and recognised some of the children I had just stopped from playing war.
Reporters were asking me if I would accept the draft. The children were looking at my face and I was looking at theirs.
I shook my head and rhymed it for them:
“Keep asking me, no matter how long,
On the war in Viet Nam. I sing this song,
I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong . . . ”
Later, when I was jailed in Dade County for refusing the draft, children came every day outside my cell, calling through the bars: “When you coming out, Champ? When they gonna let you out?”
I had been sentenced to five years in jail, fined 10,000 dollars, stripped of my title and banned from boxing.
I chose to work in the prison cafeteria because an old convict in Chicago once told me it’s the best place for a new prisoner.
I had been sentenced to five years in jail, fined 10,000 dollars, stripped of my title and banned from boxing
After dinner we sit in our cells. There’s a debate going on over the radio about whether Dade Jail should allow all prisoners a Christmas amnesty.
One woman is telling the moderator: “Everyone should get out for Christmas except that draft-dodger.
The only way they should let him out is send him to Vietnam.”
I am sent to feed the prisoners on Death Row. Most are weak, listless, their skins faded, washed out.
Tears come to my eyes.
The first man recognises me: “Well, I’ll be goddamned! They got the world heavyweight champion serving me dinner. The world must be coming to an end.”
Other Death Row prisoners begin to call out: “Hey, Champ! Come this way, Champ!”
An old man who has been here two and a half years awaiting trial says: “If I ever get out of here I want a ticket to your next fight against Joe Frazier.”
He tells me he killed a man out of frustration, the same feeling everybody gets, and somehow this makes him more human, just like anyone else. I promise I’ll whip Frazier for him.
The judge had a hard time getting you off. Threats on his life, threats against his family because they wanted you to stay in jail
In the morning a guard is banging on the bars: “The judge has declared a Christmas amnesty!”
A yell and a roar goes up through the cell blocks. Some begin chanting Christmas carols. “Does it cover me?” I ask.
He looks down the sheet and grins: “You on it too, Champ. The judge had a hard time getting you off.
“Threats on his life, threats against his family because they wanted you to stay in jail.”
I’ve only been in jail a week but I never knew the smell of fresh air was so good. I start walking and somehow I don’t want to stop.
I was ready to walk out of Liston fight rather than denounce new religion
I WAS training in Miami for a fight with Donnie Fleeman in 1961 when I passed a Muslim temple in session.
A Muslim brother was standing outside on the sidewalk “fishing” for new recruits.
He followed me down the street and in order to get rid of him, I said: “Well, only for a minute.”
What I heard matched my own feelings, my desires and ambitions of freedom and equality for my people – a driving force inside me all my life. I became a follower of the Honourable Elijah Muhammad, who gave me the name Muhammad Ali, which means “one who is worthy of praise”.
Some months later my trainer Angelo Dundee burst into my dressing room, a look of horror on his face: “Do you know who’s out there?” He half opens the door and points to Malcolm X standing near the ring.
Angelo’s eyes are wide with fear: “Please, please, we’ve got to get him out of here! If the newspapers know you’re associated with Muslims like Malcolm X, your career is over. Do you hear me?”
I’ve been as close to Angelo as I’ve ever been to a white man up to now. The only thing he doesn’t know is that Malcolm is not the only X in the gym. I am Cassius X.
At the time Malcolm was an outstanding minister of the Honourable Elijah Muhammad. His face and voice were known throughout the country from numerous TV debates where he denounced the “white devil” and discrimination against black people.
I was ready to walk out of my fight with Sonny Liston rather than denounce my new religion.
Adapted by MIKE RIDLEY. © 1975 by Muhammad Ali, Herbert Muhammad and Richard Durham. Extracted from The Greatest: My Own Story by Muhammad Ali with Richard Durham (Graymalkin Media).