Muhammad Ali's Greatest Rumbles Were In The Courts, Victory Was In SCOTUS
Muhammad Ali shook the world because he refused to let the world shake him; can we as attorneys say the same of ourselves?
Muhammad Ali (Dutch National Archives via Wikimedia)
“Reminds me of when they tried to have Ali enlisted / If I ever wasn’t the greatest man, I must have missed it!” — Kanye
Today in Louisville, Kentucky, there will be a procession carrying Muhammad Ali’s body down the same path of a parade that once honored the brash young man — then known as Cassius Clay — for his gold medal at the 1960 Olympics. President Bill Clinton, Bryant Gumbel and Billy Crystal, among others, will deliver tributes to the boxing legend, according to ESPN.
Before there were such controversial and polarizing athletes like Deion Sanders, Cam Newton, Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson, and Floyd Mayweather, there was Muhammad Ali. He transcended boxing long before other athletes garnered such mass attention. He defined the role of sports heroes in American culture for years to come. No other athlete before or since Ali has been such a global icon and ambassador. All his life the Louisville Lip spoke his truth, how many others could claim the same?
At 25 years old, Ali was stripped of his world heavyweight title and banned for three and half years from the boxing ring for speaking out. A poet, a prophet, and a heavyweight boxing champion. A media, political, and athletic icon. Ali became famous for his bobbing and weaving inside the ropes, but he became a legend for what he stood tall for outside the ring. Ali was one of the highest-paid athletes in the world, yet he gave it all up for his religious convictions. Could you imagine?
In the words of Ali, “I ain’t got no quarrel with no Vietcong… They never called me n**ger.” In this vein, Ali considered himself a conscientious objector and publicly declared that he would refuse to serve in the U.S. Army. For this, he was sentenced to five years in prison and denied the ability to compete from 25 to 29 years old. Many, like former Attorney General Eric Holder, believe Ali’s biggest wins came in our courts. The Greatest may have danced under the lights, but he refused to entertain any thoughts of self-pity or persecution.
Last Saturday, the NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith said in a statement:
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He had a singular voice and unmatched courage to stand for something personal and risk it all. I met him only one time and that was as a law school student when our professor brought him to class to talk about how the law failed him and then exonerated him, only after it had forever robbed him of the most valuable years of his career.
He took a fight all the way to the Supreme Court, which overturned his conviction and noted that in every other similar case a conviction had been overturned or set aside. Yet, it took three years to fix the wrong for doing what Ali believed was right. His note to me hangs in my home and is a constant reminder of the role of real people who are willing to lose everything in the fight for something more valuable.
As AOL notes, “the Vietnam War was relatively popular when Ali made his stand. In many ways, Ali was vilified and even African-American athletes disagreed with his stance. Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled in Ali’s favor, took away the threat of jail time and allowed him to box again.”
When you’re the GOAT (greatest of all time), even POTUS has a picture of you on his wall. As President Obama said on Ali’s passing:
In my private study, just off the Oval Office, I keep a pair of his gloves on display, just under that iconic photograph of him – the young champ, just 22 years old, roaring like a lion over a fallen Sonny Liston. I was too young when it was taken to understand who he was – still Cassius Clay, already an Olympic Gold Medal winner, yet to set out on a spiritual journey that would lead him to his Muslim faith, exile him at the peak of his power, and set the stage for his return to greatness with a name as familiar to the downtrodden in the slums of Southeast Asia and the villages of Africa as it was to cheering crowds in Madison Square Garden….
Muhammad Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it. We are all better for it.
Ali’s passion and desire to be the best made him a champion. His strength to stand up for what he believed was right and conviction to speak about what he thought was wrong made him the GOAT. In the ring, and in life, Muhammad Ali fought for something greater than any title or claim to fame. He may have lost his original Olympic gold medal, but he was an original for which no sports triumph could define. In the words of Lebron James, Ali was the GOAT because of what he did outside the ring.
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The procession this morning will carry Ali’s body down an avenue that literally bears his name. Even in death, he is doing it his way. The funeral will be open to the public. He scripted it this way, a man of the people — he will forever be the People’s Champ.
Muhammad Ali shook the world because he refused to let the world shake him. If we, as attorneys, can say that at the end of our lives we had the strength to stick to our convictions and courage to speak for those who have no voice, then we may be able to shake our profession as well.
Earlier: Muhammad Ali: The Greatest At Civil Disobedience
Ali’s Greatest Knockout Came At The US Supreme Court
Renwei Chung is the Diversity Columnist at Above the Law. You can contact Renwei by email at [email protected], follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn.
