Blood Brothers (46 page)

In exile, Ali remained loyal to Muhammad, refusing to blame him or the Nation for his troubles. Dick Schaap, who had known Ali since 1960, never understood his fealty to the Messenger. Often, when the writer asked him why he sided with Muhammad instead of Malcolm,
Ali refused to answer. He had no words, no explanation. “His expressive face has turned blank,” Schaap wrote in 1971. “His enthusiasm turned to dullness. Maybe he is embarrassed. He should be.”
¹⁸

The truth, George Plimpton thought, was that Ali was afraid. He did not dare cross Elijah Muhammad. Once, when Plimpton visited Ali in Chicago, they drove around the South Side. When the writer asked him to see “the leader's mansion,” Ali agreed, but he drove so fast that Plimpton only got a fleeting look at it. Plimpton urged him to turn around so that he could take another look. Accelerating past the mansion at fifty miles per hour, Ali made another pass, insisting Plimpton slouch out of sight. “He didn't want to be spotted,” the writer recalled. “I think he understood what they could do. They were intimidating. And because he did fear them, he was malleable.”
¹⁹

M
ALCOLM
'
S GHOST HAUNTED
Ali. In early November 1974, three years after the Supreme Court overturned his draft evasion conviction on a technicality, he returned to Louisville for a celebration. He had just regained the heavyweight title from George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire. More than seven thousand fans greeted him outside the Belvedere, a riverfront plaza of parks, trees, and fountains overlooking the Ohio River.
²⁰

At the reception inside the Galt House, Ali enjoyed the singularity of being champion again. Sitting with white reporters from the
Louisville Courier-Journal
, he boasted about his comeback. Suddenly, his mood changed when two stone-faced men from the Fruit told Ali that it was time for him to go. “No, leave us alone,” he snapped. “These are my people . . . these are my Louisville men. They can stay as long as they want. Don't bother us again.”
²¹

After his security team disappeared, Ali told the writers that the guards were just doing their job, but he did not appreciate being told with whom he could talk. “They always got somebody watching,” he said.

“Who are ‘they'?” reporter Dave Kindred asked.

“I would have gotten out of this a long time ago,” Ali whispered. “But you saw what they did to Malcolm X. I ain't gonna end up like Malcolm X.”

Kindred sensed that Ali feared what would happen if he left the Nation. Controlled by Elijah Muhammad for more than a decade, he lived
in a straitjacket, trapped by the Nation's officials. He could not eat, sleep, or breathe without worrying about the wrath of the Black Muslim leaders. “I can't leave the Muslims,” Ali said, his voice foreboding. “They'd shoot me, too.”

About four months later the Messenger died, signaling a turning point in Ali's life. Wallace Muhammad took the helm of the Nation, renouncing his father's divine claims, tempering the Nation's racial rhetoric, and embracing orthodox Islam. In 1976, the sect's new imam renamed Mosque No. 7 in honor of Malcolm X, acknowledging that Malcolm had told the truth about his father's paternity scandals. “What we should see in Malcolm,” he declared, “is a turn for the Nation of Islam from fear and isolation to openness, courage.”
²²

Freed from Elijah Muhammad's influence, Ali embraced a more universal attitude about race and Islam. “I don't hate whites,” he announced after Elijah's death. “That was history, but it's coming to an end. We're in a new phase, a resurrection.” Deep down he believed “that the devil is in the mind and heart, not the skin. We Muslims hate injustice and evil, but we don't have time to hate people.”
²³

“I
IMAGINE ONE
of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly,” James Baldwin suggested, “is because they sense, once their hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with the pain.” When Malcolm died, Ali hid the pain behind a mask of contempt, heartlessly asserting that the fallen minister “got what he deserved.” Ali lived to regret those words. For years, he suffered under the burden of guilt, knowing that he had hurt Malcolm, his friend, his brother. But time softened him. Gradually, he became more humane, and more forgiving.
²⁴

“I wish I'd been able to tell Malcolm I was sorry, that he was right about so many things,” Ali said more than forty years after Malcolm died. “Malcolm X was a great thinker and even greater friend,” he reflected. “I might never have become a Muslim if it hadn't been for Malcolm. If I could go back and do it over again, I would never have turned my back on him.”
²⁵

It was the wisdom of decades speaking—years spent fighting in the ring and evolving outside it. By the time he retired from boxing, he was nearly forty years old, his body and face ravaged by ring wars with Joe Frazier, George Foreman, and Ken Norton. By then he had become an
American icon, more than fulfilling his youthful assertions that he was “the greatest.” As an athlete and man he was in a class of his own, and it is unlikely that any sportsman will ever duplicate his worldwide fame and importance. But after all the matches won and lost, all the honors received and forgotten, how many times must he have returned to those days in the early years of his career, when his body was as lithe as a dancer's and his face unmarked in its innocence, remembering the wise man who spoke with such confidence and passion, telling him about Allah's plan for his life. For about two years, Malcolm X counseled and spiritually guided the young boxer, instructing him on the evil ways of the world but also, more importantly, convincing him to love himself and his people. They were like blood brothers then, Malcolm X and Cassius Clay, and briefly it must have seemed as if the world was theirs. That it ended violently and tragically does not diminish what they once had.

From the first, theirs was an improbable relationship. The brash Olympic champion who spoke in rhymes and the ex-con disinterested in sports appeared to have nothing in common, save ego and an attraction to center stage. But perhaps they sensed some deeper kindred spirit—or some void that the other filled. Cassius loved magic and needed a powerful friend and mentor. Tall, strong, articulate, Malcolm talked of dreams and Armageddon, trafficking in the supernatural and the spiritual, promising a topsy-turvy new world where the racial order would be reversed. All he asked for in return—at least at first—was faith. It appealed to the dreamer in Cassius and validated the stories and fantasies he had heard from his father.

But what attracted Malcolm to Clay? In the early 1960s, the media treated the boxer as an adolescent clown, a bloviating athlete who lacked modesty, propriety, and dignity, the very traits that characterized Malcolm. Yet Malcolm knew that a wise man could play a clown. He looked behind the façade, seeing that even if Clay acted like a clown, he never behaved like a subservient one. He defined himself, asserting strength and pride, proclaiming his worth as a boxer and a black man. And most crucially, he attracted an audience whenever he spoke. If Malcolm did not immediately recognize Clay's political potential, if he did not sense right away that he could mobilize his unique celebrity, he soon grasped that fundamental reality. At a time when Malcolm's
ties to Elijah Muhammad were dissolving, Cassius, with the media he commanded and the followers he attracted, was a prize to be won.

In the year and a half before Cassius won the heavyweight crown, Malcolm consciously molded him into Muhammad Ali. Cassius adopted Malcolm's rhetoric, mimicked his delivery, and copied his cool, regal pose. He became, as a few journalists dimly sensed, a clone of his mentor. Always adept at imitation, Clay could slide into his Cassius X persona at a moment's notice, dispensing Malcolm's ideas and words like a seasoned actor. But after Cassius defeated Sonny Liston for the title, at the instant when his political value to Malcolm was the highest, the preacher lost his convert. Malcolm may have shaped Muhammad Ali, but Elijah Muhammad anointed Cassius
as
Muhammad Ali.

Ali followed Elijah for a decade, but their relationship was never as intimate as the one he shared with Malcolm. Malcolm, Ali came to realize, anticipated the course of the future. And although it took him ten years, Ali eventually followed the political and religious path that Malcolm had just begun to pioneer when he was assassinated.

In time, Ali understood that who he was and who he became were the results of his friendship with Malcolm. He knew that without Malcolm X, he would never have become Muhammad Ali.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

From start to finish, researching and writing
Blood Brothers
was a fulfilling and enjoyable collaborative journey. We, the authors, have our names on the title page, but we are also acutely aware of all the people that helped us along the way. At Fletcher & Company, Don Lamm, Sylvie Greenberg, and Christy Fletcher helped shape the book by offering wise advice and endless support. The team at Fletcher & Company helped us find the perfect home at Basic Books. Everyone at Basic Books has been incredibly enthusiastic. Publisher Lara Heimert had a clear vision of the book and gave us a brilliant critique of the draft. Asking crucial questions, Lara challenged us to sharpen our ideas and wisely encouraged us to tighten the narrative. Line editor Brandon Proia was an invaluable reader who improved every page. Copy editor Erin Granville and production editor Sandra Beris refined the manuscript and kept us on pace. And associate editor Leah Stecher fielded our countless questions deftly and (we think) with a smile. We couldn't imagine a better team.

People close to the fight game gave us the benefit of their decades of experience. Jerry Izenberg and Robert Lipsyte were there—sitting at ringside; talking to Sonny Liston, Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali; writing the first drafts of history. Tom Hauser may not have been there, but he knows everyone who was and graciously shared his considerable knowledge of Muhammad Ali and boxing. Several academic friends read all or parts of early drafts. Aram Goudsouzian commented insightfully on an early version, and David Welky and Eric Hall read parts. They all contributed to the final book.

Our thanks also go out to those who aided us during our research: Casey Harden at the Muhammad Ali Center, George Rugg at the University of Notre Dame Special Collections, Carrie Hintz at the Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Heather Stone at the Filson Historical Society in Louisville; and librarians and researchers at the National Archives, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the University of Oregon Special Collections, the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, and our home base, the Library of Congress Newspaper Reading Room. Amber Paranick at the Library of Congress has been helping us for years, and we appreciate her tireless aid. We are also grateful for the research assistants who helped us track down key sources. Thanks to Kyle Larson, Shandi Sigler, Cy Hill, and Ansel Beacham.

Our home institutions have facilitated our work. At Purdue University, history department head Doug Hurt set an example of commitment to scholarship and did his best to support Randy Roberts's work. The School of Liberal Arts at Purdue supported his research with a Humanistic Fellowship Center grant. At Georgia Tech, the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and the School of History and Sociology provided research and travel aid to Johnny Smith. He is especially thankful for the unwavering support from John Tone, Steve Usselman, and Jacqueline Royster.

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