Remembering the rejection of Muhammad Ali: identity, civil rights and social memory

ABSTRACT

When Muhammad Ali died in June 2016, he was remembered by the media as a hero in the fight for racial equality. Tributes for the great boxer were meaningful in many respects, but they were also incomplete, sanitised and misleading. This paper aims to re-complicate our understanding of Ali's portrayals in the media by analysing newspaper discourse in the years immediately following his conversation to the Nation of Islam. Specifically, this investigation compares and contrasts the complex ways that black and white journalists used both his birth name (Cassius Clay) and his adopted name (Muhammad Ali) as a way of signalling their attitudes toward him. Close reading of newspaper articles published between March 1964 and September 1967 reveals that black journalists rejected Ali's adopted name and identity almost as comprehensively as their white colleagues. This aspect of Ali's legacy has been largely forgotten by the contemporary media, which calls us to consider the cultural construction of social memory, particularly when it revolves around sporting icons.

KEYWORDS:

• Muhammad Ali
• memory
• newspapers
• black press
• close reading

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Daniel Ashton, ‘Muhammad Ali: Mourning another Great in the Age of Social Media’, The Conversation, June 7, 2017, https://theconversation.com/muhammad-ali-mourning-another-great-in-the-age-of-social-media-59413 (accessed September 15, 2017).

2. Dave Sheinen, ‘Beautiful, Controversial, Transcendent: Muhammad Ali Dies at 74’, Washington Post, June 4, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/boxing-mma-wrestling/beautiful-controversial-transcendent-muhammad-ali-dies-at-74/2016/06/04/7eb10474-29ff-11e6-b9894e5479715b54_story.html?utm_term=.16e9e357c2b4 (accessed September 14, 2017); William C. Rhoden, ‘Muhammad Ali: The Champion Who Never Sold Out’, New York Times, June 6, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/sports/muhammad-ali-the-champion-who-never-sold-out.html (accessed September 14, 2017).

3. Kai El, ‘Zabar, “The Greatest”, Champion's Champion – Muhammad Ali’, Chicago Defender, June 4, 2016, https://chicagodefender.com/2016/06/04/the-greatest-champions-champion-muhammad-ali/ (accessed September 14, 2017); Jenna Fryer and Bruce Schreiner, ‘‘‘Ali! Ali!”: The World Says Goodbye to The Greatest’, Pittsburgh Courier, June 10, 2016, https://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2016/06/10/ali-ali-the-world-says-goodbye-to-the-greatest/ (accessed September 14, 2017); Lorraine Ali, ‘Muhammad Ali: America's First and Last Muslim Hero’, Los Angeles Times, June 5, 2016, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-muhammad-ali-americas-first-muslim-hero-20160604-snap-story.html (accessed September 14, 2017).

4. Jaime Schultz, Moments of Impact: Injury, Racialized Memory, and Reconciliation in College Football (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2016), 2.

5. Daniel A. Nathan, Saying It's So: A Cultural History of the Black Sox Scandal (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2002), 61.

6. Chris Healy, From the Ruins of Colonialism: History as Social Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 5; Gary Osmond, ‘Forgetting Charlie and Tums Cavill: Social Memory and Australian Swimming History’, Journal of Australian Studies 33, no. 1 (2009): 94.

7. Holly Thorpe, ‘Death, Mourning, and Cultural Memory on the Internet: The Virtual Memorialization of Fallen Sports Heroes’, in Sport History in the Digital Era, eds Gary Osmond and Murray G. Phillips (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 184.

8. According to Michael Ezra, Ali himself played a key role in this process. Ali and his public relations team constructed some of the most influential of these. Since the late 1980s, they have curated a range of celebratory representations, including: Thomas Hauser's best-selling biography (see note 17); the multi-million-dollar Muhammad Ali Center in downtown Louisville (Kentucky); a moving appearance at the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympic Games; and a host of corporate and philanthropic projects over many years. Michael Ezra, Muhammad Ali: The Making of an Icon (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009), 167–193.

9. Thorpe, ‘Death, Mourning, and Cultural Memory’, 185.

10. Dave Zirin, ‘The Hidden History of Muhammad Ali’, Jacobin, June 4, 2016, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/06/the-hidden-history-of-muhammad-ali/ (accessed June 6, 2016).

11. Gary Osmond and Murray G. Phillips, eds, Sport History in the Digital Era (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2015).

12. Michael Oriard, Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 17.

13. Jeffrey Hill, ‘Anecdotal Evidence: Sport, the Newspaper Press, and History’, in Deconstructing Sport History: A Postmodern Analysis, ed. Murray G. Phillips (New York: State University of New York Press, 2006), 121–7.

14. Ibid, 127.

15. Michael Oriard, ‘Muhammad Ali: The Hero in the Age of Mass Media’, in Muhammad Ali: The People's Champ, ed. Elliot Gorn (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 10–12.

16. Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith, Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X (New York: Basic Books, 2016), 218. Ali never legally changed his name. According to the authors’ correspondence with the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky, this was because the Social Security Administration did not require it at the time. So long as a person could reasonably establish their identity under their chosen name (for someone with Ali's profile this was not a problem), they could legally go by any name they wished. It is also unlikely that Ali, or any member of the Nation of Islam, would wish to consult the white-run courts on a matter pertaining to black pride/identity. See also: Josh Peter, ‘Why Muhammad Ali Never Legally Changed Name from Cassius Clay’, USA Today, July 11, 2016, https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/boxing/2016/07/11/muhammad-ali-name-change-cassius-clay/86956544/ (accessed October 1, 2017).

17. Thomas Hauser, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times (London: Pan Books, 1997), 102.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. Mike Marqusee, ‘Sport and Stereotype: from Role Model to Muhammad Ali’, Race & Class, 31, no. 1 (1995): 15.

21. Victor Mather, ‘In the Ring He Was Ali, but in the Newspapers He Was Still Clay’, New York Times, June 9, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/sports/muhammad-ali-name-cassius-clay-newspapers.html (accessed December 10, 2016); Laura Wagner, ‘Muhammad Ali Changed His Name in 1964: Newspapers called him Cassius Clay for Six more Years’, Slate, June 10, 2016, http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2016/06/muhammad_ali_changed_his_name_in_1964_newspapers_called_him_cassius_clay.html (accessed December 10, 2016).

22. Franco Moretti, Distant Reading (London: Verso, 2013); Murray G. Phillips, Gary Osmond and Stephen Townsend, ‘A Bird's Eye View of the Past: Digital History, Distant Reading, and Sport History’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 32, no. 15 (2015): 1725–40.

23. See: Phillips et al., ‘Bird's Eye View of the Past’, 1728–1730 for further details regarding the methods used to conduct this distant reading.

24. This group of publications included three white publications, and nine black. White: Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post. Black: Atlanta Daily World, Baltimore Afro-American, Cleveland Call and Post, Chicago Defender, Los Angeles Sentinel, New York Amsterdam News, Norfolk Journal and Guide, Philadelphia Tribune, Pittsburgh Courier.

25. Black newspapers are defined here as publications that identify with the traditions and aims of the black press. The black press is addressed in greater detail in the Reading deeper: black newspapers section but might be briefly defined as newspapers written by black journalists, for black readers. Black journalists, particularly during and after the civil rights era, often wrote for white publications. However, white journalists rarely, if ever, wrote for black newspapers. The white press cannot be so neatly defined, mainly because white newspapers did not self-identify as white newspapers (they did not have to). In this context, white newspapers might also be called ‘mainstream’ newspapers. Michael Huspek argues that relationship between the black and white presses was ‘oppositional’ – whereby the white press was seen as ‘A’ and the black press positioned itself in opposition as ‘not-A’. See: Michael Huspek, ‘Black Press, White Press, and Their Opposition: The Case of the Police Killing of Tyisha Miller’, Social Justice 31, no. 1/2 (2004): 218.

26. These graphs suggest that black newspapers wrote more articles about Ali during this period (4728 vs. 3916). Rather than indicating greater interest in Ali from black journalists, this simply reflects the greater number of black publications included in the study. This is due to the authors’ institutional subscription to ProQuest Historical Newspapers, which provided greater access to black publications than white.

27. There is ongoing debate within literary studies regarding the use and purpose of close reading. Some scholars argue that close reading should treat texts as being self-contained and self referential, while others believe that close reading should locate a text within its broader social and historical context. We believe that the latter view of close reading (otherwise known as formalism, or new historicism) is more appropriate for historical analysis. For further reading on the close reading debate, see: Andrew DuBois, ‘Close Reading: An Introduction’, in Close Reading: The Reader, ed. Frank Latricchia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 1–40; Shannon R. Smith, ‘Complexity, Critique, and Close Reading: Sport History and Literary Studies’, The International Journal for the History of Sport 32, no. 15 (2015): 1832; Katherine Bode, ‘The Equivalence of “Close” and “Distant” Reading; or, Toward a New Object for Data-Rich Literary History’, Modern Language Quarterly 78, no. 1 (2017): 92; Jane Gallop, ‘The Historicization of Literary Studies and the Fate of Close Reading’, Profession (2007): 181–6.

28. Jeffrey Hill, Sport and the Literary Imagination: Essays in History, Literature, and Sport (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2006), 22.

29. Roberts and Smith, Blood Brothers, 10.

30. ‘Muhammad Ali May Lose Crown Today’, Los Angeles Times, March 23, 1964, B1.

31. Sid Ziff, ‘Clay the Dreamer’, Los Angeles Times, June 27, 1965, B3.

32. Dave Brady, ‘Ex-Handler Says Clay Confused’, Washington Post, November 20, 1965, D1.

33. Stefan Fatsis, ‘The Sportswriter Who Hated Muhammad Ali’, Slate, June 6, 2016, http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2016/06/the_new_york_times_arthur_daley_never_stopped_hating_muhammad_ali.html (accessed May 10, 2017).

34. Arthur Daley, ‘Listening to Cassius’, New York Times, August 4, 1966, 53.

35. Robert Lipsyte, Sportsworld: an American Dreamland (New York: New York Times Book Co., 1975), 95–6.

36. Al Monroe, ‘What's in a Name? Lots If One Is Cassius Clay’, Chicago Daily Defender, March 24, 1964, 22.

37. Hauser, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, 102–3.

38. Ibid.

39. Les Matthews, ‘Muhammad Ali Speaks (Cassius Clay That Is)’, New York Amsterdam News, March 28, 1964, 28; Brad Pye, ‘Exclusive – Champion Cassius Clay Takes a Bride’, Los Angeles Sentinel, August 13, 1964, 1.

40. ‘Clay (Oops, Ali) Attends Muslim Meet in Boston’, Chicago Daily Defender, April 22, 1964, 28; Sam Lacey, ‘Cassius, Er Ali, Is the Greatest’, Baltimore Afro American, December 25, 1965, 9.

41. Maureen Smith, ‘Muhammad Speaks and Muhammad Ali: Intersections of the Nation of Islam and Sport in the 1960s’, International Sports Studies 21, no. 1 (2001): 54.

42. George Plimpton, ‘Miami Notebook: Cassius Clay and Malcolm X’, in I'm a Little Special: A Muhammad Ali Reader, ed. Gerald Early (London: Yellow Jersey Press, 1998), 35. Emphasis in original.

43. Roberts and Smith, Blood Brothers, 143–4.

44. Ibid., 222.

45. Ezra, The Making of an Icon, C54.

46. James Cone, Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare (New York: Orbis Books, 1992), 264. See also: August H. Nimtz, ‘Violence and/or Nonviolence in the Success of the Civil Rights Movement: The Malcolm X – Martin Luther King, Jr. Nexus’, New Political Science 38, no. 1 (2016).

47. Jim Murray, ‘The Sheik of Araby’, Los Angeles Times, March 12, 1964, B1, B3.

48. Ibid.

49. Ibid.

50. John Hall, ‘Assassin Rumors Unnerve Cassius’, Los Angeles Times, May 23, 1965, C1.

51. Ibid.

52. Ziff, ‘Clay the Dreamer’.

53. Ibid.

54. Jim Murray, ‘Come on, Ali, I Want to Talk to Cassius Clay’, Los Angeles Sentinel, November 4, 1966, B1.

55. Brady, ‘Ex-Handler Says Clay Confused’.

56. Daley, ‘Listening to Cassius’.

57. Ibid.

58. Roberts and Smith, Blood Brothers, 224.

59. There were exceptions, most notably Robert Lipsyte of the New York Times, who published a number of editorial pieces that delivered balanced and insightful analyses of Ali's place in the American cultural landscape.

60. David Remnick, King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero (London: Picador, 1998), 274.

61. Jack Nelson, ‘The Civil Rights Movement: A Press Perspective’, Human Rights 28, no. 4 (2001): 5.

62. Oviatt Library California State University Northridge, ‘Peek in the Stacks: Brad Pye, Jr., Los Angeles Sports Journalist and Community Advocate’, February 9, 2016, http://library.csun.edu/SCA/Peek-in-the-Stacks/brad-pye (accessed May 10, 2017).

63. Brad Pye, ‘Pick Clay Not Ali’, Los Angeles Sentinel, November 12, 1964, B1.

64. There were exceptions. Of the titles in included in this study, the Atlanta Daily World was the only paper that did not openly support the push for civil rights. Its editorial policy on racial matters was ‘don't rock the boat’. This was partially driven by a desire not to alienate Atlanta's largely conservative white population. Other black newspapers in southern locales adopted similar editorial policies. See: Patrick S. Washburn, The African American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2006), 200.

65. Henry G. La Brie III and William J. Zima, ‘Directional Quandaries of the Black Press in the United States’, Journalism Quarterly 48, no. 4 (1971): 640.

66. E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie (New York: Collier Books, 1962), 146–61.

67. Ibid., 160. See also: Angela M. Nelson, ‘Middle-Class Ideology in African American Postwar Comic Strips’, in From Bourgeois to Boojie: Black Middle Class Performances, eds Vershawn Ashanti Young and Bridget Harris Tsemo (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2011), 176.

68. Lois Benjamin, ‘Black Bourgeoisie’, in Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society, ed. Richard T. Schaefer (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2008), 152–4.

69. Charles A. Simmons, The African American Press: With Special Reference to Four Newspapers, 1827–1965 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company Inc. Publishers, 1998), 1–7.

70. Charles G. Spellman, ‘The Black Press: Setting the Political Agenda During World War II’, Negro History Bulletin 51, no. 1 (1993): 40–1.

71. Washburn, The African American Newspaper, 196.

72. Ronald E. Wolseley, The Black Press, U.S.A. (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1971), 8.

73. Henry Lewis Suggs, The Black Press in the South: 1865–1979 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983), 1–10.

74. ‘Joe Feels Sonny Can Beat Clay’, Pittsburgh Courier, March 28, 1964, 14.

75. Jackie Robinson, ‘Cassius and the Muslims’, Norfolk/New Journal and Guide, March 14, 1964, 8.

76. Jackie Robinson, ‘The Muslim Champion’, Norfolk/New Journal and Guide, April 4, 1964, 8.

77. Charles Howard Sr., ‘Muhammad Ali (Cassius) Serious Young Man in Ghana’, Baltimore Afro-American, June 6, 1964, 20.

78. ‘Cassius Clay's Name Change Stoutly Defended’, Philadelphia Tribune, February 21, 1967, 5.

79. For pre-fight coverage of the Patterson bout, see: ‘Ali to Demand Apology From Patterson Before Bout in N.Y. on Sept. 20’, Philadelphia Tribune, September 9, 1965, 20; ‘Clay Intends To Feed Lettuce To “Rabbit” Patterson’, Chicago Daily Defender, January 21, 1965, 38; For pre-fight coverage of Terrell bout, see: Lawrence Casey, ‘Sports Ledger’, Chicago Daily Defender, January 9, 1967, 25; Dick Edwards, ‘Ern Burns at “Tom” Tag Says Clay Will Pay’, New York Amsterdam News, January 21, 1967, 33; Harrison Claude Jr., ‘Muhammad Ali Will Always Be Cassius Clay to E. Terrell’, Philadelphia Tribune, January 21, 1967, 15.

80. For post-fight coverage of the Patterson bout, see: A.S. ‘Doc’ Young, ‘Clay Might Be Champ 10 Years: The Big Fight’, New York Amsterdam News, November 27, 1965, 1; Sam Lacey, ‘Cassius, Er Ali, Is the Greatest’, Baltimore Afro American, December 25, 1965, 9. For post fight reporting of Terrell bout, see: Marion Jackson, ‘Humiliates Terrell: Now Ali is Undisputed Champ’, Cleveland Call and Post, February 11, 1967, 1A. See also: Hauser, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, 161–6.

81. Ezra, Making of an Icon, 120–34.

82. Bayard Rustin, ‘In Defense of Muhammad Ali’, New York Amsterdam News, June 3, 1967, 14.

83. Jackie Robinson, ‘In Defense of Cassius Clay’, New York Amsterdam News, March 11, 1967, 17.

84. Mike Marqusee, Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties, 2nd edn (London: Verso, 1999), 214.

85. Foremost among these leaders was the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, whose ‘Beyond Vietnam’ speech in April 1967 helped to connect the anti-war and civil rights movements. A month after ‘Beyond Vietnam’, King specifically commended Ali in one of his sermons: ‘no matter what you may think of Mr Muhammad Ali's religion, you certainly have to admire his courage’.

86. ‘Found Guilty: Clay Gets Five Year Sentence’, Cleveland Call and Post, June 24, 1967, 1A; ‘Ali (Clay) Guilt ‘Foregone Conclusion’, Says Trial Judge’, New York Amsterdam News, June 24, 1967, 1.

87. Between June 1966 and August 1967 there were 862 articles containing ‘Cassius Clay’ not ‘Muhammad Ali’ as compared with 2,131 articles between March 1964 and May 1966.

88. Gerald Early, ‘Muhammad Ali: The King of the Inauthentic’, The Black Scholar, June 21, 2016, http://www.theblackscholar.org/muhammad-ali-king-inauthentic-gerald-early/ (accessed June 1, 2017). See also: Gerald Early, ed., I’m a Little Special: The Muhammad Ali Reader (London: Yellow Jersey Press, 1998), vii.

89. Early, ‘Muhammad Ali: The King of the Inauthentic’.

90. This was a common theme in obituaries of Ali from popular news outlets. See: Matthew Cooper, ‘Float Like a Butterfly, Ali (1942–2016)’, Huffpost, June 4, 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-cooper/float-like-a-butterfly-al_b_10292974.html (accessed September 10, 2017); Frank Keating, ‘Muhammad Ali obituary’, The Guardian, June 4, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jun/04/muhammad-ali-obituary (accessed September 10, 2017).

91. See: Michael Ezra, ‘How Muhammad Ali Influenced the Civil Rights Movement’, Aljazeera, June 5, 2016, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/06/muhammad-ali-influenced-civil-rights-movement-160605055700822.html (accessed September 14, 2017).