The Greatest ... And Sometimes, One of the Smartest and Most Honorable as Well
Fifty years ago today, the anti-Vietnam War movement gained a unique ally: Muhammad Ali. When, on February 17, 1966, his Louisville draft board reversed a series of previous policies and decisions and announced his eligibility for the draft, Ali was widely quoted as having said, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong."
Early in 1966, a majority of Americans most assuredly did have a quarrel with the Vietcong (even if not 1-in-10 knew - or cared - who they were). At that stage of the war, Americans were already tired of hearing about it and wanted it ended - quickly. Half or more still supported LBJ's war policies, and the vast majority favored either bombing North Vietnam into submission or forcing a Korea-like permanent truce (which, by halting Vietcong operations in the South, would have constituted an American "victory").
African Americans, however, were less gung-ho. Three-fourths favored either a cease-fire or withdrawal. Malcolm X had come out against the war as early as 1963. Blacks already knew that Vietnam was a classic example of a rich man's war, poor man's fight. In disproportionately high numbers, it was their sons and brothers who were doing the fighting and dying in Vietnam. So when Muhammad Ali declared that he had no quarrel with the Vietcong, he undoubtedly spoke for many other African Americans as well. (According to New York Times sports reporter Robert Lipsyte, who was with Ali in Miami the day draft board ruled, what he actually said was, "I ain't got nothing against them Vietcong.")
Ali's reticence to "go shoot my brother, or some darker people or some poor, hungry people in the mud for big powerful America" was undoubtedly motivated by more than his conscience. Lipsyte (and others) made it clear that Ali's first reaction was one of "Why me?" Didn't the hundreds of thousands of tax dollars he was already paying constitute sufficient contribution to the war? Wealthy whites had been allowed to buy their way out of their country's most desperate battle, the American Civil War, but now a young black man of humble origins couldn't do the same for one of the nation's least justifiable aggressions?
The Champ's motivation was of far less consequence, however, to the anti-War movement than was his mainstream fame. No major politician had as yet come out against the war (and some of the lesser lights who had were being burned in effigy), nor had any major newspaper. The mainstream media was (surprise!) overwhelmingly hawkish. Those who were protesting included some of the greatest and noblest Americans who've ever lived: Dorothy Day, A. J. Muste, Norman Thomas, Bayard Rustin, David Dellinger and Joan Baez to name just a few. And there were, thanks in part to the efforts of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), ever more thousands of college students. But far too few Americans appreciated the former, and in 1966 most viewed the latter as traitors and sissies. In those days, mainstream America was far more opposed to the protesters than to the war itself. So for a world champion heavyweight boxer to declare his opposition to the war - for whatever reasons - several years before most other Americans got their heads out of their asses regarding Vietnam - was a very big deal.
And it got bigger as time went on. Protest marches and position papers might not have constituted Ali's SOP, but speaking engagements did. As the saga of "Cassius Clay vs. The United States of America" wore on, Ali's public statements only got sharper. Though the military had once ruled him mentally unfit to serve, intellectuals who saw him on the lecture circuit marveled at not only his quickness of wit, but also his knack for staying on-message in ways that were as persuasive as they were charismatic.
Ali was never really part of what most people probably think of as the anti-Vietnam War movement per se, but the roles he played, beginning 50 years ago today, in turning the ship of public opinion against that eternally damnable war deserve our admiration at least as much as do his accomplishments in the boxing ring. He was indeed "The Greatest." And in some ways, he was also one of the smartest and most honorable.
