Muhammad Ali: The Making of an Icon

The Prodigal Son Returns

I n October 1970, three-and-a-half years after his previous bout, Muhammad Ali finally returned to the ring. Ali’s homecoming, although it predated the Supreme Court’s reversal of his conviction, was a product of the country’s turning against the Vietnam War. Even to many of the people who were repulsed by his connection to the NOI, Ali’s exclusion from the ring for taking a courageous stand had inspired sympathy and outrage. As the general public ’s views about the war aligned with Ali’s, the idea that he was being unjustly punished for resisting an unjust war became common. Ali’s stance against the draft had been cutting-edge. Carelessly and forcefully articulated in February 1966, while he was preparing to fight Ernie Terrell , Ali’s initial public opposition was at the forefront of black anti-war activism . SNCC, considered by many to be the most progressive of the contemporary civil rights organizations, had released its anti-war manifesto only a few weeks earlier. Martin Luther King Jr., the face of the movement, did not formally announce his opposition to the war until April 1967. By then Ali was deeply entrenched in the legal system, with his conviction coming ten weeks later. King, who did not want to alienate President Lyndon Johnson’s pro–civil rights administration, was hesitant to criticize the war, but he was still ahead of the political curve. Public opinion polls revealed that it was not until March 1968 that a majority of blacks, and November 1969 until a majority of Americans, opposed it. Only when anti-war sentiment reached this critical mass did Ali have the chance to return to the ring. Despite his tribulations, he was still identified as much by his brashness and allegiance to the NOI as The Prodigal Son Returns The Prodigal Son Returns 149 his draft resistance, not to mention as a convicted felon who was clearly guilty of the charges brought against him. With the war becoming ever more unpopular, however, Ali was poised to be recast within American culture from primarily a racial symbol to a hero the anti-war movement could adopt as its own. The true signal that people were beginning to rethink what Ali meant was the resumption of his ring career. As throughout his professional life, Ali’s moneymaking ability was the ultimate indicator of his moral authority.11 Ali’s return to the ring came about directly as a product of the particular political peculiarities of Atlanta, Georgia, and indirectly as a result of growing public sympathy toward him. That Ali’s cause seemed just to more people than ever before also weakened the inevitable backlash against his being allowed to fight. Georgia had no state athletic commission, which meant that any locality interested in hosting an Ali fight could do so without having to go through the governor’s office. This was no small detail in Georgia, whose chief executive Lester Maddox was an ardent segregationist. Maddox, along with a number of members of Congress, did their best to get the Justice Department to block the fight, but the federal government had no jurisdiction over the matter, and any inclination its officers may have had to overstep their boundaries was checked by burgeoning support for Ali. In the end, Maddox declared an official day of mourning in the state but could do little else to impose his will. Leroy Johnson, a state senator who held considerable influence over Atlanta’s sizable black voting bloc, in exchange for being given a financial piece of the promotion (which would turn out to be worth $175,000), pressured Mayor Sam Massell to approve an Ali bout in the city, promising to deliver votes to him in the upcoming election. Massell didn’t like the position he was put into, but he realized that it was politically expedient for him to allow the fight to happen. And so it went. Ali made his comeback and defeated contender Jerry Quarry in three rounds.12 Ali’s return to the ring was significant, but it neither exonerated him nor reduced his chances of going to prison. While it was a sign that public opinion toward him was evolving favorably, it was anybody’s guess what kind of influence, if any, it would have on the ultimate arbiter of his future, the Supreme Court. Ali did not treat the Quarry fight as a vindication of his draft stand. He was, however, elated by...