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Why, of all the fighters who changed their names, (Sugar Ray Robinson, Rocky Graciano, Rocky Marciano), the list goes on and on, why is Ali singled out for this kind of question?
Why is Ali singled out for this kind of question?
The question implies one of two things:
- Someone, “they” made Ali change his name
- Ali somehow did something wrong in changing his name
- Or deliberately disrespected the original’s legacy
In this country, in all fifty states and the District of Columbia, any person is free to change their name any time they want, for any reason they want, to any name they want, without someone coming along, fifty-five years later implying they were wrong to do so because their original name had been carried by a famous, and good, man.
Sugar Ray Robinson was born Walker Smith.
Rocky Graciano was born Thomas Rocco Barbella.
Kayne West just changed his legal name to “Ye.”
Indeed, Ron Artest changed his name twice, the first time to Metta World Peace in 2011 and nine years later to Metta Sandiford-Artest in May 2020.
Tyler Gold changed his name to Tyrannosaurus Rex.
And on and on.
Ali reportedly attended his first Nation of Islam meeting in 1961 and continued to attend meetings with the African American Islamic religious movement which was working to improve the condition of African Americans in the US.
Malcolm X, a key figure of the movement before his conversion to orthodox Islam, became a spiritual and political mentor for Clay, and Ali briefly referred to himself as Cassius X before being renamed Muhammad Ali (which Elijah Muhammad believed meant “Praised one”) in a recorded statement by Elijah Muhammad, the group’s leader in 1964.
It cannot be stressed enough that Ali knew, and respected, Cassius Clay’s history in the abolitionist movement. But that was irrelevant and immaterial to his wanting to change his name, as he wrote in The Greatest: My Own Story, to a name that was his, that he choose, and not a name that some slaveowner had chosen for his family decades before.
Why did Ali treasure his name?
According to someone who both speaks and writes Arabic, Ali as a name in Arabic, written in Arabic: علي, ʿAlī,’ is a male name derived from the Arabic root ʕ-l-w, and literally translates to "high", "elevated" or "champion". It is a common name in the Muslim world.
Muhammad, which is written in Arabic as محمد) is the primary transliteration in English of the Arabic name مُحَمَّد that comes from the the Arabic verb ḥammada (حَمَّدَ), praise, which comes from the Semetic root H-M-D. The word can be roughly translated into English as "praised, commendable, laudable."
So the best transliteration of “Muhammad Ali” is “praiseworthy champion,” or praised one, which, as it turns out, was Elijah Muhammad’s translation of it.
Ali also became historically aware that the last Righteous Caliph, the adopted son, son in law, champion, and nephew of Prophet Muhammad, was named Ali. (Ali ibn Abi Talib) Muhammad was proud he shared the name of Ali with the Caliph, and the name of Muhammad with the Prophet.
Interestingly, the wife of Ali told friends after his death as far as she knew, he never legally changed his name, rejecting any theory that a government could decide what his name was.
Why is it that no one asks these questions about white fighters who changed their names?
At the risk of raising the old race question, no one has ever asked why Rocco Francis Marchegiano changed his name to Rocky Marciano, since, after all, Marchegiano is a very respectable Italian name which refers to the literal dialect and district Rocky’s parents grew up speaking and growing up in…
Why is that?
I will tell you why. As detailed in "Unbeaten: Rocky Marciano's Fight for Perfection in a Crooked World" by Mike Stanton, at the time Rocky began fighting in 1947, it was only two years after the War, and Italian-Americans were still living down Italy’s fascist history and role as America’s enemy in WW2, so Rocky changed his name to something that sounded more American.
But no one ever questions that…
Ali explained at length his desire to change his name had nothing to do with the original Cassius Clay as a person. It had to do with his desire to free himself of one of the vestiges of slavery.
Slaves brought to America were stripped of their names, of their identity, and given a name by their master.
Ali said it did not matter that Cassius Clay was a very good man. He certainly knew and acknowledged that. What mattered was that his African ancestors had their names taken away, and were given names in slavery. He wanted to reclaim his identity, and give himself a name untainted by that heritage.
As Ali said:
“desired to free myself of a name which was given to my ancestors whether they wanted it or not, after their own names were taken from them.”
Ali, born in the old South in 1942, experienced Jim Crow firsthand
Muhammad Ali was born on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky. His birth name was Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.
Growing up in the segregated South, he personally experienced racial prejudice and discrimination firsthand. He attended segregated schools. He had to ride - literally - in the rear of the bus. He had to use “Colored only” bathrooms and water fountains.
Anyone who actually grew up in the years of Jim Crow can, and will, attest to how horrible it was.
For the questioner, since he obviously knows little or nothing about history, I recommend he read the Negro Motorist Green Book.
The Negro Motorist Green Book, an exhibition developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) in collaboration with award-winning author, photographer and cultural documentarian, Candacy Taylor, offered a ilook at the reality of travel for African Americans in mid-century America.
The 1948 edition opened with the following forward:
“There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment.”
That was the America Muhammad Ali grew up in…
It was also the America that spawned the Nation of Islam
At a time and in a place where Black men were routinely lynched, the Nation of Islam arose as not just a religious movement, but a socio-economic one.
Teaching self pride and economic nationalism, the Nation followed the ideas of such Americans as Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey in stressing the importance of of black infrastructure as a means of community empowerment.
The Nation taught rigid self discipline, frowning on vices such as liquor, drugs, and gambling.
While no rational person would defend some of the extremest views of Elijay Muhammad and the Nation, it has to be viewed through the lens of the times and through Jim Crow to understand its appeal to Black African-Americans.
Like Malcolm X, Ali left the Nation of Islam and became a Sunni Muslim, and ceased advocating for any form of separationism
In an interview for his 1991 biography Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, Ali told author Thomas Hauser::
“[Wallace Muhammad] learnt from his studies that his father wasn't teaching true Islam, and Wallace taught us the true meaning of the Quran. He showed that color don't matter. He taught that we're responsible for our own lives and it's no good to blame our problems on other people. And that sounded right to me so I followed Wallace, but not everyone in the Nation felt that way. Some of the ministers didn't like what he was teaching. Jeremiah Shabazz didn't like it. Louis Farrakhan didn't like it either. They believed Elijah was a prophet, and they've kept the exact ways Elijah taught them. But I've changed what I believe, and what I believe in now is true Islam.”
That includes not discriminating against people for any reason, and that includes not opposing interracial marriage, and other tenets of the Nation Ali left behind.
Ali’s kindness and charity had always applied, from day one, to white and black alike
As a human being, in addition to his well known fight against the draft, in his kindness and charity, Ali also proved he earned the term the Greatest.
He wasn’t perfect. His domestic life was chaos. He regretted his statements about Joe Frazier for 40 years. He regretted not supporting Malcolm X for over 50 years.
But his personal charity and kindness are well documented.
In compiling a list of the greatest heavyweights, Tyrone Bruce said in ranking Ali first among greats:
“In terms of social and historical impact no one even comes close. “
Beth Dailey perhaps said it best about Ali and his greatness outside the ring:
“Ali … brought completely new dimensions to the sport and gave it a sort of aestheticism and a broader relevance that was without precedent.”
What made Muhammad Ali 'The Greatest' in the ring?
Angelo Dundee once recalled an incident that took place after Ali had changed his name in the 1960’s, and was a member of the Nation of Islam
On September 10, 1966, a young Ali defended his title in Frankfurt Germany against Karl Mildenberger as part of his "European tour." He was tired and stressed by a return to the USA to continue his fight against the military draft, but he won the fight nonetheless. In the 12th round, with Mildenberger on the ropes, referee Teddy Waltham stopped the fight.
At the airport the next day, Waltham’s fee of 1,000 pounds was stolen. Waltham, who was counting on the money to pay his mortgage and bills, was distraught. When Ali heard, he gave Waltham money from his own pocket to replace what had been stolen.
When asked about the incident, Ali shrugged it off, saying:
“man, don't make this a story, he needed the money more than I did.”
If it wasn’t for Angelo Dundee relating this story to Thomas Hauser, we would never have known it happened.
Waltham was white.
Perhaps the act of kindness least known was Ali saving a Jewish Old Age Home from closure...and every resident, whose home he saved, was white
Jerry Izanberg, a sports writer who covered Ali his entire career, relates a story that really speaks to Ali as a human being:
“Three nights before he fought Earnie Shavers in the Garden, he was watching the TV news in his hotel room with his close friend and camp business manager, Gene Kilroy. They heard a story about a Jewish old age home in the Bronx. The elderly residents were about to be evicted into the snow and cold of December.”
Ali lept up from the television, and off he and Gene went, to save elderly Jews.
Jerry Izanberg goes on to relate that when Ali arrived at the old age home, and was referred to the Manager, he asked how much the home needed to stay open. Told it was nearly half a million dollars, Ali whipped out his checkbook.
Izanberg relates that Ali first sternly warned Kilroy:
“and don't tell nobody.”
Ali then handed the director two checks. The first was for $300,000. The second was for $150,000.”
Kilroy wryly told the Director as he looked at the checks:
“Hold the second one for a week so we can transfer the money."
Ali literally took his purse from the Shavers fight and paid to keep an old age home open, and then insisted that no one talk about it, or release the information to the press.
A year later, looking back at how Ali was remembered
For the record, every resident of the old age home was white.
Then there was Ali’s trip to Bagdad in 1990.
Nothing sums up Ali's life, and who he was, than what he did in 1990. That year, Ali went to Bagdad as the first Gulf War was looming, to try and free 15 American hostages being held by Saddam Hussein.
Ali, already badly ill with Parkinson's, ran out of his medications while in Bagdad, and endured very real suffering, yet refused to leave, and persevered until Saddam allowed him to take all 15 American hostages home to their families.
But Saddam did not want to give up the hostages, who he was using for human shields, literally being chained to the doors of factories and military bases, so the Dictator declined to meet with the ill Ali, thinking he would have to go home without his medications.
But Ali would not leave, and his health grew worse.
Other Arab countries, worried that something might happen to the world’s most famous Muslim, increasingly pressured Saddam to give him something, and get him to go home before something bad happened.
Saddam, to appease other Muslim countries, finally publicly met with Ali to give him a few of the hostages, (he intended to give him two), to satisfy the other Islamic countries and get Ali to go home before something happened. But before Saddam could announce it, Ali thanked him for agreeing, like a good Muslim, to release all those in his custody to him.
Saddam, with the media taking down every word, with all the ambassadors of the Arab League and other Islamic states such as Pakistan and Indonesia beaming in approval at him, reluctantly ordered the release of them all.
Ali, worried that they might be rearrested before he could arrange to get them out of the country, took all the hostages to his hotel room, and they stayed there literally in his room, until Dec. 2, 1990, when Ali and the hostages flew out of Baghdad, headed for JFK.
The first thing he did was order room and service and feed them - they were all half starved.
The 15 men remain overwhelmed to this day.
Former hostage Bobby Anderson remembers:
“You know, I thanked him, and he said, ‘Go home,’ be with my family . . . what a great guy”
Ali again asked the media not to make the story about him, but about the hostages and their reunited families.
All but one of the hostages was white.
Who was Muhammad Ali?
The man who said:
“Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong.”
Also the man who said:
“I don’t have to be who you want me to be.”
Amen Champ, Rest in Peace.
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