In May 1964, when he was just twenty-two years old, Ali traveled to Africa for the first time and visited Nigeria, Ghana, and Egypt. He met with the leaders of those countries. In Egypt, he rode a camel and visited the pyramids. In Nigeria, he was cheered by enormous crowds. It was an eye-opening trip for the young man.
In Africa, Ali was embraced. He was welcomed as a hero, both for his boxing and his beliefs. Many people in Africa were Muslim, too.
When he got back from Africa, Ali began to look more closely at life in America. He saw the differences between America and Africa. In the African nations he visited, he saw that black people were in charge of countries and not treated like second-class citizens.
“Me being the heavyweight champion feels very small and cheap,” he said, “when [I see] how millions of my poor black brothers and sisters are having to struggle just to get human rights in America.”
Not long after he came back, he met Sonji Roi, a young woman from Chicago. Though Sonji was not part of the Nation of Islam, he married her in August 1964. But their marriage was not steady. Sonji did not agree with the NOI people who were influencing Ali.
Ali kept boxing, winning again and again. He won fights in Canada, England, and Germany, along with several in the United States. With every win, his fame grew. He continued making up poems, talking loud, and attracting attention. This was one of his most famous poems:
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee
His hands can’t hit what his eyes can’t see
Muhammad Ali carefully planned his poetic way of speaking and his showy style of giving interviews. Journalists and reporters loved to write stories about him.
“Them newspaper people couldn’t have been working no better for me if I had been paying them,” he said.
Very soon, however, their stories would be working against him.
In the 1960s, young American men were drafted to serve in the military. If a person was drafted, service in the army was not voluntary. It was mandatory. In 1964, Ali had taken a written test for the army, but he had not passed.
In 1966, the army changed its standards. This time, Ali passed. He asked that the army not call him to go to war. He said that he did not support the war the United States was fighting in Vietnam, a small country in Southeast Asia.
Ali based his reasons on his religious beliefs. And he didn’t believe that he should have to fight a war against people he did not know. His decision was also a reaction to the ongoing civil rights struggle in America.
During this time, his short marriage to Sonji ended in divorce. A year later, he was drafted into the army and told to report for duty.
On April 28, 1967, he reported to the United States Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station in Houston. When his name was called he refused to step forward and acknowledge it. Refusing to join the army was against the law. Muhammad Ali was arrested.
IN 1954, A CIVIL WAR STARTED IN THE FRENCH COLONY OF VIETNAM. THE VIETCONG, A GROUP FROM THE NORTH OF THE COUNTRY, WANTED THE NATION TO BECOME COMMUNIST. THE GOVERNMENT’S MILITARY FOUGHT TO STOP THEM. FRENCH SOLDIERS HELPED THE GOVERNMENT UNTIL THE MID-1950S, WHEN AMERICAN SOLDIERS ARRIVED TO HELP, TOO. VIETNAM SPLIT INTO THE NORTH, CONTROLLED BY THE VIETCONG, AND THE SOUTH, WHICH WAS ANTI-COMMUNIST.
AS THE WAR WENT ON, MORE AND MORE AMERICAN TROOPS ARRIVED TO HELP SOUTH VIETNAM. MANY AMERICANS DID NOT AGREE THAT AMERICA SHOULD BE FIGHTING IN THIS WAR. AS THE 1960S WENT ON, MORE AND MORE PEOPLE PROTESTED AGAINST THE WAR. MEANWHILE, 58,000 US SOLDIERS AND PERHAPS AS MANY AS THREE MILLION VIETNAMESE WERE KILLED.
IN 1975, THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE CAPITAL OF SAIGON CAME UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE VIETCONG. NORTH AND SOUTH VIETNAM WERE REUNITED INTO THE COMMUNIST NATION OF VIETNAM AND US TROOPS LEFT. MANY AMERICANS STILL BELIEVE IT WAS A MISTAKE TO HAVE ENTERED THE WAR AT ALL.
The boxing world was very angry. The groups that organized the world rankings took away his heavyweight title, even though Ali had not lost in the ring. In court, Muhammad Ali was convicted of draft evasion and sentenced to five years in jail.
Ali’s mother had wanted him to join the army. She had attended all of his important fights and remained close to her son. But she disagreed with his decision.
The great baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson said, “How can he expect to make millions of dollars in this country and then refuse to fight for it?”
After his conviction, while his case was appealed to other courts, Ali remained free. But he could not box. Although the champion was undefeated in twenty-nine professional fights and made millions of dollars a year, he could no longer do his job. Even so, Ali was content.
“I believed in what I was doing,” he wrote later. “So no matter what the government did to me, it wasn’t a loss.”
He said, “If I thought going to war would bring freedom, justice, and equality to twenty-two million Negroes, I’d join tomorrow.”
Surprisingly, his spiritual leader, Elijah Muhammad, did not support Ali’s decision. Elijah believed that Ali was glorifying himself and not the Nation of Islam. He was worried that Ali’s fame was overshadowing the Nation of Islam and Elijah Muhammad’s influence. Also, since joining the NOI, Ali had softened his feelings about white people. Dundee, for example, was his great friend and he was white. The Louisville men who had sponsored him early in his career were white. Eventually, Elijah Muhammad said that Ali was not part of the NOI.
That did not stop Ali from being a Muslim, however. Nor did he ever regret his refusal to be drafted. As a result, for the next three years, the greatest fighter in the world didn’t fight—he talked. Ali made hundreds of speeches and appearances, mostly at colleges. He talked about his decision not to join the army. He spoke about Islam and about the Vietnam War. He loved to meet people, anyplace he could.
Ali remarried in 1967. His new wife was Belinda Boyd, who changed her name to Khalilah Ali after they were married. He had first met Belinda in 1961 during a visit to her Islamic grammar school. She interviewed him for her school paper. He saw her again five years later at a meeting of Nation of Islam believers. They began to stay in touch and when she turned seventeen, Ali was single again. “He just said, ‘You’re gonna be my wife,’” she remembered. “I said, ‘Right.’ And that was it . . . He was my first love.”
The couple had four children in the next few years: Maryum, twins Jamillah and Rasheda, and Muhammad Ali Jr.
During this time, Ali remained free while his case was appealed to higher courts. Though he did not fight in the ring, Ali was winning. By the late 1960s, more and more people came to agree with him that the Vietnam War was wrong. Millions of people marched and protested. It was a very difficult time in America.
In 1970, Ali was finally granted a license to fight in Georgia. A year later, the US Supreme Court would say that his conviction had been wrong. He was free. Ali’s next goal was to reclaim the heavyweight championship.
