Growing up in the Era of Ali Part 2

At the time of the first Ali-Frazier fight,I was attending a small predominantly white prep school. I was one of ten black students and one of them was my brother. By that time Ali had refused to be drafted,gotten the Supreme Court to rule in his favor and had begun his comeback in the ring,first by beating one 'Great White Hope" in Jerry Quarry.

By that time,I had involved myself in the anti-war Presidential campaign of Eugene McCarthy and had been accused by my mom of being a hippie. A lot of hippies could have cared less about Ali's boxing career,but his anti war stance and willingness to stick it to "the man" made Ali a countercultural hero.  By that time,my younger brother had spent time at the Black Muslim mosque established by Ali's original mentor Malcolm X as well as the Hartford headquarters of the Black Panthers.  In our debates with my Mom,from the Joe Louis era,a Johnson-Humphrey Democrat and an active member of mainstream civil rights organizations,my brother would repeat the Ali quote:

"The Draft is about White People sending Black People to fight Yellow People to protect the country they stole from the Red People".

My brother and I had very different temperments and sometimes diffrent opinions but we both agreed Muhammad Ali  was the greatest..
By rhat time,my mom would agree that Ali was "pretty" but often would state aloud "I wish he would just shut his mouth"

It was for that wish to have Ali shut up as well as his Vietnam stance that had most all the white students and a couple outspoken teachers at school in Joe Frazier's corner. It seemed like for this fight,Joe Frazier had become the de facto "Great White Hope". In reality,he was far from it,and a little known fact is that during Ali's exile from boxing,Joe Frazier kept a nearly broke Ali from going under. Joe Frazier's selling point for them? Joe Frazier is a quiet. boxer

Mom wasn't about to let my brothers and I to attend the closed circuit theater showing of the fight thus we were relegated to radio accounts of the fight.

It hurt when Muhammad Ali lost and it was hard dealing with some of the comments in school the day after the fight. After school,it was best to take solace with longtime neighborhood North End friends.


...Fast Forward to January 1974

I had recently become the first freshman student ever elected to the Student Assembly at Alaska Methodist University (Now Alaska Pacific University) located in Anchorage. While I had clear ideas relating to the campus role in shaping a changing Alaska,(Pipeline construction era),I was elected  to the Assembly by conducting a campaign primarily aimed at the many potheads on campus as well as students who were generally indifferent about student government.. My first act  as an Assemblyman.was to open up the Student government office so that students,many who didn't own radios could listen to Ali-Frazier 2. Discovered that Muhammad Ali was a hero to the Yupik,Tlingit,and Athabascan as well.

October 1974

I could have seen the closed circuit showing of the Ali-Foreman fight had I remained in Anchorage.A friend who worked as an usher at the theater had promised to let me in..however personal issues found me back home in Hartford. My brother was also home,taking a break from Howard University,thus all three Daniels brothers once again found themselves gathered around the radio for the fight. We were upstairs,Mom was watching TV downstairs. Just before the fight began,I had gone downstairs to visit her when a bulletin came across stating that former President Richard Nixon was in critical condition due to phlebitis.
I had a sense Foreman may be another Sonny Liston,but didn't want to state it for fear of jinxing Ali.
When, in the early rounda,when Ali was leaning against the ropes,taking Foreman's punches,one brother left the room afraid of a result and feeling similar to that of Ali-Frazier 1.
Then it happened..Ali knocked Foreman out. Hartford Connecticut is thousands of miles away from Kinshash Zaire,but the excitement and noise coming from the Daniels brothers could have easily matched the buzz coming from Kinshasha.
Mom came running upstairs to quiet us down. She was first greeted by me shouting "Ali! Ali! Ali!!"
My brother's last words? "On this day when the White Man's President is down,the Black Man's Champion has risen!"

In the years since,I've had my share of troubles,some of them rather serious. Life can throw some serious punches at times.I've used the Ali-Foreman fight as a means of dealing with those struggles.
When life would be kicking my ass, I'd picture myself as Muhammad Ali up against the ropes enduring George Foreman's best punches before coming back and delivering a knockout blow. Ali Bomaye.

More to come..