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On 17 January 1942 three-time heavyweight boxing champion and anti-war activist Muhammad Ali was born in Louisville, Kentucky. During the Vietnam war, Ali refused to be inducted into the armed forces and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for draft evasion. In 1967, he refused the draft, and told reporters: “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam after so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?” He was widely denounced by the press at the time, with television presenter David Susskind calling him "a disgrace to his country" and Sports Illustrated denouncing him as a "demagogue and an apologist for his so-called religion [Islam]". Ali stayed out of prison while he appealed, and in 1971 the supreme court overturned the verdict. Learn more about draft resistance and the movement against the Vietnam War in our podcast episodes 43-46 with participants. Find it on all major podcast apps or our website: https://workingclasshistory.com/2020/09/23/e43-46-the-movement-against-the-vietnam-war-in-the-us/
Birth of Muhammad Ali - WCH | Stories
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