Cassius Clay speech at the University of Iowa Memorial Union, November 19, 1967

Speaker 1: The broadcasting service of the University of Iowa, in cooperation with the Department of English and the Afro-American Studies Program at the University, presents a series of programs on Afro-American Culture. These programs are presented as background material for the course Afro-American Literature. Today's program is an address by Cassius Clay, recorded in November of 1967 at the University of Iowa. Cassius Clay: Thank you very much. First of all, I'd like to say it's indeed an honor and a pleasure to come here and see so many people coming out just to see me. Usually, when I'm boxing, I expect to see 20 times as much, but just coming to talk and to look at me and especially an ex-champion too, that makes you feel good. Cassius Clay: I got this from Jackie Gleason, but mine is water. Cassius Clay: I started out, as the father just said, Father [inaudible], I met him two years ago in Louisville, Kentucky. I was there on some contract business, getting ready for one of my annihilations, and he happened to be in town on some convention, wasn't it? Some convention. He's shy. He got my address. He was real friendly, something like Father Groppi. Not as bold, but he was. Anyway, he got my number and I got his number and I lost his number because I get so many numbers and things. The laundry and every day when I got in, I have 15-20 cards. I look at this one, I tear this up. I look at this one and I tear this one up. I got so man y cards and things from people. I lost his, but he did call me. I was staying at a hotel at the time, before I bought my home and before I remarried. He called me and stayed in contact with me and every once in a while he would be in Chicago on business. He would come over and stop and talk to me. One time he made a special trip just to talk to me. Cassius Clay: A few days ago, he called and he said, "Hello, Champ." I said, "Yes." He said, "This is Father." I said, "Yes." "Do you think you'll ever be around Davenport way?" I said, "well, maybe one day." "Well, if you could, could you please come through? We have a nice campus up there and this is a small country town and the people there don't get to see great champs like you. Could you come by? I'm sure we'll have a great turnout." I had nothing to do today. Many people say you're awful witty. I run with Johnny Carson, so he teaches me a lot of this fast talk. Cassius Clay: Anyway, I told him I could come on over and I'm sorry to get here to see so many people and he didn't you charge nothing to get in. I told him, I said, "Man, I'm not fighting like I used to be. They done cut my money off. I can't work in the country. I can't leave the country. I've got all kind of expenses and bills and lawyers fees to pay. I could use a little money. You could get at least a dollar a head, couldn't you?" He said, "Well, Champ, we wouldn't want do them like that," so I'll just see him after the show. Cassius Clay: Seriously, I'm here at my own expense. It's just a few hours, an hour flight from Chicago, and I like getting out and meeting people. I am a minister now of the Islamic religion. There's talk about leading teacher, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and it helps me meeting people and talking to people because in a few minutes I would like to open this little time up for questioning period because there are many things you read about me in the newspapers, you see on the television, and you hear that are of controverse and other things, and sports questions and religious questions and racial problems that we're now having in the country and the Vietnam Crisis that I'm involved in and many questions. I imagine there are many questions and things you want to ask me. In a few minutes, I'd like to stop and let you ask a few questions because I could stay here and talk. You know me, I love to talk. I could talk for five hours. Then, still, there are many things that I have found out in my travels that go unanswered. In a few minutes, I would like to let you ask a few questions. Cassius Clay: Somebody needs some cough syrup out here. Everybody's starting to cough all of a sudden. You notice that one person will [coughs] watch this [coughs]. There you go. Cassius Clay: Now, what I was saying, I started out boxing. Many of you have followed my ring career. I started out boxing 14 years ago and I didn't do too good in high school because I bullied my way through high school. I didn't have to work like most students. I was a good boxer from the age of 15 on up and I would always bluff the skinniest boys in the class. You know it's the skinniest boys with the glasses, they're usually the smartest, and whenever I would go to class, I would always sit by the skinniest boy. When we would be getting tests, I would always say, What's the answer to number six?" He said, "I'm not going to tell." I said, "I'll see you after school. What's the answer to number six?" I said, "What's the answer to number six." He said, "All right, all right. It's number four. Four." Cassius Clay: Anyway, I was the National Golden Glove champion, as you all remember, in '59 and '60, the National AAU champion in '59 and '60, and in '60 I won the World Olympic Gold Medal. I was in high school in Louisville, Kentucky during this time. I would bully my way through school. I never dreamed that I would be the center attraction. I would create the image to speak before so many intelligent college students because, after all, I barely got out of high school and if you had told me a few years ago that you would be teaching college students, I wouldn't believe it. I wouldn't have believed it. Cassius Clay: Not only did I run into boxing, but I ran into a few more things, a few more controversial things, that made me different from the average athlete. For example, there's never been a time in history where a boxer's come to talk to people like you. No, boxers usually don't talk. They ask them a question, he might say, "Da-da-da-da-da-da-da." Now, in the past, you are the last people boxers would come to talk to, but by me being unusual and different and been so controversial, well I can talk on many subjects. I can talk hours on religion. I can talk hours on race problems, hours on any subject you really want to talk about. This is why I say I found it to be successful to let the people ask questions and the questions usually lead into little lectures. This way, we can get around and give everybody a chance to ask me here, while I am here live in living color. Cassius Clay: You usually see me over at the Mike Douglas Show or the Joey Bishop Show or the Merv Griffin Show or the Johnny Carson Show or arguing with Howard Cosell over Wide World of Sports. That's one man I can't stand. I almost hit one day on TV. Yeah. Almost hit him. We were talking about something on television and he had the nerve to look at me and say, "You're not a dumb boy," and I said, "You're not as dumb as you look." He said, "Champion, who are you fighting next?" I said, "You." He said, "You might very well get your chance." I said, "If you dreamed it, you'd apologize." After the show, he almost slapped me after the show. No, he's really crazy. No, he really is. He almost grabbed my in my collar and said, "Boy, don't you talk to a white man like that on television." Yeah, he told me that behind the doors. I walked on away because I'd get 10 years if I hit that little skinny man. I'd get 20 years. They gave me five now. I'd get 20 if I hit that man. Cassius Clay: Anyway, I like to open this little time up for questioning and who would like to ask me a question. Here I am. The fellow, give him a chance, way back there. Holler. Cassius Clay: Well, for Sonny Liston to get the title back, he would have to whip me like in the western days. The fastest gun alive was the fastest until somebody beat him, and the only way you could be the fastest gun alive was to outdraw the fastest gun alive. All of the controversies based around me and everybody fighting for champions, there's only one real champion, legalized, physical champion and that's me. They might not recognize it on paper, but physically I can whip them all. For Sonny to get the title back, he would have to beat me. Before he do that, he would rather go to Vietnam with a BB gun. That's right. Cassius Clay: Yes, fellow. Audience member: [inaudible] Cassius Clay: Could you stand up? It's better when you stand. Audience member: [inaudible] Cassius Clay: Oh, he's asked me why there's a lot of Afro-American groups being organized, Black Pride and culture among Black people. Clearly, it's among Black people. Unity among Black people, dignity and do something for self is starting these type movements, which is what they need. He was saying, for the people that didn't hear the question, he was saying that many of these students and people all of a sudden want to be called Black, where a few years ago they hated Black. He mentioned that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, our leader who teaches us that by nature we are not Negroes. It's a name given to us during slavery, and he was asking me to explain why is it that they don't like the name Negro no more as a whole throughout the country. Cassius Clay: As far as what we're taught by our leader, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the word Negro comes from a Greek word called nekro, n-e-k-r-o, and there's a word called nekrology and ology means study of and nekro means dead. N-e-k-r-o in English is n-e-g-r-o. The different letters are translatable. K, G, and C in different languages, they sound different but mean the same. The English version of the word is pronounced as Negro, n-e-g-r-o, which means dead, and we have been made, during slavery, we were put in a dead condition. Dead morally. Dead mentally. Dead spiritually. Dead socially. Dead economically. Dead culturally. Dead financially. Many of them don't like the word Negro because the word, we print some three million newspapers a week, the Muslim newspaper printed by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and he teaches us in the paper. He's got a national radio show and although they are not followers of Elijah Muhammad, they take what they do understand and they use it. Cassius Clay: This is one thing he's been preaching, that we are not Negroes. There's no country named Negroes and they have now adopted this saying because, for example, Chinese are named after China. Cubans are named after Cuba. Puerto Ricans are named after Puerto Rico. Hawaiians are named after Hawaii. Mexicans are named after Mexico. Italians are named after Italy. Israelis are named after Israel. Egyptians are named after Egypt. What country's named Negroes? See, there's no country named. Cassius Clay: After getting a knowledge of the truth and being educated in 1968, they don't want to be called Negroes no more because they found out that this is a given, a stigma given to them by the old first slave masters. Now they are wanting to be called, you may say this white man this. Indian may say I'm a red man. Chinese will say I'm a yellow man. Now they want to be called Black man, although they are not Black. We are not Black physically, but we are from the Blacker nations. Although a white man is not white, a Chinese is not actually yellow, an Indian is not actually red, but he's still a red man, a yellow man or a white man. We want to be the Black men. Cassius Clay: These truths have been taught to our people, and they are now waking up. This is why they are changing. Cassius Clay: Any more questions? Audience member: [inaudible] Cassius Clay: I think the WBA elimination is good because it gives all of the boys a chance to make a living. They needed that elimination even when I was fighting because after I beat Zora Foley, even if I was still fighting there and wasn't catching no hell that I'm catching, there wouldn't be nobody to fight no way. This elimination is good, to fight to see who's good enough to have the honor to fight me later because they don't have nobody around to fight me. I'm not bragging. I'm not bragging. People say you bragging or you conceited. I'm not conceited. I'm convinced. Cassius Clay: Bragging means you think you have it when you don't. Cassius Clay: Anymore questions? Audience member: [inaudible] Cassius Clay: My future in boxing, well right now, is dead right now because this army problem is so serious and so many people are dying in Vietnam. The hostility is so great for anybody who won't go. Right now it would be impossible for me to really get in the ring and expect to make a living off the people whose sons and daughters are in Vietnam. I understand that. I can understand how they may feel about me, but it's just too bad they don't understand how serious I am about my religious beliefs. Right now, I don't think I'd have too much chance of fighting until this war is over or until the judge in the higher courts let me off and recognize me as a minister, which I am. Or until I spend a few days in jail and come back. It's all up to the courts. If we get justice in the higher courts, I might shuffle again. Speaker 3: [inaudible] the question I hear most frequently and I'm sure you hear it a good deal too is why would the precedent already established for what boxers and athletes do in the service, you didn't simply take the induction, go in and do the exhibition boxing that would have been required of you, rather than to bring down so much difficulty on your own head? Cassius Clay: Well, I'll say this. That's a good question and a lot of people ask me that. Well, a few government officials themselves told me just what you did, that I wouldn't do nothing, that I would just box exhibitions, work a hospital, whatever I want. There's one thing they must realize. Number one, first, I am a Muslim. I am a devout follower of the religion of Islam, which is believed in by some 750 million Muslims on earth. There's nothing new. I'm a believer in the Holy Quran and every word in it. I've been following it ever since I joined in 1963. Cassius Clay: One problem, I'm going to say this so you understand what I'm talking about. I had to divorce the prettiest, one of the prettiest Black woman in the country because she wouldn't conform to the faith like she promised. I won appeal. I won the decision in Miami because my wife wouldn't conform to the Islamic faith like she promised, and I was granted a divorce. Well, I've been having religious problems, if you noticed, even before the draft came up, so this is not something they can use to say that I'm doing it just because I don't want to go. Cassius Clay: Now, I was formally backed by 10 white millionaires of Louisville, Kentucky. They had a press conference not long before our contract expired, and they told the press that I have turned down $10,800,000 that I could have in movies, commercials, advertisements, endorsements, and rock and roll records. $10,800,000 that I could have kept, which about $4 million would have been mine after taxes. I couldn't take it because of my strict religious beliefs. Cassius Clay: Now, the draft is another thing coming up against my religious beliefs. We are taught in the Holy Quran that we who declare ourselves to be righteous Muslims do not take parts in no wars in no way, fashion or form that take lives of other humans. Well, if I was boxing exhibitions, I would be entertaining the troops. If I was in a hospital, I would be doing something. This was written before I was born. There's nothing that I'm doing. This was written thousands of years before I was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1942, January the 17th, Monday morning in the General Hospital. This was written way before I was before. I'm not using these boys as an excuse, but I don't know why so much hell on me. Cassius Clay: Now, I'm not going around saying I've got a bad knee. I can't go to the Army. My knee is bad. Still, I'm out somewhere's playing ball. I'm not going around saying I got to take care of my mama, and I got $10 million. I'm not taking my draft card and burning it up right on the White House steps. I haven't done nothing like that, but yet I'm the scapegoat. I'm the bad one out of a whole bunch. I haven't ran to Canada like thousands of real citizens are doing, but now I'm the bad one. My grounds are legal. I'm a Muslim. My leader, Elijah Muhammad, is the most powerfullest Black man that's ever been on the American scene. He has ordained me. We are authorized religion. We even teach in the prisons in America. We have temples and mosques and meetings in prisons. I have some 750,000 followers that I minister to from coast to coast. Cassius Clay: Now, who is it to say that I'm not a minister? Now, who is it to throw me in a jail and say I'm not a minister? If Pope Paul, if this man was in Russia and Pope Paul and Russia had a war and this man said I can't take parts in no wars, it's against my religion, and they said we don't know if you're a priest or not, and Pope Paul wrote a letter saying in the name of 600 million Christians this man, Father Couch, is my minister, from Pope Paul, now who is it to say he's not a minister? Who's going to judge him? Cassius Clay: I am a Muslim. I am a devout follower of the Islamic religion. My spiritual leader and teacher is recognized in American and the world is Elijah Muhammad. I'm with him five days a week at his dinner table in Chicago. He's teaching me now. Now, who is the American government or anybody to put me in jail now and say I'm not a minister? Who is it to say I'm not sincere? Cassius Clay: The problem is this. If he's sincere, because many boys pretend to be ministers, some take their mother's pocketbook to the draft board. Oh, what can I join, and they check his record and find out he wasn't a sister yesterday but he's a sister today just to get out of the army. If you check my record, you'll find out that I'm sincere and, if you check everybody who knows, just the mere fact of me giving up the Heavyweight Championship of the whole world, given up millions of dollars in commercials, advertisements, endorsements, and might be in a jail suffering loneliness and confinement for five long years, what you mean if I'm not sincere I'm crazy? Now, what do I have to do to be sincere? I'm not on trial. Justice is on trial. You understand? Cassius Clay: Anymore questions? Answered your question, I didn't mean to take so long, but I told you. I warned you before that your questions would lead into lectures, didn't I? Cassius Clay: There's a brother, a Muslim brother here. Where you from, Baghdad? Audience member: [inaudible] Cassius Clay: Salam alaikum Audience member: [inaudible] Cassius Clay: Well, he was just saying that ever since my image, ever since the rejection of the draft and all of the controversial issues have came up, that my image in Asia and Africa, all of the Muslim countries is so great and heroic, but in America among the magazines and the press, it's not too good and he's right. It's not the masses of the American people, Black or white, that's against me for my stand. It's just the few boxing commissioners and it's just a few men who are running for certain offices in certain states that have been kicking me out hoping to win the people and to make them think that they are men to vote for. Cassius Clay: This turnout, for example, what you see here is the same everywhere I go. Every city in America, every village, it's the same. It's not the people that's on me, but it's just the certain few boxing promoters who's been pressured by higher officials in government. Naturally, they're not going to buck government officials just for me. This is what's stopping it. It's just a few people. It's not the whole power structure, and this is one reason they won't let me go to Japan to fight. I tried to get permission to go to Japan and the prosecuting attorney that came in from Washington and said, "Judge, we do not, Washington do not want this man to leave the country because he is too well followed and liked in places like Japan," which is anti-American in many things, and Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria. My mail is so great from, where you from, Baghdad? Iraq, countries such as yours. I have all kind of government invitations by the presidents of your country. Audience member: [inaudible] Cassius Clay: Yeah, I have government, I have 15 invitations from governments and this is one reason they wouldn't let me leave the country because the prosecuting attorney just said that my penalty is so serious, until this five years in prison and $10,000 fine, he said is enough to make a man not want to come back. Now, I wouldn't leave the country, leave my people in their struggle, and my mother and father and my brother. I'd be a fool to leave the country just for a few years in prison. I wouldn't do that. I have nothing over there. My people's struggle is here and just four years at the most in prison, I wouldn't be but 29 when I got out no way, so I'm not going to exile myself from this country just for a little old prison term. I'd be a coward. The image that I have, that's the last thing I want to be is a coward. Everything I do is courageous and bold. Leaving the country, that would kill it all. Cassius Clay: I believe that they know that I won't leave the country, but the idea is just to dry me up financially, hoping that I'll weaken, but I won't. If I go raggedy, I won't. They say that the reason is, the exact words he said, he said, "Judge, there are 600 million Muslims who would gladly take this man in. He's been made an honorary citizen of all of these countries and if he leave, he could easily be a millionaire fugitive. On these grounds, we don't want him to leave the country." When you said that I'm popular in Asia and Africa, you're right and not only Asia and Africa, but all of Europe because not only Asia and Africa and Vietnam, even all white Europe is against it. Even Canada. Nobody's against me for my religious beliefs. Just a few people here in power that's holding up the whole show. That's all. Cassius Clay: That was another lecture, wasn't it? Audience member: [inaudible] Cassius Clay: If I met Joe Louis? All the computer machines, they have all the fighters fighting each other. What he's asked of me, will make a prediction on my fight if I fight Joe Louis. See, they have a computer machine, see, they couldn't get me whopped in the ring, they're going to get whooped by machine. Cassius Clay: They have a computer machine to compare all of the great fighters in the history, from John L. Sullivan, Rocky Marciano, Joe Louis, [inaudible], Max Baer, Max Schmeling, myself, all of us. They are imagining that these fellows talk. I beat Max Melon not long ago, beat him up pretty bad. They were right. They're taking the weak points, the good point, the hitting power of each man, figuring out how he jabs, how he hooks, what kind of right hand did he have, and this machine is pretty accurate. They imagine that we fought. He asked me what would I do, what do I predict if I fought Joe Louis, and these computers, machines, you hear them over the radio. Cassius Clay: Here's how me and Joe Louis would sound over your radio. Ding. Ali comes out to meet Louis. But Louis starts to retreat. If Louis goes back an inch farther, he'll wind up in a ring side seat. Ali swings with a left. Ali swings with a right. Look at the kid carry the fight. Louis keeps backing, but there's not enough room. It's a matter of time. Then Ali lowers the boom. Now Ali lands with a right. What a beautiful swing and the punch lifts Louis clean out of the ring. Cassius Clay: Louis is still rising and the referee wears a frown for he can't start counting til Louis comes down. Now Louis disappears from view. The crowd is getting frantic, but our radar stations have picked him up. He's somewhere's over the Atlantic. Who would have thought when they came to fight that they would witness the launching of a colored satellite? Cassius Clay: I don't know. I don't know what my role is and if he asked me what do I think my role is or my future role in the civil rights movement. Number one, we don't take part in what you call civil rights. We have nothing against people who fight for what they call civil rights. See, we have like 22, 25 million people here who are struggling for freedom, justice and equality. Our approaches are different. The same in war. Cassius Clay: Take Vietnam for an example. One man is fighting the war from the air. One man is on the land fighting. One man is under the water in a submarine. One man is on top of the water. But they're all still fighting the same common enemy, they say, but they have different approaches. Now, you have the Corps, Urban League, Axnick, Muslim, NAACP, this and that, and they all have different reasons. Cassius Clay: One man believes that inner marriage is the solution and over a period of years, everybody will be white. This is what he want to do and we don't want to do that. We can't follow his movement. Another man believes that open housing, better schooling with whites, marrying whites, living with whites, eating with whites, riding with white, he thinks that's the solution. We don't think that's a solution. One man believed getting some matches and some gasoline bombs and burn the town down. We don't believe that's a solution. One man believes that good education, education, education is a solution. We don't believe that because I know some educated fools. They got nothing but education of everybody else but themselves and they walking blind men. All education and no knowledge of their own self. They're fools. Cassius Clay: We're not naming which movements represent these things, but this is the mixture of the ideas that's with our people. Cassius Clay: Now, number one, what we believe, our program, the solution to our problem, this is the part that I play or I may say that I would like to play. Knowledge of self, in kind, a man must have before he can be free or know what direction he's going in. For an example, here comes a man. He says how you doing, buddy. Fine. What's your name, who are you, where you going? I don't know. Where'd you come from? I don't know. Who's your mother, who's your father, what's your address? I don't know. Well, he's alive physically, but mentally he's got amnesia. We have been made during slavery, 22 million people with amnesia. We believe that this man, who's called a Negro, must be woken up to the time he's living in, to true nature, and to what he must do before others respect him. This is the solution. Not begging whites to clean up the ghetto and demonstrating because the government and the mayor don't clean up the ghetto, but the ghetto is not in the neighborhood. The ghetto is in the people. Cassius Clay: The people make the ghetto. The ghetto don't make the people. People make the ghetto and the condition of the 22 million of our people today as a whole, if they were given a $400 billion dollar housing project, it would be a hole in a year and six months. The problem is teaching the people. My role, answering your question, is to preach the truth to them, that Elijah Muhammad is teaching them, that we'll make them better citizens in American and we'll take them off of your back. That truth is that they don't know the knowledge of themselves. Cassius Clay: For example, we call ourselves Negroes. Well, why are we called Negroes? Chinese are named after China, as I just said. All people are named after country. We don't know who we are. If I said we don't have our names, Cassius Clay was American White. If I said here comes Chang Chong through that door, you don't have to look. You know that's a Chinaman. If I said here comes Mr. Khrushchev, you'd know that's a Russian. If I said here comes Mr. Lamumba, you'd know that's an African. Here comes Mr. Cocigan, you'd know he's a Russian. Here comes Morning Star Rolling Thunder, you'd know that's an Indian. If I said here comes Mr. Washington or Mr. Clay, you don't know who he is, white or color, until you see him. Here is 22 million who don't have their names and think that these are their names. Cassius Clay: There's 22 million people who's been brainwashed to love white and actually hate themselves. By them being brainwashed to love white, they wear you to death, chase your daughter, run you out of your neighborhood, run you out of your school. Just a worry because he's been taught and made like that because when he was a little bitty boy, he was taught that Santa Claus brought him his toys. He saw a white man. Cassius Clay: Unconsciously, this is brainwashing. Then he got a little older. He went to church. He saw Jesus. A white man, long blond hair and blue eyes. He'd look at all the angels, he saw all white angels. No colored angels, all white angels. I guess the colored angels is in the kitchen preparing the milk and honey. Cassius Clay: He don't see them, I'm explaining your question. He don't see. He don't see no colored angels. He look at the Lord's Supper, he see all white. He look at Tarzan, the King of the Jungle, all white. Beating up all Africans. Oh, he's getting scared now. Then he turn around and he look at Miss America, white. Miss Universe, white. Miss World, white. He look at the president, a white house. He look at the cowboy picture, a good guy on the white horse. He go to the grocery store, he see the angel food cake is a white cake, but the devil food cake is a chocolate cake. He hate Black. Cassius Clay: Right there, unconsciously, he's getting to hate Black. He don't want his own. Hates hisself. Everything he sees as authority and goodness is white. He was taught in church that he can't go to heaven until he's washed in lamb blood until he's white as snow and when he get to heaven, he walk on a milky white way. He look at the TV cartoon, the little ugly duckling, he was Black and the little white ducks walked in the front and the little Black duck caught all the hell. He saw the Black cat was the bad luck. He's been brainwashed, you see. He look at TV commercials, White Owl cigars. White Swan soap. King White Soap. White Cloud tissue paper. White Rain hair rinse. White tornado. Oh, I've never seen a white tornado because they're usually Black, you know. Yeah, they're usually Black. Cassius Clay: Yeah, White Plus toothpaste. White Rain hair rinse. Then he look up and I said, "You sure got a good memory. You don't forget nothing. You got a memory like a white elephant." That's a saying they have, you know, so there you have this crinkle sign that was created during the 300 years of slavery, taught just what the master want him to know. Now, it's backfiring on you. My role is to teach him the truth so he'll love Black, so he'll respect his own women, clean up his own neighborhood, get him a farm, grow his food, build his own school, build his own house. Cassius Clay: It's human nature for tigers to be with tigers, lions with lions, monkeys with monkeys, crocodiles with crocodiles, alligators with alligators, red ants with the red ants, Black ants with the Black ants. Blue birds are going this way and the red birds are going this way, they get all mixed up and they all come out going their own way you notice. You see the pigeon with the pigeon, the eagle with the eagle. Everything is with their own. Chinese eat with chopsticks. They like chopsticks. They live Chang, Chong, clean, ting music. Indians like Indian food. Mexicans like Mexican food. Everybody's got their own clothing, their own dance. Whites like their culture, like their tight living, like talk their talk, talk their slang. Blacks have their type food and the two just won't really mix. It's against nature. It's not that we hate one another. It's against nature. It's human nature to love your own and want to be yourself, want to marry your own. Every man wants a son that look like I'm him. Cassius Clay: What I'm saying is that this is my role, to teach to them the truth that whites never taught them. Then when they hear it, they don't integrate no more. He want to marry his own woman. He's not forcing himself in your restaurant. He's getting him a restaurant. He's not begging you to come in your neighborhood. He want to get him a good, clean neighborhood. That's my role. I don't know if you call this civil rights or what, but this is what we preach. Cassius Clay: She asked me to care to demonstrate the shuffle in slow motion. It's impossible to demonstrate the shuffle in slow motion. It's too fast. Slow motion cameras don't even detect the speed. Yeah. I don't feel like doing it right now. Maybe after we through talking. I want to keep my mind in the little off and on, little serious mood, happy, gay and we'll clown later. Right now, because they have a few questions they want to ask. Cassius Clay: Did you ask one yet? Stand up and talk loud. Audience member: [inaudible] Cassius Clay: Well, yes. We were going to fight Wilt Chamberlain. He asked me was there any possibility that I was going to fight Wilt Chamberlain. That's right. I thought it was a joke myself, for real. You see it on Wide World of Sports? I was there with Howard Cosell again. He reminds me, who'd he like me, Franklinstein, you know the Count Dracula or somebody. He's got that weird look. You see this fellow who created Franklinstein, he stayed with him. Cassius Clay: I went to the show. I thought it was a joke, but it was serious. Chamberlain was serious, and he did want me to fight. I told him before I fight him, he'll have to cut the beard off because I'm not fighting no Billy goat. You remember that? Cassius Clay: Somebody said could you describe a fight between you and Chamberlain. I said it wouldn't last long. He said well, what would happen? Crack, crack, crack, crack. Timber. That's all. Cassius Clay: Floyd Patterson's a person. He seems to be, he means right. He's too humble. He's too good hearted. Every time he knock a man down, he want to pick him up and kiss him and he feels so sorry. He's shameful. He goes out and puts on beards and he hides. When he lose, then he's real meek. He talks at the wrong time. Out of all the people to attack, he jumped on me about my name, about my religion, made an international fool out of his self and got a good whooping behind it. He's a little confused. He's mixed up. He means right, but I don't know what's wrong with him. He as a pretty good boxer, but he's been taken too many beatings now. Out of the ring, he's a nice, quiet, humble, what you may say a good, real catholic, real good Christian. He's real religious and he's confused and he's mixed up. Acting, he's disturbed acting. He's an individual. He's in a world of his own. Cassius Clay: Let me see this. Oh god, not you. Cassius Clay: Huh? Yeah. That's the trouble. That's what I applied for, when I should have put the ministry down and this is what they were reluctant about when I changed it. I was a minister at the time. I was doing the works of a minister, preaching, the teaching of the religion, and my leader had authorized me. I wasn't being introduced as minister, but I was. I was a minister all the time and didn't know it. Then my other lawyer, Mr. Hayton Covington, came in and said you're a minister, which I was. When I first put that down, I didn't have this in mind. Then we changed it, but that's what I put down first, conscientious objector. Cassius Clay: You over here in the yellow shirt with the glasses, little skinny boy with the glasses. Audience member: [inaudible] Cassius Clay: What I think of the Johnson Administration? I couldn't even start talking about that no way because we don't take no part in politics. I don't know nothing about politics. No way to be victorious in politics. They change the law every minute. They write it when they want it. They go books I've never seen, never will see, and there's no salvation in politics for me. Cassius Clay: No, that's getting in political talk too. Question the legality of the war. I don't take part in no wars. I don't care if we jumped up and fought Russia tomorrow, jumped up and fought Africa, jumped up and fight Israel, jumped up and fought Mexico. We don't take parts in no wars. To take the lives of humans, unless there's a holy war declared by Allah, God Himself or His messenger or His profit of that day, and this is not going on. It's not just Vietnam, no war. Cassius Clay: No. I can't break away from the Muslim religion because if I did, where would a go? To Martin Luther King to get my head whooped around Alabama and Georgia? Why would I want to go to break away from something that's made me so great and so respected and so powerful world wide. Here's a man here from Baghdad that says his president, millions of his people are dying to see me. They never recognize integrators or Christians or Negroes in these countries. They never recognize Negroes in Egypt, Asia, Africa, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan. I've set at the table with these presidents, ate dinner with them, hugged them, kissed them. They're Muslims like me. They have names like Muhammad Ali like me. If I break away from this, where would I go? This is the image that the press has, plays up, to make it look like I don't know what I'm doing. They don't want to give my leader, Elijah Muhammad, my religion the credit for converting a big man like me in sports. There's just too much honor to it. Cassius Clay: They want to make it look like I want to break away. Malcolm X didn't break away. Malcolm X was put out by the boss. Malcolm X was put out three times, and the last time he stayed out because he wanted to start his own violent movement, but Malcolm X made a remark about Kennedy being killed which was bad. Kennedy was loved by the whites and Blacks. He was a good president for the country and when that fool jumped up and remarked, made a remark praising Kennedy's death, he put the life of every Muslim out there walking the street on the line. Cassius Clay: Elijah Muhammad had to let the world know that Malcolm X was speaking and representing his self and not him. Set him down and expelled him for nine months. During that nine months time, he came to my house in Florida, said he wants to start his own movement. He will still be with Elijah Muhammad, but he wants to get some rifles and be violent because he's moving too slow. He preached by the sword, he'd died by the sword. He didn't get rubbed out by us, as you said, because he left. He didn't left, he got put out. You don't leave Elijah Muhammad. I can't leave Elijah Muhammad. Cassius Clay: Elijah Muhammad's a bonafide leader. He's been here 36 years. No one would challenge him, attack him on nothing he say. He prints four million newspapers a week. He's got mosque, universities, schools throughout the country. He's recognized throughout the whole Eastern world. He made me. He named me Muhammad Ali. He taught me that I was the greatest. He taught me everything that I know. Everything that I'm saying now is intelligent. We're talking. We have a nice discussion. Many people are shocked hearing the truth told so plain as far our problem is concerned. I got all of this from Elijah Muhammad. Cassius Clay: Now, if I break away from Elijah Muhammad, where am I going to go? Where am I going to go? Who am I going to? Where I'm going to that's better than this? I'm respected by whites and Blacks throughout the country and the world. I have 29 government invitations to Muslim countries. If I left Elijah Muhammad, they can't accept me no more. Where am I going to go? Go out there and march somewhere and get my head whooped trying to live inside somebody hating me? Go into a restaurant where they might poison me? Is that where I'm going to go? Where will I go if I leave Elijah Muhammad? No where but to hell, so what you mean? I ain't going nowhere and I hope I don't go nowhere. I hope he don't put me out because he's awful powerful with us. I'm not going nowhere, don't want to go nowhere, but get closer to him because he's the only man for Black people to follow who's teaching them some truth that they never heard. Cassius Clay: Yes, sir? Audience member: [inaudible] Cassius Clay: Well, I'm not against no policy in Vietnam. I didn't say nothing about that. I'm not for no war. See. What would I say if the war ended tomorrow and they went to war with Germany? Then what's my excuse if I'm against Vietnam? I've got to make up another excuse. I'm for no war. What I'm saying is that the demonstrations, I don't have nothing to say about that because the people who will get their head beat until the blood run down them, they are serious. If they are serious, then I'm with them if they believe they're right, but I don't have no comment one way or another you understand. You ain't going to trap me in no politics. Cassius Clay: I think I'm too smart. Yeah. Cassius Clay: Well, I would think your own white American government will admit that Israel attacked Egypt first. You can't say that we were; they were defending themselves. See, you trapped yourself. You will never catch a Muslim country attacking nobody. Not Mulims and Israel did. They did a lot of bully talk over there in Asia before, but Israel was the actual attackers. This is what the press and government itself admit. Plus, this, to them, is a holy war. This is two countries whose been having differences for the past 2,000 years I'd imagine. This is their internal problem. I'm not there. I'm not a so-called citizen of the country. Cassius Clay: Their troubles, I don't understand. I'm way over in America with my problem first. God protects those who helps themselves. Self preservation is the first law of nature. We are striving for our freedom, justice and equality in America, not South Vietnam, not Egypt or Israel. We are wrapped up in our program here. They are taught not to take part in wars, but they have something in the religion where, if their country's attacked, see we are taught not to be the aggressor but defend ourselves if attacked. They have reasons for what they did and they were attacked. Cassius Clay: I can't comment on why they fight because I don't follow the Islamic teachings that's taught there. We follow the same teaching, but our approach is different. The approach of the teaching, basically it's the same. I was in my apartment asleep when it broke out, so I can't be considered guilty because they were fighting because they have their own problems, their own reason. It was their whole country being attacked. Cassius Clay: Yeah. If America was attacked tomorrow, I'd fight if it was attacked. If it's for my own good, I've got to fight. Cassius Clay: I understand. Right. Well, it's too bad the white man don't feel that way about it. You're right. We get back off the boat, he says to the white man, when get back from Vietnam he was saying to me that the Negro can say I went to Vietnam. I fought. I have one eye. I have no arm. I'm not Black. I'm not white. I'm an American. I'm a man. That's what the Negro can say. The Negro's right. It's just too bad the white man don't feel that way too as a whole because he wouldn't have to come over here and get his head whooped just for demonstrating. He wouldn't have to come over here and get shot down with tanks and machine guns. Cassius Clay: Not only did he fight in Vietnam, but he could say I fought in China to help preserve America. I fought in Germany to help preserve America. I fought in Korea to help preserve America. I even worked before the war started, 310 long years, 16 hours a day without a payday, I was just your little servant. I turned my cheek. You lynched me. You burnt me. You tarred and feathered me. You raped my women. You slaved me from day to day, treat us worse than you'd treat a human animal. Communists go where I can't go. Africans go where I can't go. We go to church every Sunday. We are so humble and meek, bet yet and still you still mistreat us today, worser than you did long ago when we start demonstrating. He can say that too, but it's just too bad it's the power structure that don't meet the little Negro halfway and show some goodness for him too. Cassius Clay: Say well slave, you done worked and plowed my fields. You done built America so, until you have enabled us to have 50 of the richest states on the planet. Little slave, you done won and fought in all of my war to preserve this land. Little slave, I don' owe you for 310 years of free labor and lynching. We got 50 states. Now that we don't need you no more, little slave, take five of the states. Now that you are doctors and lawyers and nurses and carpenters and mechanics and this and that, go over here now and build you a government and grow your own food so you can be industrious and respected. Pool your qualifications and educations for self independence slave. We don't need you no more to pick cotton because we got machines doing the work of 20,000 of you in one day and we don't want you walking the streets hungry and out of work. Then if you steal something, we shoot you and kill you. Little slave, you're free now. Go on over here and build you a home. Cassius Clay: Whites, at least you could do that. Not just say well you can have a job now or you can now marry my daughter or you can live in my neighborhood or you can eat my restaurant or I'll make you the mayor of the city or I'll let you be beside the president when he speak or I'll let you stand beside the Pope Paul when he lecture. That ain't nothing solid. That's like taking a man who done built a big old house for you and then when the work is over, give him a little old biscuit and little strangling chicken bone and say I'll treat you better today. Here's a job. Cassius Clay: What's a job? We was brought here, the sole purpose of bringing Black people here was give him a job. Today we've been catching so much hell until we're happy to get a job. What in the devil is a job? Cassius Clay: What I'm saying is when that little Negro get off the ship, he could say all of this. If he was wise, he could talk more and say I've been to Vietnam. He could put you on a whole lot of spots, but he's still a dead. He fought, but he really don't know why he fought. He don't know who he was shooting. The man he was shooting didn't call him nigger. The man he was shooting didn't put dogs on him and lynch his mom and rape him for 400 years. He just shot and he was brown too. His own Asiatic brother. He just shot him up and he come home and he's not free to shoot for himself. You understand? Cassius Clay: You're right. He could say that and more. Speaker 1: That was an address by Cassius Clay, recorded at the University of Iowa in November of 1967. This series of programs on Afro-American Culture is presented by the broadcasting service of the University of Iowa, in cooperation with Department of English and the Afro-American Studies Program at the University, as background material for the course, Afro-American Literature. This has been a recorded presentation of the broadcasting service of the University of Iowa.