The Greatest: Muhammad Ali

Content Warning: This section discusses racism.

As Myers outlines, sports sustain a meaningful connection to important social and political issues of the day. Muhammad Ali came to fame in an era when athletes, especially Black athletes, were expected to maintain a low profile and stick to their assigned field. For the great fighters who preceded Ali, such as Sugar Ray Robinson or Joe Louis, they “did not speak, they were spoken for” (78). Ali was not the first or only athlete to entertain controversial positions, but he did so in a bold and unprecedented way, so in the biography, he is representative of the integration of sport and society. Ali linked the two at practically the moment he became heavyweight championship as Cassius Clay, declaring himself a member of the Nation of Islam and taking the name Muhammad Ali. In Myers’s view, the two events were meaningfully linked. Much civil rights activism was dedicated to nonviolent resistance, but to a fighter like Ali, such an approach “seemed futile against people bent on committing violent acts against black churches and black children” (46). Embracing the militant faith of the Nation was part of Ali’s role as a fighter, taking challenges head-on rather than seeking moderate accommodations.