I ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong... No Viet Cong ever called me a n***er – ALI ON WHY HE REFUSED TO FIGHT IN VIETNAM
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ar ly Qur’an t them Viet Cong... T They never called me n*****.” In April 1967, at his army i induction ceremony i in Houston, he re refused three times to step forward at the call of hi his name. An officer warne warned him he was committi committing a felony punishable by five y years in prison and a fine of $10,000.$10 000 AgainAg he refused. Consequently he was arrested and on the same day the New York State Athletic Commission suspended his boxing licence and stripped him of his title, with other bodies following suit. Ali would not get a licence to box in any state for more than three years. He was tried on June 20, 1967, and after 21 minutes of deliberation, the jury found him guilty. The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction before Ali took his case to the Supreme Court. The price he paid for standing up for his principles was immense.
He found himself denounced in Congress, demonised by White America as a coward and a subversive, made bankrupt, criminalised, and stripped of his ability to box, which cost him his world title, his livelihood and three-and-a-half of his finest years in the ring.
But he only grew taller. As the national mood turned against involvement in Vietnam, more people began to sympathise with Ali’s plight.
To the ever- growing anti- war movement he became a cult hero and toured the country giving speeches, making many famous remarks and speeches. His words which made such an impression included: “I am not going 10,000 miles to help murder, kill, and burn other people to simply help continue the domination of white slavemasters over dark people the world over. This is the day and age when such evil injustice must come to an end.”
Finally on June 28, 1971, the Supreme Court reversed his conviction for refusing induction but by then Ali was already back in the ring. In August, 1970, he was granted a licence to box by the City of Atlanta Athletic Commission, and that October stopped Jerry Quarry after three rounds.
The next month, New York State’s Supreme Court ruled that he had been unjustly denied a boxing licence and he fought Oscar Bonavena, stopping him in the 15th and clearing the way for a title fight against Joe Frazier.
The fight, in Madison Square Garden in March