Muhammad Ali’s return to the ring electrified Atlanta

Boxer hadn’t fought in more than three years.

It was October 1970 and the former heavyweight champion of the world hadn’t fought in three-and-a-half years.

America was divided as ever as the Vietnam War raged overseas and young men were drafted to fight — and often die — right out of high school.

Stripped of his title at the height of his career and banned from the ring for refusing to join the war after being drafted, an undefeated Muhammad Ali made his return to boxing in Atlanta as the world looked on.

In the summer of 1967, Ali had been convicted of violating Selective Service laws after famously declaring, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.”

“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 while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?” Ali asked.

As he appealed his conviction, he was stripped of his title and his license to fight by all the major boxing commissions in the U.S.

More than 50 locales denied him a chance to return to the sport — until one Southern city that had developed a reputation as the “cradle of the civil rights movement” offered him another chance.

Atlanta was the only major city willing to host Ali’s return, and the atmosphere surrounding his comeback fight against Jerry Quarry was electric, said fourtime world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield.

At the time, Holyfield was just 8 years old. The youngest of nine children growing up in Atlanta’s Summerhill neighborhood, he remembers the buzz surrounding the fight.

“It was a big atmosphere and it was all anyone was talking about,” he recalled. “That was it.”

In the years leading up to the fight, Ali had developed a reputation as America’s most outspoken athlete.

Never one to shy away from controversy, “The Louisville Lip” was revered by the nation’s civil rights leaders, and his opposition to the Vietnam War helped cement his position as a counterculture icon.

“Here’s a guy who was very articulate and said things that normally, people with his skin color wouldn’t say,” Holyfield recalled.

His return to the ring in Atlanta was set in motion when local businessman Harry Pett, who had family connections to a sports marketing firm, contacted state Sen. Leroy Johnson in the sum

JOE HOLLOWAY JR./AP Muhammad Ali delivers a hard right to Jerry Quarry on Oct. 26, 1970, in a scheduled 15 round fight at the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium in Atlanta. Ali was declared the winner after Quarry didn’t answer the bell for the fourth round. Quarry had a gash over his left eye that required 11 stitches to close.

AJC ARCHIVE AT GSU LIBRARY Muhammad Ali tosses aside his jacket as he begins preparations for the fight with Jerry Quarry in Atlanta.