Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest (17 page)

1997

O
n June 24, 1997, Muhammad Ali awoke in the nation’s capital at 5:00
A.M.
He said his prayers, ate a light breakfast, and read quietly from the Qur’an. Then, accompanied by his wife Lonnie and several friends, he left the Hay-Adams Hotel and drove to a unique destination—the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The museum was not yet open to the public when Ali arrived at 7:45
A.M.
He had come early because he feared his presence during normal visiting hours would cause a commotion unsuited to the decorum of his surroundings. Several staff members greeted Muhammad and his party when they arrived. There were introductions, and the tour began.

The mission of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is to inform, honor, and inspire. More specifically, it is designed to present the history of the persecution and murder of six million Jews and millions of other victims of Nazi tyranny; to commemorate those who died; and to encourage visitors to contemplate the moral implications of their own civic responsibilities.

Ali began by assimilating facts as he walked through the museum . . . One-and-a-half million children were exterminated in the Holocaust . . . It wasn’t just Jews . . . Gypsies, the physically disabled, mentally handicapped, and other “undesirables” were also victims . . . Books were burned, synagogues destroyed . . .

As the tour progressed, Muhammad began to draw parallels between the Holocaust and the slavery that his own ancestors endured. Ali has spoken often about how black Americans were robbed of their African names and given slave names instead. Now he learned of people whose Jewish names were replaced by numbers tattooed on their forearms. Standing in a boxcar used to transport Jews to death camps in Poland, he imagined himself in the cargo hold of a slave ship two centuries earlier.

Midway through the tour, Ali came to a glass wall bearing the names of thousands of communities eradicated during the Holocaust.

“Each of these names is a whole town?” Muhammad asked incredulously.

“Yes.”

“I never knew it was that bad.”

The tour went on . . . A pile of shoes taken from the dead at Majdanek . . . Bales of hair cut from the heads of concentration camp victims . . . A crude metal table where bodies were placed and gold teeth extracted with pliers . . . Grainy films of nude bodies piled high being bulldozed into trenches.

Ninety minutes after the tour began, Ali stopped to read a quotation in silver letters on a gray wall:

First they came for the socialists.

And I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists.

And I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews.

And I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me.

And there was no one left to speak for me.

Finally, Ali entered the Hall of Remembrance and placed a white rose beside the museum’s eternal flame.

During the course of his life, Muhammad Ali has taken many courageous stands. But his presence at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on June 24, 1997, is among his most important statements of principle.

The victims’ faces on this particular morning were Jewish. But they could just as easily have been faces from Cambodia, Bosnia, or Rwanda. By virtue of his presence, Ali demonstrated once again his solidarity with all victims of persecution. And he joined his spirit with millions of Holocaust victims and with the survivors who remember them.

REMEMBERING JOE FRAZIER

2012

I
’ve been thinking a lot lately about Joe Frazier, who died one year ago, on November 7, 2011.

I met Joe at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas on December 1, 1988. I’d just signed a contract to become Muhammad Ali’s official biographer. Two days of taping were under way for a documentary entitled
Champions Forever
that featured Ali, Frazier, George Foreman, Ken Norton, and Larry Holmes. I was there to conduct interviews for my book.

On the first morning, I sat at length with Foreman; the pre-lean-mean-grilling-machine model. George was twenty months into a comeback that was widely regarded as a joke. Six more years would pass before he knocked out Michael Moorer to regain the heavyweight throne.

“There was a time in my life when I was sort of unfriendly,” George told me. “Zaire was part of that period. I was going to knock Ali’s block off, and the thought of doing it didn’t bother me at all. After the fight, for a while I was bitter. I had all sorts of excuses. The ring ropes were loose. The referee counted too fast. The cut hurt my training. I was drugged. I should have just said the best man won, but I’d never lost before so I didn’t know how to lose. I fought that fight over in my head a thousand times. Then, finally, I realized I’d lost to a great champion; probably the greatest of all time. Now I’m just proud to be part of the Ali legend. If people mention my name with his from time to time, that’s enough for me. That, and I hope Muhammad likes me, because I like him. I like him a lot.”

Then I moved on to Ken Norton, who shared a poignant memory.

“When it counted most,” Norton reminisced, “Ali was there for me. In 1986, I was in a bad car accident. I was unconscious for I don’t know how long. My right side was paralyzed; my skull was fractured; I had a broken leg, a broken jaw. The doctors said I might never walk again. For a while, they thought I might not ever even be able to talk. I don’t remember much about my first few months in the hospital. But one thing I do remember is, after I was hurt, Ali was one of the first people to visit me. At that point, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to live or die. That’s how bad I was hurt. Like I said, there’s a lot I don’t remember. But I remember looking up, and there was this crazy man standing by my bed. It was Ali, and he was doing magic tricks for me. He made a handkerchief disappear; he levitated. I said to myself, if he does one more awful trick, I’m gonna get well just so I can kill him. But Ali was there, and his being there helped me. So I don’t want to be remembered as the man who broke Muhammad Ali’s jaw. I just want to be remembered as a man who fought three close competitive fights with Ali and became his friend when the fighting was over.”

Larry Holmes held out for cash, so our conversation was short: “I’m proud I learned my craft from Ali,” Larry said. “I’m prouder of sparring with him when he was young than I am of beating him when he was old.”

End of conversation.

That left Joe.

Frazier wouldn’t talk with me because I was “Ali’s man.” But at an evening party after the second day of taping, Joe approached me. He’d been drinking. And the bile spewed out:

“I hated Ali. God might not like me talking that way, but it’s in my heart. First two fights, he tried to make me a white man. Then he tried to make me a nigger. How would you like it if your kids came home from school crying because everyone was calling their daddy a gorilla? God made us all the way we are. He made us the way we talk and look. And the way I feel, I’d like to fight Ali-Clay-whatever-his-name-is again tomorrow. Twenty years, I’ve been fighting Ali, and I still want to take him apart piece by piece and send him back to Jesus.”

Joe saw that I was writing down every word. This was a message he wanted the world to hear.

“I didn’t ask no favors of him, and he didn’t ask none of me. He shook me in Manila; he won. But I sent him home worse than he came. Look at him now. He’s damaged goods. I know it; you know it. Everyone knows it; they just don’t want to say. He was always making fun of me. I’m the dummy; I’m the one getting hit in the head. Tell me now; him or me, which one talks worse now? He can’t talk no more, and he still tries to make noise. He still wants you to think he’s the greatest, and he ain’t. I don’t care how the world looks at him. I see him different, and I know him better than anyone. Manila really don’t matter no more. He’s finished, and I’m still here.”

Twenty-one months later, when I finished writing
Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times
, I journeyed to Ali’s home in Berrian Springs, Michigan. Lonnie Ali (Muhammad’s wife), Howard Bingham (Ali’s longtime friend and personal photographer), and I spent a week reading every word of the manuscript aloud. By agreement, there would be no censorship. Our purpose in reading was to ensure the factual accuracy of the book.

In due course, Lonnie read Frazier’s quote aloud.

There was a silent moment.

“Did you hear that, Muhammad?” Lonnie asked.

Ali nodded.

“How do you feel, knowing that hundreds of thousands of people will read that?”

“It’s what he said,” Muhammad answered.

Ali’s thoughts ended that chapter of the book.

“I’m sorry Joe Frazier is mad at me. I’m sorry I hurt him. Joe Frazier is a good man. I couldn’t have done what I did without him, and he couldn’t have done what he did without me. And if God ever calls me to a holy war, I want Joe Frazier fighting beside me.”

On the final day of our reading, Muhammad, Lonnie, Howard, and I signed a pair of boxing gloves to commemorate the experience. I took one of the gloves home with me. Howard took the other.

The following spring, I was in Philadelphia for a black-tie gala celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the historic first fight between Ali and Frazier. This was Joe’s night. It was a fight he’d won. But his hatred for all things Ali was palpable.

Early in the evening, Howard suggested that I pose for a photo with Muhammad and Joe. I stood between them. Joe wrapped his arm around my waist in what I thought was a gesture of friendship. Then, just as Howard snapped the photo, Joe dug his fingers into the flesh beneath my ribs.

It hurt like hell.

I tried to pry his hand away.

You try prying Joe Frazier’s hand away.

When Joe was satisfied that he’d inflicted sufficient pain, he smirked at me and walked off.

Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times
was published in June 1991. Joe decided that I’d treated him fairly. In the years that followed, when our paths crossed, he was warm and friendly. A ritual greeting evolved between us.

Joe would smile and say, “Hey! How’s my Jewish friend?”

I’d smile and say, “Hey! How’s my Baptist friend?”

Fast-forward to January 7, 2005. Joe was in my home. We were eating ice cream in the kitchen.

Three boxing gloves were hanging on the wall. The first two were worn by Billy Costello in his victorious championship fight against Saoul Mamby. That fight has special meaning to me. It’s the subject of the climactic chapter in
The Black Lights
, my first book about boxing.

The other glove bore the legend:

Muhammad Ali
Lonnie Ali
Howard L. Bingham
Thomas Hauser
9/10—9/17/90

Joe asked about the gloves. I explained their provenance. Then he said something that surprised me.

“Do you remember that time I gave you the claw?”

“I remember,” I said grimly.

“I’m sorry, man. I apologize.”

That was Joe Frazier. He remembered every hurt that anyone ever inflicted upon him. With regard to Ali, he carried those hurts like broken glass in his stomach for his entire life.

But Joe also remembered the hurts he’d inflicted on other people. And if he felt he’d done wrong, given time he would try to right the situation.

There’s now a fourth glove hanging on the wall of my kitchen. It bears the inscription:

Tom, to my man
Right on
Joe Frazier

“DID BARBRA STREISAND WHUP SONNY LISTON?”

1996

O
n February 7, 1996, I was in the lobby of the ANA-Westin Hotel in Washington, D.C. with Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Ralph Boston, and a handful of others. That night, HBO would present a promotional screening of
The Journey of the African-American Athlete
. In anticipation of the event, ten people had been invited to the White House to meet with President Clinton in the Oval Office. My name was on the list, along with Nancy Bronson, whom I’d been dating for six months. The mini-bus that would take us to the White House was pulling up to the hotel when Seth Abraham (president of Time Warner Sports) approached me with a look of consternation.

“Didn’t anybody tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Yesterday, the White House took you and Nancy off the guest list. You’ve been replaced by Zina Garrison and Calvin Hill.”

Seth was apologetic.

Nancy was accepting.

And Muhammad was . . . Well, Muhammad was Muhammad.

“Stay by me. I’ll get you into the White House.”

“Don’t waste your time,” Paul Costello (Time Warner’s point man in Washington) told us. “No one just walks into the Oval Office. In fact, no one gets past the White House gate without advance security clearance. All that will happen is, you’ll have to turn around and take a cab back to the hotel.”

Which seemed likely. But Nancy and I had nothing to lose, so we boarded the mini-bus with the others. When we arrived at the first security checkpoint by a wrought-iron gate outside the White House, a guard asked for ID’s from everybody. Five minutes passed. Several limousines drove by. Then the guard returned.

“There’s two people who don’t have security clearance. Who are Hauser and Bronson?”

Nancy and I raised our hands.

“Come with me, please.”

Nancy and I got off the mini-bus and followed the guard to the security booth where I pleaded our cause. “I was told on Monday that we’d been approved by the White House . . . No one told us our names had been taken off the list . . .”

The guard was polite but unyielding. “I’m sorry; you can’t go any further.”

At which point, Muhammad joined us.

The guard repeated what he’d just said. “Mr. Ali; this man and this woman don’t have security clearance. I’m sure you understand how these things work. They simply can’t go any further.”

And Muhammad was understanding—“If they don’t go, I ain’t going.”

Unsure as to what to do next, the guard telephoned the White House. Minutes later, an official-looking man with a mustache strode down to the gate to meet us.