1976 Australia
Muhammad Ali granted an interview with Tim Blue, of the ABC’s This Day Tonight, in 1976, in which he recounts a racist incident in his home town of Lousville, Kentucky.. The incident was related in Ali’s 1973 autobiography. Ali’s wikipedia entry suggests there is some doubt on the story’s accuracy.. He tells it well!
It was 1958, we couldn’t eat in the restaurants in Louisville we couldn’t eat downtown.
One day I saw two Africans go in with their robes and their turbans. They couldn’t speak English and I heard the manager say, ‘let em in, they’re not negros’.
I thought, ‘somethng’s wrong’. I can’t access because I’m black and they’re so black they’re near blue but they went in.
So I said, ‘I’ll get my Olympic gold medal, then I’ll go in’.
So I went and got my Olympic gold medal, went back in, and ordered two cheeseburgers and the lady said, ‘sorry, we don’t serve negros ‘. I said, ‘I don’t eat them either, just give me two cheeseburgers’.
She said, ‘you’re getting smart’ and she called the manager and he said, ‘I don’t care who he is …’
‘He says he’s Cassius Clay’
‘I don’t care who he is.’
Anyway, the idea was that I couldn’t eat there.
Anyway I got so angry I drove down to the Ohio river and stood there and looked at the gold medal, and I could imagine that American flag waving while they play the national anthem when I beat the Pole and I beat the Russian …
Dun dun dun dun dun dun!!! [singing beats]
And I’m standing there with the medal on …
Dun dun dun dun dun dun!!
I though I’m going back to Louisville, and I can eat there, I can go in the restaurants put them on the spot, they can’t put me out now, I’m the champ of the world! I’m in a big country like Rome representing the United States out of one little city named Louisville, I now I beat the whole world!
Boy, dun dun …
They put me out of that restaurant, and I said, ‘this medal aint worth a damn’. I became so frustrated …
And now I wish I had it because I wouldn’t become so frustrated now, but at the time I took that medal and said, ‘it aint worth nothing, I don’t care’ and took it off my neck and said ‘it aint no good’ and threw it into the Ohio River.
I heard there are problems in Australia just like there are in America and in other countries. But to all of those regardless of whether you’re Australian, whether you’re black or white, this one thing I want you to always remember is this. When we mistreat others, we are certainly mistreating the artist who created them. If we realised this, it would not be difficult to feel God’s presence everywhere.
So I repeat. When we mistreat others we are certainly mistreating the artist who created them. If we realise this, it would not be difficult to feel God’s presence everywhere.