Muhammad Ali: 'They put me out of that restaurant', on throwing Olympic gold medal away - 1976

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.

Russell Jackson: 'Rob’s problem, as a proud Aboriginal man, was racism', Gold Quill award, Melbourne Press Club - 2021

26 March 2021, Melbourne, Australia

Firstly, I would like to thank the Melbourne Press Club for this award, which just feels completely surreal. I’d also like to congratulate all the other winners tonight.

I wouldn’t be in this position without my boss at the ABC, James Coventry. James offered me some work a year ago, at which point I’d been unemployed for six months and thought I was finished in journalism. He gave me my first full-time job as a journalist, and offered me patience, trust and support, and I’ve spent every day since being thankful for that.

At the ABC, I must also thank Gaven Morris, Gavin Fang and Joh McDiarmid. I love working with them, and I love my job. I’d also like to acknowledge another of my interviewees, Heritier Lumumba, for his integrity and strength, and his willingness to make life better for others.

And before all that, my wife, Cynthia, has supported me in everything I’ve done. She encouraged me to persist with journalism, even when it felt like I’d never get anywhere. I can only do one thing moderately well at any given time, but Cynthia does everything well, always. I can never thank her enough, nor our daughter Priya for her smiles, nor my parents for their encouragement.

But there is only one reason I’m standing here right now. His name is Robert Muir.

Thanks to the Melbourne Press Club, Rob is here tonight, which has made it a very special evening for both of us. Rob and I speak nearly every day on the phone, but because he lives in Adelaide, and I’m in Melbourne, we haven’t met in person until tonight. I’ve been looking forward to that hug for a long time.

I’d always wondered about Rob’s story. All that existed was a nickname he never should have been given, a few minutes of footage, and a myth that painted him as a thug. Someone close to Rob told me something very simple but true: the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem.

Rob’s problem, as a proud Aboriginal man, was racism. Football subjected him to so much of it, for so long, that he was never able to escape it. His sporting brilliance was met with abuse. In many ways, Rob’s story, and the opportunities that were taken away from him, are a metaphor for this country.

If my story achieved nothing else, I’m glad that people now realise that Rob was a gifted footballer who is worthy of respect. I also know that he’s a kind, determined, intelligent, loving and funny man.

A lot of people have asked how my story has changed Rob’s life. Actually, it has changed mine just as much. Rob has taught me things it might have taken a lifetime to learn on my own. His strength has inspired me greatly, and he showed me that it’s never too late to tell someone’s story.

I’ll go and share this with Rob now, but to finish I have to make an admission. About a week after Rob’s story was published, I woke up at 3am and realised I’d left out an important line. I’m sure many people here know that sinking feeling, when the deadline has passed.

The line I accidentally left out was something poignant Rob said about his childhood. He said that when he was a kid, the thing he loved about footy was that for two hours every weekend, when he ran around on football fields, he felt safe.

Rob, I know we’ve still got a bit of work to do to get you the things you need, but I won’t stop until you feel safe. Thank you.

Eddie McGuire: 'We will continue to be a leading light in our community', Do Better report on racism at Collingwood - 2021

1 February 2021, Holden Centre, Melbourne, Victoria

Today is a historic and proud day for the Collingwood Football Club. I club that includes two senior AFL team, two netball teams, two AFL women’s teams, the Collingwood wheelchair team, and the Collingwood Reclink team, members supporters, sponsors.

Eight teams, representing our myriad of life, all drawn from our collective identity of Collingwood, and today we embrace a leadership position on what is the most fundamental of rights – equality. To be who you are based on your abilities and character and nothing else.

In doing so we have spent the last six years in particular in a deep dive into how we can make ourselves better, first up, and then to provide leadership and conversation in the community as only Collingwood can.
Now this is an area fraught with danger and recriminations. But we have decided as a club that this fight, against racism, against discrimination of all types, is where we want to be.

To acknowledge our place in the wider community’s lack of understanding at times, and to put in place not just good intentions, but even greater time effort and resources to provide assistance to achieve our goals.
We make mistakes, we learn, we strive to be better.

But in working to build this club into the position it is today, to be able to make these announcements, we will continue to be a leading light in our community.

It is why we commissioned this report. To not pay mere lip service to a worldwide tragedy, but to lay the foundations for our people, our game, and our community.

Gregg Popovich: 'My big fear is -- we are Rome', Thoughts on the election of Donald Trump - 2016

 11 November 2016, San Antonio, Texas, USA

Right now I'm just trying to formulate thoughts. It's too early. I'm just sick to my stomach. Not basically because the Republicans won or anything, but the disgusting tenor and tone and all of the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic.

I live in that country where half of the people ignored all of that to elect someone. That's the scariest part of the whole thing to me. It's got nothing to do with the environment and Obamacare, and all of the other stuff. We live in a country that ignored all of those values that we would hold our kids accountable for. They'd be grounded for years if they acted and said the things that have been said in that campaign by Donald Trump.

I look at the Evangelicals and I wonder, those values don't mean anything to them? All of those values to me are more important than anybody's skill in business or anything else because it tells who we are, and how we want to live, and what kind of people we are. That's why I have great respect for people like Lindsey Graham and John McCain, John Kasich, who I disagree with on a lot of political things, but they had enough fiber and respect for humanity and tolerance for all groups to say what they said about the man.

That's what worries me. I get it, of course we want to be successful, we're all going to say that. Everybody wants to be successful, it's our country, we don't want it to go down the drain. But any reasonable person would come to that conclusion, but it does not take away the fact that he used that fear mongering, and all of the comments, from day one, the race bating with trying to make Barack Obama, our first black president, illegitimate. It leaves me wondering where I've been living, and with whom I'm living.

The fact that people can just gloss that over, start talking about the transition team, and we're all going to be kumbaya now and try to make the country good without talking about any of those things. And now we see that he's already backing off of immigration and Obamacare and other things, so was it a big fake, which makes you feel it's even more disgusting and cynical that somebody would use that to get the base that fired up. To get elected. And what gets lost in the process are African Americans, and Hispanics, and women, and the gay population, not to mention the eighth grade developmental stage exhibited by him when he made fun of the handicapped person. I mean, come on. That's what a seventh grade, eighth grade bully does. And he was elected president of the United States. We would have scolded our kids. We would have had discussions until we were blue in the face trying to get them to understand these things. He is in charge of our country. That's disgusting.

A reporter then interrupted him.

I'm not done. One could go on and on, we didn't make this stuff up. He's angry at the media because they reported what he said and how he acted. That's ironic to me. It makes no sense. So that's my real fear, and that's what gives me so much pause and makes me feel so badly that the country is willing to be that intolerant and not understand the empathy that's necessary to understand other group's situations. I'm a rich white guy, and I'm sick to my stomach thinking about it. I can't imagine being a Muslim right now, or a woman, or an African American, a Hispanic, a handicapped person. How disenfranchised they might feel. And for anyone in those groups that voted for him, it's just beyond my comprehension how they ignore all of that. My final conclusion is, my big fear is --- we are Rome.