\n<\/a><\/span>The Huffington Post<\/span><\/p>\n
![](\"http:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/scalefit_630_noupscale\/5751eebc12000025008955ab.jpeg?cache=cpxvehx6rd\")
<\/span>LG\/AP
\nMuhammad Ali\u00a0was one of the most famous\u00a0conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War.<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nMuhammad Ali\u2019s most famous act of social activism\u00a0\u2014\u00a0one that would strip him of his best fighting years, cost him millions of dollars, forever alter his image and eventually send him into debt\u00a0\u2014\u00a0began with one off-hand quote: \u201cMan, I ain\u2019t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\nIt was March 1966, and the U.S. military was escalating its fight in Vietnam. It began substantially lowering its standards for the draft so it could conscript more men, and call up men with lower IQs for 1-A service. This meant that Ali, whose Army-tested IQ score of 78 had been too low for the draft in 1962, was now eligible for unrestricted military service.<\/p>\n
The boxer, who died Friday night at the age of 74<\/a>, happened to hear this news while surrounded by reporters, and in a classic, boisterous knee-jerk reaction \u2014\u00a0I ain\u2019t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 he set off a years-long cultural revolution.<\/p>\nFor the most famous athlete on the planet to openly decry the war was, at the time, blasphemous. When he declared his apathy toward the Viet Cong, public support of the Vietnam War was at its peak \u2014 in the first three months of 1966, the war\u2019s approval rating was over 50 percent<\/a>, according to Gallup. Ali, citing his faith and membership in the Nation of Islam,\u00a0refused service and said he was a conscientious objector.<\/p>\n\u2018The Greatest\u2019s\u2019 Greatest Risk<\/h3>\n
In a flash, Ali, already controversial for his conversion to Islam and name change from Cassius Clay, became one of the most hated public figures in the country. Nobody close to Ali\u2019s level of fame had resisted the draft, and his seemingly flippant opposition to the war made him a target of ridicule from the public, the government and his sport. He\u2019d spend the next four years battling for his beliefs in court instead of the ring, and after his 1967 arrest for draft dodging, all of his state boxing licenses were stripped. Ali\u2019s boxing career was effectively over.<\/p>\n
For a time, Ali continued to face public pressure to accept service. During his four years of court battles, he was given opportunities to recant, apologize and join the military<\/a> in an entertainment capacity \u2014 to perform for the troops and cameras and show off his own signature persona. He declined, and some of his allies turned against him.<\/p>\nThe Nation of Islam, the same religious group that anointed him Muhammad Ali, disavowed him for his style of active resistance, according to Dave Zirin\u2019s A People\u2019s History Of Sports In The United States<\/em>. Jackie Robinson, an athlete and activist himself during his playing years and beyond, ripped Ali for disappointing black war veterans, and by and large, black soldiers\u00a0agreed with Robinson<\/a>:\u00a0Ali was being too radical.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![](\"http:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/scalefit_630_noupscale\/575212b0130000fb0738391e.jpeg\")
<\/span><\/p>\nAP
\nAli spoke out about\u00a0race relations and the Vietnam War across\u00a0the country during his\u00a0exile\u00a0from boxing.<\/h5>\n<\/figure>\n\n\u201cHe\u2019s hurting, I think, the morale of a lot of young Negro soldiers over in Vietnam,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cAnd the tragedy to me is, Cassius has made millions of dollars off of the American public, and now he\u2019s not willing to show his appreciation to a country that\u2019s giving him, in my view, a fantastic opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
But to Ali, that \u201cfantastic opportunity\u201d was a death sentence, and moreover, representative of the white aristocracy\u2019s use of poor, often black Americans<\/a>\u00a0to fight the war for them.<\/p>\n\u201cThe government had a system<\/a> where the rich man\u2019s son went to college, and the poor man\u2019s son went to war,\u201d he said.<\/p>\nAnyone who immediately came to Ali\u2019s defense put themselves in danger. In A People\u2019s History Of Sports In The United States<\/em>, writer Jerry Izenberg recalled receiving bomb threats and tons of hate mail because he was willing to hear Ali out in the early days of his service refusal. But in most of the media, nastiness prevailed. Unlike Izenberg, famous sportswriters like Red Smith and Jim Murray were calling Ali a \u201cpunk\u201d and \u201cthe white man\u2019s burden.\u201d<\/p>\nAmericans Rally Around Ali<\/h3>\n
Ali wasn\u2019t alone for long in his anti-war stance. While his legal case continued, he kept up his anti-war rhetoric, based on arguments against the systematic classism and racism decried by the civil rights movement of the 1960s. His stump speech<\/a>was simple, but powerful and impassioned:\u00a0I won\u2019t be used by powerful white men as a tool to kill other people who are fighting for their own beliefs and freedoms, and neither should you, especially if you\u2019re poor and\/or black.<\/em><\/p>\nThe longer Ali remained free, the lower the war\u2019s approval ratings dove. Per Gallup, they immediately began to slip<\/a> after Ali\u2019s \u201cI ain\u2019t got no quarrel\u201d comment. A month after that line hit the press, support for the war slipped below 50 percent for the first time. Two months after Ali was convicted for draft dodging in June 1967, only 27 percent of Americans approved of the war \u2014 the lowest point during President Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s administration. Ali even implored Martin Luther King Jr. tospeak out against<\/a>\u00a0the war.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![](\"http:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/scalefit_630_noupscale\/5752131c1600002a00f95522.jpeg\")
<\/span><\/p>\nMARKA VIA GETTY IMAGES
\nAli couldn\u2019t legally fight, but he could still train.<\/h5>\n<\/figure>\n\nBy the summer of 1967, many Americans, particularly black Americans, were now all-in on Ali. His courage and masterful promotion of his ideas (after all, this is the athlete who embodied self-promotion<\/a>) helped the civil rights movement move forward and the war\u2019s popularity sink.<\/p>\nIn 1968, with his court case under appeal, Ali found himself in grave financial debt. To earn money in lieu of the millions he could\u2019ve been making boxing, he began giving hundreds of speeches at college campuses, to young audiences that would make up the vehement anti-war movement. Ali solidified himself as a peace-maker and the counter-culture icon young Americans yearned for.<\/p>\n
After years of appeals, the Supreme Court overturned Ali\u2019s conviction in June 1971. By then, states had begun reinstating his boxing license. His view of the war became America\u2019s view of the war, and people were ready to see their hero back in the ring. And after three and a half years, he returned, beating Jerry Quarry in October 1970 in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
Ali\u2019s Unmatched Athlete Activism<\/h3>\n
All told, Ali\u2019s significant career sacrifice and what it stood for radiated across the country, and no athlete has had such a marked social impact since. Fifty years after Ali said he had no quarrels with the Viet Cong, professional athletes still speak out admirably on social issues \u2014 most notably, LeBron James wore an \u201cI Can\u2019t Breathe Shirt\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in December 2014 to support Eric Garner protesters \u2014 but they don\u2019t really face the risks Ali did.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![](\"http:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/scalefit_630_noupscale\/5752134a1200002e008955e9.jpeg\")
<\/span><\/p>\nASSOCIATED PRESS
\nWhile still important, symbolism is usually as far as today\u2019s athletes are willing to go to make a political point.<\/h5>\n<\/figure>\n\nToday\u2019s brand-focused, business-like athletes generally choose to make ornamental political statements with T-shirts, playing accessories and social media posts, and not to put their careers on the line with their activism.<\/p>\n
Simply put, there\u2019s too much money at stake in today\u2019s modern sports culture. Choosing to sacrifice nearly four years of one\u2019s career seems unthinkable, no matter the cause. The peak time for professional athletic performance is\u00a0between 25 and 27 years old<\/a>, and that\u2019s when star athletes receive their largest contracts. Ali was sidelined for that period of his life.<\/p>\nLate civil rights movement leader Stokely Carmichael perhaps put it best, as quoted in Zirin\u2019s book:<\/p>\n
Of all the people who opposed the war in Vietnam, I think that Muhammad Ali risked the most. Lots of people refused to go. Some went to jail. But no one risk as much from their decision not to go to war in Vietnam as much as Muhammad Ali. And his real greatness can be seen in the fact that, despite all that was done to him, he became even greater and more humane.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
His humanity \u2014 that\u2019s where Ali\u2019s true greatness lies. Sports fans can say we were robbed of Ali\u2019s true prime, but society gained something much better: a leading voice against the class and race issues that intertwined with one of the deadliest foreign wars in U.S. history.<\/p>\n
Muhammad Ali\u2019s most famous act of social activism\u00a0\u2014\u00a0one that would strip him of his best fighting years, cost him millions of dollars, forever alter his image and eventually send him into debt\u00a0\u2014\u00a0began with one off-hand quote: \u201cMan, I ain\u2019t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n It was March 1966, and the U.S. military was escalating its fight in Vietnam. It began substantially lowering its standards for the draft so it could conscript more men, and call up men with lower IQs for 1-A service. This meant that Ali, whose Army-tested IQ score of 78 had been too low for the draft in 1962, was now eligible for unrestricted military service.<\/p>\n The boxer, who died Friday night at the age of 74<\/a>, happened to hear this news while surrounded by reporters, and in a classic, boisterous knee-jerk reaction \u2014\u00a0I ain\u2019t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 he set off a years-long cultural revolution.<\/p>\n For the most famous athlete on the planet to openly decry the war was, at the time, blasphemous. When he declared his apathy toward the Viet Cong, public support of the Vietnam War was at its peak \u2014 in the first three months of 1966, the war\u2019s approval rating was over 50 percent<\/a>, according to Gallup. Ali, citing his faith and membership in the Nation of Islam,\u00a0refused service and said he was a conscientious objector.<\/p>\n In a flash, Ali, already controversial for his conversion to Islam and name change from Cassius Clay, became one of the most hated public figures in the country. Nobody close to Ali\u2019s level of fame had resisted the draft, and his seemingly flippant opposition to the war made him a target of ridicule from the public, the government and his sport. He\u2019d spend the next four years battling for his beliefs in court instead of the ring, and after his 1967 arrest for draft dodging, all of his state boxing licenses were stripped. Ali\u2019s boxing career was effectively over.<\/p>\n For a time, Ali continued to face public pressure to accept service. During his four years of court battles, he was given opportunities to recant, apologize and join the military<\/a> in an entertainment capacity \u2014 to perform for the troops and cameras and show off his own signature persona. He declined, and some of his allies turned against him.<\/p>\n The Nation of Islam, the same religious group that anointed him Muhammad Ali, disavowed him for his style of active resistance, according to Dave Zirin\u2019s A People\u2019s History Of Sports In The United States<\/em>. Jackie Robinson, an athlete and activist himself during his playing years and beyond, ripped Ali for disappointing black war veterans, and by and large, black soldiers\u00a0agreed with Robinson<\/a>:\u00a0Ali was being too radical.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHe\u2019s hurting, I think, the morale of a lot of young Negro soldiers over in Vietnam,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cAnd the tragedy to me is, Cassius has made millions of dollars off of the American public, and now he\u2019s not willing to show his appreciation to a country that\u2019s giving him, in my view, a fantastic opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n But to Ali, that \u201cfantastic opportunity\u201d was a death sentence, and moreover, representative of the white aristocracy\u2019s use of poor, often black Americans<\/a>\u00a0to fight the war for them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe government had a system<\/a> where the rich man\u2019s son went to college, and the poor man\u2019s son went to war,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Anyone who immediately came to Ali\u2019s defense put themselves in danger. In A People\u2019s History Of Sports In The United States<\/em>, writer Jerry Izenberg recalled receiving bomb threats and tons of hate mail because he was willing to hear Ali out in the early days of his service refusal. But in most of the media, nastiness prevailed. Unlike Izenberg, famous sportswriters like Red Smith and Jim Murray were calling Ali a \u201cpunk\u201d and \u201cthe white man\u2019s burden.\u201d<\/p>\n Ali wasn\u2019t alone for long in his anti-war stance. While his legal case continued, he kept up his anti-war rhetoric, based on arguments against the systematic classism and racism decried by the civil rights movement of the 1960s. His stump speech<\/a>was simple, but powerful and impassioned:\u00a0I won\u2019t be used by powerful white men as a tool to kill other people who are fighting for their own beliefs and freedoms, and neither should you, especially if you\u2019re poor and\/or black.<\/em><\/p>\n The longer Ali remained free, the lower the war\u2019s approval ratings dove. Per Gallup, they immediately began to slip<\/a> after Ali\u2019s \u201cI ain\u2019t got no quarrel\u201d comment. A month after that line hit the press, support for the war slipped below 50 percent for the first time. Two months after Ali was convicted for draft dodging in June 1967, only 27 percent of Americans approved of the war \u2014 the lowest point during President Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s administration. Ali even implored Martin Luther King Jr. tospeak out against<\/a>\u00a0the war.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n By the summer of 1967, many Americans, particularly black Americans, were now all-in on Ali. His courage and masterful promotion of his ideas (after all, this is the athlete who embodied self-promotion<\/a>) helped the civil rights movement move forward and the war\u2019s popularity sink.<\/p>\n In 1968, with his court case under appeal, Ali found himself in grave financial debt. To earn money in lieu of the millions he could\u2019ve been making boxing, he began giving hundreds of speeches at college campuses, to young audiences that would make up the vehement anti-war movement. Ali solidified himself as a peace-maker and the counter-culture icon young Americans yearned for.<\/p>\n After years of appeals, the Supreme Court overturned Ali\u2019s conviction in June 1971. By then, states had begun reinstating his boxing license. His view of the war became America\u2019s view of the war, and people were ready to see their hero back in the ring. And after three and a half years, he returned, beating Jerry Quarry in October 1970 in Atlanta.<\/p>\n All told, Ali\u2019s significant career sacrifice and what it stood for radiated across the country, and no athlete has had such a marked social impact since. Fifty years after Ali said he had no quarrels with the Viet Cong, professional athletes still speak out admirably on social issues \u2014 most notably, LeBron James wore an \u201cI Can\u2019t Breathe Shirt\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in December 2014 to support Eric Garner protesters \u2014 but they don\u2019t really face the risks Ali did.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Today\u2019s brand-focused, business-like athletes generally choose to make ornamental political statements with T-shirts, playing accessories and social media posts, and not to put their careers on the line with their activism.<\/p>\n Simply put, there\u2019s too much money at stake in today\u2019s modern sports culture. Choosing to sacrifice nearly four years of one\u2019s career seems unthinkable, no matter the cause. The peak time for professional athletic performance is\u00a0between 25 and 27 years old<\/a>, and that\u2019s when star athletes receive their largest contracts. Ali was sidelined for that period of his life.<\/p>\n Late civil rights movement leader Stokely Carmichael perhaps put it best, as quoted in Zirin\u2019s book:<\/p>\n Of all the people who opposed the war in Vietnam, I think that Muhammad Ali risked the most. Lots of people refused to go. Some went to jail. But no one risk as much from their decision not to go to war in Vietnam as much as Muhammad Ali. And his real greatness can be seen in the fact that, despite all that was done to him, he became even greater and more humane.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n His humanity \u2014 that\u2019s where Ali\u2019s true greatness lies. Sports fans can say we were robbed of Ali\u2019s true prime, but society gained something much better: a leading voice against the class and race issues that intertwined with one of the deadliest foreign wars in U.S. history.<\/p>\n\u2018The Greatest\u2019s\u2019 Greatest Risk<\/h3>\n
<\/span><\/p>\nAP
\nAli spoke out about\u00a0race relations and the Vietnam War across\u00a0the country during his\u00a0exile\u00a0from boxing.<\/h5>\n<\/figure>\nAmericans Rally Around Ali<\/h3>\n
<\/span><\/p>\nMARKA VIA GETTY IMAGES
\nAli couldn\u2019t legally fight, but he could still train.<\/h5>\n<\/figure>\nAli\u2019s Unmatched Athlete Activism<\/h3>\n
<\/span><\/p>\nASSOCIATED PRESS
\nWhile still important, symbolism is usually as far as today\u2019s athletes are willing to go to make a political point.<\/h5>\n<\/figure>\n