Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) - Interview - 1964 [Reelin' In The Years Archives]

our guest is the heavyweight boxing champion of the world he is truly a superior fighter cassius clay won the championship by defeating all contenders and then by knocking out sonny liston cassius clay has been in the headlines many times and for different reasons he has just returned from overseas where he visited egypt ghana nigeria he now is known as muhammad ali we'll start the questioning with georgiano ken of the new york world telegram you have said i want peace and i do not find peace in an integrated world are you opposed to integration well yes ma'am in a way when it is forced integration when it's when it brings about death of people especially my people and people being beaten clubs and pushed and ducked in water and beaches and people come up disappearing and blow it up in churches then i don't like that then what is your answer for the uh american negro well my answer uh would direct to [Music] the answer of our leading teacher the honorable elijah muhammad he has been taught by god as he teaches us that the only solution to the race problem in america whether you like it or not is total separation and every day the whites are proving it i understand that they are gunning to pass a civil rights bill and the closer they get to passing it the more violent the people get and this will this will really help to keep it back and uh the so-called negroes are asking for peace and every day they're not fighting back they love everybody but they're steady being mistreated so there's only one solution is to separate now you recently said that every black man in america should come see africa quote that's where home is unquote that's right are you planning to move to africa and make it your home well i would love to but as i lead a teach when we do go we're going to have the whole 22 million ah we won't leave but uh yes africa i was surprised to see africa to see all the colleges and universities and how civilized and educated the people were and uh i would uh i didn't see one savage or i didn't see one uh uncivilized person everybody was so clean and respectable and it's really unbelievable first we'll have a question now from gay paulie um mr clay you're a hero to your own race i'm just wondering why you're staying aloof from the civil rights struggle in the south well for one reason i don't want to get killed that's a good reason and we are for all of our people we want to see all of our people the whole 22 million receive freedom justice inequality and we have various leaders who have different ways of going about getting freedom for what they think is freedom but after hearing the teachings of our leader the only way we can be free is the first uh number one is to respect ourselves do something for ourselves and most of all protect our women which is something my men don't do and after hearing these things well then we don't we feel real foolish getting coffee pulled on us and in the eyes of the intelligent world begging for a job or begging for a cup of coffee when other people are controlling their own governments in the land so this don't look this is not nothing to us but as a hero don't you think that uh participation in the sit-ins and the demonstrations might do some good rather than you setting off ignoring the whole thing i'm not ignoring it i'm with the freedom movement i'm with the elijah muhammad he's the only leader in america who's bold enough to really speak the truth i'm sure you admit that and uh he will be here speaking soon and i will be there and these are the things i participate in going to other countries talking to people such as president nasa president kwame nakuma talking to people who have uh who control the world this is what i call freedom in them of good demonstrations and uh these things i do and it's just cheapens me the world heavyweight champion to be in some restaurant trying to get a cup of coffee when they get there i'm going to need the batter coffee when i get in i'm not going to like the music on the jukebox deep in your heart you don't want me there so that's foolish what is your attitude toward the white man really well i can't really say what my attitude is i don't oh that's not for me to say i'd have to you could put that question on our leader he could give you a good answer sarah slack amsterdam news muhammad ali i'd like to ask you the most obvious question when are you going to defend your title and whom will you fight well i may defend my title again against sunny less than in four months and uh i really don't care who i fight but it's only the tax things that hold me back if it's up to me i'd fight every day but i don't know when the next one will be really in the march 6 issue of life magazine your trainer angelo dundee speaking of you said this quote his greatest thrill is hamming it up in front of a crowd that's why i hate to bring him to new york new york is beyond him it's too big there are too many things to distract him my question muhammad ali do you agree with the statement by your trainer and is new york too much for you no new york is not too much for me new york i would say it's not enough for me before i can new york is too small for me i mean i like to travel and recently we were invited to 14 nations by the governments and i was so tired after the welcomes after three of them i couldn't go no farther and i'm a whirling man king one city can't be too much for me my mind is too big would you clear this up for me please have you and malcolm x the man who helped convert you to the black muslim movement have the two of you split well number one it's not black muslim it's muslim black is the name given to it by the press it's not black muslim it's muslim and uh uh and uh when and elijah muhammad cuts a man off well then he's automatically cut off with all of his followers and a lot of people call it a split it's not a split he's just one individual who as we say went astray and uh when when say like two governments split one leader takes half another lead to take half malcolm x is just there and this is not a split it's not he's not big enough to be called a split well my newspaper carried a story saying upon your return from africa you refused to stay at the teresa hotel your father that's right my leader told me not my leader but various officials said that it wouldn't be nice being in the same hotel that he was in and whatever they say go georgian okay new york world telegram uh you you just said that uh your leader elijah muhammad has a program uh that is the final answer for american negroes can you give us one or two points in this program well what i would say is that time will tell you have 22 million people won't integrate pushing integrating and dying for integration and what they want and when they don't get it and when you get tired of beating them sidehead with clubs when you get tired of putting dogs on them when you get tired of killing them well it won't be for one way for them to turn and that's too our leading teacher how do you feel about the the white persons who are risking danger right now to help the negro integrate well they uh i feel that you have one or two people acting other than themselves but um we have people such as new york city los angeles california chicago all of these good northern cities i don't see why they came going down and straighten out a few bad people i can't let one or two people blind me to uh facts and reality many of the people who are now uh working in the south to help the negro voters register are white persons do you feel these people are allies of yours and of your religion no they they're good people and for the cause they're fighting uh uh they believe they're right and that's all right we have millions of people out of jobs we have millions of people homeless and and there's the economical situation the country is going and just the integration and the right to go in a restaurant is not going to solve nothing mr clay a man's religion of course is a very personal thing but would i be prying too much if i ask you why your conversion from christian to muslim first of all i'm going to say i have a new name nasm muhammad ali yes well uh after hearing the leading our teacher after he teaches us all about we are a nation of 20 million people that have no knowledge of self that's a fact we're a nation of 22 million people that have other names than our own kind that's a fact we're a nation of 22 million people who have no unity among us whatsoever that's a fact we're a nation of 22 million people that no one wants to be bothered with or even socialize with that's a fact we're a nation of 22 million people who are from another land and when we were in that land we had a religion we had a name we had a god and after hearing the teachings of our leader a man's mind is never the same again and you can't help from being converted to the religion of islam because i just i was invited to 14 islamic countries and these people are the oldest people on the planet so whatever whatever they had was first so whatever they had must be better than something two thousand years old uh to get back to your attitude toward the white man you've been quoted as saying why should i hate the white man because the white man's money made me what i am is uh was that uh no i've never said that they've never said not like they call us uh they say muslims hate people that sounds real ignorant on the part of a white saying something like that when when as a whole uh we are the victims of hate we are the ones that are hated and we're the ones who are stoned and blowed up and killed and beat up every day and mistreated like animals so we can't be no haters if if uh they call our leader hate teacher if the black people don't hate the white people after 400 years then it's too late for somebody to teach them hate muhammad ali while you were in cairo a pamphlet about elijah muhammad's muslim movement was prepared and distributed by our united states embassy there according to reliable reports this pamphlet is uncomplimentary and attacks elijah muhammad's muslim movement did you see this pamphlet while you were visiting the uar no ma'am i did not see that pamphlet and i don't believe that's true uh anybody attacking elijah muhammad would be run out of egypt i talked to president nasa and all kind of islamic officials of the scholars and al-azhar the oldest college in egypt and everybody sends the greetings and the love and he and he was welcome a open invitation to come to cairo whenever he can he and his family and everybody talks about him all day and they just love him and i don't see i don't that's that's not true while you were in egypt you were quoted as saying how is it going to look when i go home to my hometown and am treated uh like a like an animal no are you mistreated in this country no ma'am i'm never treated like an animal no one no one will lay a hand on me but uh i didn't say exactly that uh that's one thing that i know that our leader teaches the truth about when he says that the average person is hypocritical and lie i've said so many things that were actually straight out twisted and and uh uh but i said that uh uh many of our people it's not it's a plain fact how our people are treated here in this country uh you feel that many of your people are treated like animals but that you yourself have not been is that no they're not they're not treated like animals as long as they stay in the place as soon as they get out of the place then they might get killed that's a fact excuse me a few minutes ago you an answer to a question from gay paulie you kept saying we're a nation we're a nation you said that about four or five times and i'm curious when you say we negro people are a nation are you apart from the american nation do you feel that you're separate well our leader teaches us that we are a nation within a nation there are 27 million people in egypt and there are about that many negroes in america so-called negroes well if you have 27 million black people here then that's a nation within a nation it's a fact that this is not our nation every day that's proved by white's part of whites that this is not our nation that you don't consider yourself first an american no sir no first you are fought proud to say no first i'm a black man i'm an afro-american see if a chinese is born there he's called a chinese-american if an indian is born he's calling him he may be called an american of chinese origin depends on how you want to put it well i'm not no american i'm a black man i wouldn't want to cheapen myself like that because my country is old as a can't date the history of my people and i would be cutting my history off if i just say i'm american first and that's only 510 years old so i'm proud to say i'm a african i see seriously how would you describe reverend martin luther king what do you think of him well i think he's a nice man and what he's fighting for is what he think is right and they all are brothers our leader teaches us but they're just going after the way they see uh it would disgrace me to see my leader sitting in the car with a dog guarding them so i don't they they all right but we just don't follow those kind of leaders in just a moment we'll have more questions for our guests the heavyweight boxing champion of the world muhammad ali better known as cassius clay we'll be right back we'll have a question now from gay paulie women's editor united press international uh muhammad ali this nation of 22 million negroes you keep talking about where is it going i mean where will it eventually settle well i'm not i'm not i'm not out i'm not our leader he has a whole blueprint to all of this i don't know why they won't often mild too on tv to explain it right but we have offered him on tv i think you should know and he has indicated that he would like to come on a program and he will be on a program on a date to be announced but you were saying that's good that's good but um uh he teaches us that we are a nation within a nation and uh he teaches us this is a spiritual thing that almighty allah which is the proper name of god allah he himself is in this he has a hand in everything that's happening here today and that like when the people when moses came to teach the people of egypt land uh he wasn't worried about where he was going to take them he just said my god say let my people go we are tired of being killed slave kicked beat mistreated and stoned my god said let us go and where we'll go is uh not really my concern i'm not worried about that first we just want to see our people free and then we'll take that next step well in that connection i have heard him say divide america after 410 years of free slave labor without pay you just owe us you've got 50 of the richest states in the world that our people helped built with that sweat and blood so since there are cotton pickles doing them in work of fifth and sixty people there are no jobs and it's plain that they can't get freedom under your laws then just let them separate that makes sense muhammad ali your expressed purpose you stated for your five-week tour of africa was to make your pilgrimage to the holy city of mecca would you tell me why is it that you returned home to the states and you didn't visit mecca well i i intended to get to mecca during the hodge season the pilgrimage is when all of the muslims about a million of them go every year but we got there about three weeks late and it was all over but we'll go next year when the pilgrimage time is up plus we had to be here sunday for this convention and uh we'll go the next time but and plus you're supposed to uh get permission from your leader to go i left i believe after i got there i wouldn't have been able to go because i didn't get permission from my leader i don't realize muhammad malcolm x has said that it's time for the american negro to fight back whenever he's attacked and he has called for the forming of rifle clubs by negroes to defend themselves how do you feel about using violence today well i'll i'll put the ass on you that my leader put on me which is so beautiful everything he said is so excellent you can't find no fault in it whatsoever or if you would he wouldn't be here for 33 years without been proven wrong about anything but he says that that's awful foolish thing to do because after all we don't make no bullets we don't make no rifles we don't uh uh it'll be impossible for us to get a rifle and fight somebody with machine guns and airplanes and bombs so that'll be the last thing to do is to be violent in that way are you yourself against violence are you a conscientious objector well i'm i'm i'm not against violence when it comes to uh defending yourself if someone attacks me then we are all taught to fight to death but we are never aggressive muhammad ali the army has rejected you as uh in the army's terms not qualified for military duty is that a final decision or is there a chance that'll come up for review again i don't know that's up to the officials or the people in washington they made the decision well the army didn't go into details what do you think happened i don't know if they didn't go into tails i don't see where i that should care of the army muhammad ali are you preparing to become a muslim minister with the status similar to what malcolm x had well i don't really know what i'm here for i don't know what my mission is all my life i've been uh i would say a little profit-like in all of the fights i predict i mean i'm always in tight spots i'm always getting out of them i'll never never get hurt and i'm always managing to do something that's the first for the first time in history and god controls my life i don't know where i'm going or what i'm doing i went into cairo egypt and the pyramids of egypt have 3 million 200 000 blocks and now the pyramid of egypt have 3 million and 199 000 they gave me a stone out of the pyramid of egypt and they gave me the top of the tallest mountain in acro ghana called whole mountain overlooking all africa and i don't when i went over that millions of people were following me and pulling turning over cars and i don't i don't know what i'm doing here i don't know what my mission is i don't know i don't control my own life i'm just going from day to day and i might be a minister i might not and i don't know what i'm going to be in just a moment we'll have more questions for our guest cassius clay the world heavyweight boxing champion now known as muhammad ali we'll be right back a question now from sarah slack of the amsterdam news what effect do you think you're being a muslim will have on your next box office receipts well let me see what effect it will be the first real fight that the whole world was watching i have people who will be coming here from turkey bad dad pakistan saudi arabia cairo egypt and many of the sudan various uh ambassadors have promised me that they will be at ringside the whole asiatic african world will be watching my next fight and this will be the biggest the next one will be the biggest fight of all fights muhammad ali the number of deaths from injuries in the ring has caused many authorities to call for outlawing of boxing what changes would you like to see made in boxing regulations perhaps to make the fight game safer well the only thing i could see to make it safer would be for a fighter to be tested before a fight like they should make him run five miles before a fight and if he's not really a fighter they should not let him fight but people get killed and more things are fighting such as football baseball horse racing car racing and airplanes falling out of the sky but are there any changes you'd like to see made in ring yeah just take people are not qualified and don't let them fight excuse me i i i'm wondering you've said that you consider yourself not an american first but if if the chance came would you fight for this country well if somebody attacked the country and naturally i'd have to fight then then you are not a conscientious objector in the sense of not taking arms for america right well i take arms for myself if i mean if somebody start fighting i'd have to fight then you identify get killed without america that much seriously whether it's on the street or or anywhere i'll have to fight if somebody attacked the country muhammad ali malcolm x has formed a new black nationalist army movement will you consider joining his organization that's a crazy question no you know i don't i don't even talk about malcolm x he's not in our mind he's the little we don't worry about malcolm x we have too much to do and he uh i lead us a man of power he is the man who taught malcolm x everything he knows and uh to be foolish to even think like that we don't even think about things like that it cheapens us i'm sorry we don't have time for any more questions you

Channel: ReelinInTheYears66

Views: 24,821

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Id: -IWIk_cAAns

Length: 22min 28sec (1348 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 07 2021