Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight: Cassius Clay vs. the United States of America

by Howard L. Bingham, Max Wallace, Muhammad Ali (Foreword by)

Overview

In 1966 Muhammad Ali announced his intention to refuse induction into the United States Army as a conscientious objector. This set off a five-year battle that would strip him of his world heavyweight title, bar him from boxing, and nearly send him to prison—all at the peak of his career as the greatest boxer in history. Ali defiantly proclaimed his refusal to go to war with the assertion that it violated his beliefs as a black Muslim. The subsequent legal battle proved to be a test tougher than fighting Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier and George Foreman combined. Framed with photos from Ali's photographer and good friend Howard Bingham, Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight is the extraordinary story of the greatest challenge to the greatest champion of the century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590772089
Publisher:	M. Evans & Company
Publication date:	12/16/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

The son of a minister and Pullman porter, Howard L. Bingham was the first black photographer to work on a Hollywood Camera Guild crew. His long-time friendship with Muhammad Ali led to the publication of a definitive book of photographs of the fighter, Muhammad Ali: A Thirty Year Journey.

Max Wallace is a Canadian journalist, filmmaker, and human rights activist.

Table of Contents

Foreword 9

Chapter 1 Louisville and the Lip 11

Chapter 2 Those Who Came Before 29

Chapter 3 A Modem Crusade 51

Chapter 4 The Making of Muhammad Ali 79

Chapter 5 "I Ain't Got No Quarrel with Them Vietcong" 103

Chapter 6 The Step 133

Chapter 7 Backlash 161

Chapter 8 Exile 183

Chapter 9 Return from the Wilderness 209

Chapter 10 Vindication 237

Afterword 251

Acknowledgments 261

Sources 263

Index 269

Editorial Reviews

Here, Bingham (Muhammad Ali: A Thirty-Year Journey), Muhammad Ali's best friend and favorite photographer, contends that the former heavyweight champ's greatest legacy is that, owing to his conversion to the Nation of Islam and subsequent refusal to enter the military during the Vietnam War, Ali served as a touchstone for the racial and antiwar upheavals that rocked the Sixties and changed our country. Bingham offers a friendly portrayal of the conscientious objector/Black Muslim minister Ali but doesn't beyond a shadow of a doubt answer the question of whether his motives for evading the draft were self-serving, racial, or religious--though it is easy to imagine that at the least they might have evolved from the former to the latter. One cannot deny Ali's influence on his times, though. And neither can one deny that, whatever his motives for refusing military service, he paid a great price by being banned from boxing for three and a half years during his prime. While not "The Greatest," as its subject proclaimed himself, Bingham's book deserves a place in the sports collections of most public libraries. With a foreword by Ali himself, this book ably supplements the Hauser and Remnick biographies.--Jim G. Burns, Ottumwa P.L., IA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

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