adminLOUISVILLE, Ky. — Muhammad Ali was on the ropes for refusing induction into the Army, and Jim Brown wanted to help. But first, the NFL great wanted to hear the boxing champion’s reasons for not answering the call to military service during the Vietnam War. So Brown led a group of prominent black athletes who hit Ali with a flurry of questions during a two-hour meeting in Cleveland in June 1967. Ali didn’t duck the questions and stuck to his principles, citing his religious beliefs in refusing to join the military.
The dozen athletes, including Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, emerged from the meeting to publicly support Ali at a time when the champ was one of the country’s most polarizing figures.
“People got the answers that they wanted,” Brown recalled on Saturday.
Nearly 50 years after the meeting, now known as the “Ali Summit,” several participants including Brown and Russell were at Ali’s side again on Saturday night in the boxing champ’s hometown. Brown received a lifetime humanitarian achievement award bearing Ali’s name.
While posing for photos with the 72-year-old Ali, Brown leaned over and whispered to the seated former heavyweight champion. Later, Brown said he told Ali: “You’re the greatest of all time.”
The line-up of Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award winners included Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon and Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist Common.
Other award winners included a half-dozen young adults from around the world honored for their humanitarian roles.
But much of the spotlight was on that meeting decades ago in Cleveland when Ali, was at his most vulnerable, and how the group of athletes joined Ali’s corner in the fight of the champ’s life.
Several participants met at the Muhammad Ali Center a few hours before the awards event Saturday night. Ali, who is battling Parkinson’s disease, met the group shortly before the awards show at a downtown hotel.
“No one had really sat down and listened to him and given him the respect of having him tell his point of view,” Brown said in recalling the 1967 meeting.
Former NFL player John Wooten, another meeting participant, said Ali’s questioners “came at him with everything.” The man known for his brashness in the ring was humble when explaining his reasons, he said. — AFP.
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