Cassius Marcellus Clay jr., who in time would be called Muhammad Ali and become heavyweight champion, had a very peculiar relationship with food from an early age. He was not an extraordinarily large baby, but he was destined to become a giant. He weighed just over three kilos when he was born in the Louisville City hospital, in Kentucky, on January 17, 1942, in a country marked by racism.
Yes, he was a giant in the ring, as well as an icon of the 20th century. And not only from sport, but also from the fight for civil rights. And also one of the most biographed athletes. We already knew, thanks to David Remnick, author of Rey del mundo: Muhammad Ali y el nacimiento de un héroe americano (Debolsillo), that his appetite surprised his classmates at Central High School. Now we know a little more about him thanks to his latest biographer.
The American journalist Jonathan Eig has conducted more than 600 interviews and exhumed FBI documentation, among other files, for the monumental Life of Ali). Cassius had a hearty breakfast at his parents', at 3302 Grand Avenue, in the West End of Louisville, a modest black neighborhood, but light years away from other segregated neighborhoods with a worse reputation, such as Little Africa.
At 12, when he started boxing, he drank more than a liter of milk mixed with two raw eggs for breakfast. As a child (no doubt, to distance himself from the other Cassius Clay in the family, the father, who was a drunkard), he declared war on alcohol. And soft drinks and tobacco, which "are also very harmful for an athlete". Hunger was actually a metaphor. "You can only hit a target in the ring", the coach told him.
He wanted to eat the world. He got it very soon. In 1960 he won the Olympic gold in Rome. Four years later, against all odds, he was crowned heavyweight champion in Miami against the fearsome Sonny Liston. In those days, the murder of Emmett Till, a boy practically of the same generation as Cassius (six months younger) and who reactivated the fight against institutional racism, was still very present.
In 1964, when his name was still Cassius Clay and he was proclaimed world champion for the first time (a title he would win twice more), a black man could be a star, but above all he was a black man. African Americans continued to be excluded from countless neighborhoods, churches, unions, corporations, hospitals, nursing homes, and schools. There could be a black boxing champion, but not a black judge on the Supreme Court…
There were also no black governors or senators. And even fewer black senators. Of the 435 members of the House of Representatives, only five were black, 1.15%. There were also restaurants and hotels for white customers only and where the only black people to be seen were the staff (waiters, porters, cleaners). This situation led to situations that are inconceivable today, but which hardly surprised anyone at the time.
Jonathan Eig explains that his biographer, who was terrified of flying, covered the more than 2,000 kilometers of road between Miami and New York while subsisting on mortadella because he could not find a single inn that would accept him . It is no coincidence that in 1965, before the revenge against Liston and revalidating his victory, he renounced the "name of a slave" and embraced the cause of the Nation of Islam, which renamed him Muhammad Ali.
Until then, Cassius Marcellus Clay sounded like a gladiator and seemed to him "the most beautiful name in the world". A bus was bought that usually smelled of fried food: when traveling with the growing entourage he would order huge supplies of fried chicken from Sonja Roy (the first of his four wives and perhaps the one he loved the most). He doubted the "racial tolerance" of hoteliers. Once, his assistant Drew Bundini wanted to show him that things were changing and walked into a bar in Yulee, Florida. "Hey, you, in the facilities behind", they told him.
He was the first champion to break free from the mob, but he succumbed like a puppet to Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. This sect mixed messianism, unorthodox Muslim beliefs and African-American racial superiority. Because of his influence, Ali separated from Sonja Roy and distanced himself from Malcolm X, whom he had been friends with and who was assassinated when he distanced himself from the Nation of Islam.
Clay/Ali didn't exist. There was a lot of Clay/Ali. Multifaceted, contradictory and self-centered, he abandoned friends for whom he could stand, such as Malcolm X himself. But he also refused to go to Vietnam, even if it meant losing the title and being expelled from the quadrilaterals for almost four years at the height of his career. When he was able to return to it, he was no longer the same, although he regained the world scepter twice more.
The later character is the most well-known, the fallen idol with Parkinson's forgiven by his country and who lit the Atlanta '96 Olympic torch. And then there is the other, the black Saint Sebastian who appeared on the cover of Squire in 1968, as a martyr. It was a mouthful, yes, so what? He showed that blacks could and should rebel. This was their real fight. When he confirmed his no to the war, he called his mother and told her: “I have done what was necessary. I want to go home and see what's for lunch."
This text recasts two reports on our website from November 25 and December 2, 2022
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