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You win where it counts. In your spirit. In the
recesses of your consciousness which informs you that your
stance challenges the impolitic of the status quo which
would rather silence you than hear your song or your speech
which condemns them for their arrogance or cowardice.
Muhammad Ali was such a person who in his life
informed those around him that complicity with wrong or
slighting the truth was not a honorable choice but a dark
bargain with the devil.
When Ali resisted the Vietnam War draft on grounds that he
would not kill people of color, like him, just because a
racist white government said he should, Ali spoke truth to
power and the powers that be wanted to silence him.
They sought to imprison him and strip away his boxing
title and orchestrated a vile campaign of slander against
him for not wearing battle fatigues and sending him
thousands of miles to fight the Viet Cong.
Viet Cong people he never met and who had no beef with
him and Ali had no truck with them.
For a black man of his stature to stand against the
formidable US government and be willing to go to jail for
his beliefs was practically unheard of.
Ali became a rallying point for people to re think the
war and the nonsense of a post-colonial war
being conducted under the guise that if we do not stop the
Viet Cong in Hanoi, they will be at your local VFW meeting
hall in a matter of time.
Ali knew of the woefully disproportionate number of
black men, especially black men from the urban centers of
America who were dying in stinking rice paddies or being
impaled on hidden bamboo shards as they stalked the enemy
through the jungles in Vietnam.
And all the while, white college men could get
multiple deferments and avoid military service altogether.
The war was not fair. It was racially biased and unjust and
Ali knew that and he made a stand and took on the railings
and mockings of a scorned US government.
Ali believed the phrase that, “Service is the rent
you pay to live with others.”
By his courageous acts and statements, Ali made it possible
for many black men to straighten up and walk without a limp
when it came to expressing what needed to be said and to be
said without fear of retribution.
His smile was contagious. His boxing skills beyond
comparison. His wit was spot on. His life was exemplar as to
encouraging others to live without regret or fear of the
adversary’s counterpunch.
His life was a shimmering example of black manhood gracing
America.
Lafe Tolliver, Attorney
Comments to: Tolliver@Juno.com
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