Ali: A Life

by Jonathan Eig

As James Baldwin wrote in The Fire Next Time, many black people of Clay’s generation believed that getting an education and saving money would never be enough to earn respect. “One needed a handle, a lever, a means of inspiring fear,” Baldwin wrote. “It was absolutely clear the police would whip you and take you in as long as they could get away with it, and that everyone else—housewives, taxi drivers, elevator boys, dishwashers, bartenders, lawyers, judges, doctors, and grocers—would never, by the operation of any generous feeling, cease to use you as an outlet for their frustrations and hostilities. Neither civilized reason nor Christian love would cause any of those people to treat you as they presumably wanted to be treated; only the fear of your power to retaliate would cause them to do that, or seem to do it, which was (and is) good enough.”

Studies show that learning to read rewires the brain. Reading teaches us to block out the world, and in the process certain kinds of visual processing skills get lost. That may be why some dyslexics exhibit exceptional visual talents, helping them to understand shapes and movements in faster and more nuanced ways than others. It may be why Cassius Clay had a gift for anticipating a punch and backing or sliding out of its way. His brain didn’t focus well on words and sentences that needed to be processed in precise order, but he was extraordinarily good at the opposite: being alert to all things at once and spotting things that looked odd or out of place. A raised eyebrow, a shift in the angle of a fighter’s shoulder, a twitch of a muscle—these were all potential clues as he faced another boxer, mind racing to help him keep a safe distance away. Dyslexics might make lousy bookkeepers but excellent security guards; they can read the mood of a crowded room even if they struggle to concentrate on what the person in front of them is saying. They assimilate patterns and see opportunities others can’t detect. Scientists believe dyslexia is relatively common among entrepreneurs and other leaders—especially people who show a knack for creative thinking, for veering from the mainstream, and for seeing the big picture.

Conrad figured that Clay and the Beatles had enough in common—they were young, they were new, they were smart-alecks—to justify getting them in the same room.

Harold Conrad was right. He, along with a few of the younger reporters in the room, could see that a shift was taking place in American culture. Clay and the Beatles not only possessed real talent; they also represented something new. They were rebel-clowns, a compelling hybrid with the potential for danger and profit.

“I don’t have to be what you want me to me to be.”

Ali used skill rather than force to defeat his opponents; he refused to play by the rules of the establishment; he disdained materialism; he approached life with a sly smile and great sense of humor.

“Every time Ali wins,” Reeves wrote, “I see it as a victory for black people. For a black man to exist, he must be the greatest. He must say it over and over again—I am the greatest, because white people might forget . . . Ali insists on being seen, heard, known, and knowing himself.

I’m bad! I done something new for this fight. I done wrestled with an alligator . . . I done tussled with a whale, I done handcuffed lightning, throwed thunder in jail! That’s bad! Only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick! I’m so mean I make medicine sick!”

He’d conquered his fear of flying, enough so that he sometimes didn’t bother to wear a seatbelt. Once, when a flight attendant instructed him to buckle up, Ali replied, “Superman don’t need no seatbelt.” To which the flight attendant answered, “Superman don’t need no plane!” Ali loved being sassed and often repeated the exchange when he flew with friends.