This episode is the culmination of our series on famous federal court trials in US history.
In April of 1967, Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Clay) refused to step forward at a draft induction ceremony in Texas. His opposition to serving in Vietnam launched a sequence of trials and appeals that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It's a case about conscientious objection, protest, America's shifting views of the war, and how athletes have the unique role of "soldiers without a weapon."
This episode features Winston Bowman from the Federal Judicial Center, and Jeffrey Sammons from the NYU History Department.
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Transcript
Ali final
Archival: Friday in Houston was the champion's moment of truth. He showed up at the induction center but refused to step forward, bringing on the threat of prison and a shattered career.
Muhammad Ali: I'm not going to help nobody give something my Negroes don't have. If I die I'll die here right now,fighting you if I'm going to die, you my enemy. My enemy is the white people. Not Viet Congs or Chinese or Japanese, you my opposer, when I want freedom, you my opposer when I want justice, you my opposer when I want equality. You won't even stand [00:00:30] up for me in America for my religious beliefs. And you want me to go somewhere and fight. But you won't even stand up for me here at home.
Nick Capodice: I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy: I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: And this is Civics 101, the podcast refresher course on the basics of how our democracy works. Today we are concluding our series on famous federal court trials with a trial that involves one of the most famous individuals in modern history. Some say one of the greatest.
Muhammad Ali: I told you all [00:01:00] that I was the greatest of all time.
Nick Capodice: Athletes in the world. The case is US V, Cassius Clay, aka Muhammad Ali.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay, We're talking about the trial with heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali refusing to serve in Vietnam, correct?
Nick Capodice: Right. And this case is not just about one individual's protest. It's about conscientious objection, the draft, religion, celebrity, and most importantly, the complicated relationship between athletes [00:01:30] and politics. And to take us through it all, Hannah, I got two titans of jurisprudence, as well as lovers of the sweet science of bruising. Can I use the salad bowl for this? All right, here we go.
Nick Capodice: In the right corner. Winston Bowman.
Winston Bowman: My name is Winston Bowman. I'm an Associate.... I'm sorry. I'll start that over. My name is Winston Bowman. I am an associate historian [00:02:00] with the Federal Judicial Center.
Nick Capodice: And in the left, Jeffrey Sammons.
Jeffrey Sammons: Yes. Jeffrey Sammons, professor Emeritus, Department of History, New York University. Well, I feel like a boxer coming out of retirement, and I have a lot of ring rust.
Hannah McCarthy: Nick, I know that you are a lover of Muhammad Ali. But before we get to the circumstances of the trial, can you give us a sort of quick bio on the guy?
Nick Capodice: Sure. Cassius [00:02:30] Marcellus Clay, and I'm going to get back to his name change a little later, he first learned to box as a kid in the 1950s. Now the story is that another kid stole his bicycle and Clay learned to box to get it back.
Jeffrey Sammons: So that's how he was introduced to boxing. Of course, he would become a very good amateur boxer and actually go to the Olympics in Rome.
Archival: But the most popular U.S.A. winner was the light Hearted Cashes Marcellus Clay, the fifth in [00:03:00] white here who easily defeated Poland's Zbigniew Rakowski.
Jeffrey Sammons: And won a gold medal and became quite the celebrity as a result of that. And then there's this story that after he comes back, he realizes that he's just the same black guy that he was before in terms of how the people in Kentucky and perhaps the wider United States viewed him.
Muhammad Ali: I went and got my gold medal, went back in order to cheeseburgers, [00:03:30] and they said, I'm sorry, we we don't serve Negroes. I say, I don't eat em either, just give me two cheeseburgers. And she said, You're getting smart. She called him manager and he said, Somebody, I don't care who he is. She says, Cassius Clay, okay.
Jeffrey Sammons: And the story is that he tossed his gold medal into whatever that river is that runs through Louisville. So then he becomes a professional boxer. He's seen as the sort of Johnny Appleseed figure spreading [00:04:00] boxing, which is kind of a bit in the doldrums.
Nick Capodice: Jeffrey told me that lovers of the sport of boxing are always looking for a hero, a champion to elevate the sport. And the heavyweight champion at that time was a boxer named Sonny Liston.
Jeffrey Sammons: And Sonny Liston had these ties to organized crime. In fact, he was known as an enforcer of four of the Mafia in Saint Louis in the 1950s [00:04:30] that, you know, those who owed loans, etc., to the Mafia, they would send Liston after them. So when we see Rocky, you know, doing the same thing, they're borrowing on, I think Sonny Liston's real example.
Archival: Did I give you a job this morning or didn't I? So why don't you break his thumbs like I told you to? When you don't do what I tell you to do, you make me look bad, Rock.
Jeffrey Sammons: And when this young, brash, [00:05:00] handsome, clever Cassius Clay comes along, then Madison Avenue, the boxing establishment, say this is our savior of the sport. And of course, the sport is always looking for some kind of savior. But at the same time, revealing that he is a member of the Nation of Islam. And the boxing establishment would rather have somebody identified with [00:05:30] the mafia than with the Nation of Islam.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay. Can we talk a little bit about the Nation of Islam?
Nick Capodice: Absolutely. Very briefly, because it's a big organization with the big history, the Nation of Islam, which is not the same thing as the religion of Islam, which is the one that about 2 billion people across the world practice. The Nation of Islam is a religious, social and political organization that was founded in the 1930s. Malcolm X was their spokesperson at this time, the Nation of Islam differs significantly [00:06:00] from the central tenets of Islam and was and remains to this day, a very controversial organization.
Jeffrey Sammons: But it also condemned black people who they saw as kind of wedded to the legacy of of of slavery and also railed against whites. It also called for the separation of the races. And interestingly, Malcolm X would actually meet with members of [00:06:30] the Ku Klux Klan at some point because both agreed upon the need for the separation of the races.
Nick Capodice: Clay made a public announcement in 1964 that he had converted and he was a member of the Nation of Islam. He first changed his name to Cassius X, citing that Clay was a name passed down to him through his family's former enslavers, and soon after that he adopted the new name Muhammad Ali.
Hannah McCarthy: Wasn't there some famous fight where there was someone who kept [00:07:00] calling Ali, Clay and Ali would hit him and say, What's my name?
Nick Capodice: Yeah, that was Ernie Terrell, 1966. This was a few months before the draft induction ceremony that's going to launch this case.
Archival: Why don't you call me my name, man? Well, what's your name? You told me your name was Cassius Clay a few years ago. You? My name was Cassius Clay. My name is Muhammad Ali. And you will announce it right there in the center of that ring. After the fight, if you don't do it now.
Jeffrey Sammons: So. So with Terrell, he just. He refused to knock him out. He just kept basically hitting [00:07:30] him in ways that that would punish him but not finish him off.
Archival: Terrell is now being examined by a commission doctor. What impels a man to go out there? His pride and always the fact that he has the chance. He still has a chance.
Hannah McCarthy: All right. Let's pivot to the Vietnam War. You've got President Eisenhower bringing Americans into the conflict in Vietnam in 1955. When do people start to get drafted to fight? [00:08:00]
Nick Capodice: Now, this is tricky because the famous first draft lottery for Vietnam was in 1969, But that was a new way of doing things. Before the lottery system, everyone who had registered for the Selective Service, which is almost all males between the ages of 18 and 25, were evaluated by a draft board and either drafted or not due to their individual circumstances. Muhammad Ali was indeed registered for the Selective Service, but he was not a candidate for conscription until 1966. [00:08:30]
Hannah McCarthy: Why is that?
Nick Capodice: I'm going to bring back Winston Bowman for this one.
Winston Bowman: The reason for that is that although Ali signed up for the the draft, his test scores were initially too low to make an eligible for the military. And a lot of people are sort of incredulous about this at the time because he seems like such a bright guy, but he actually wasn't a terribly sort of dedicated student.
Nick Capodice: Ali, in fact, joked to some reporters by saying, I said I was the greatest, not the smartest.
Winston Bowman: What [00:09:00] happens is that in February of 1966, the Army gets more desperate for soldiers and lowers the test scores necessary. So that's actually what makes Ali eligible for the draft.
Nick Capodice: At this time, Ali makes public his intent to refuse to serve. He files for conscientious objector status and makes a famous statement.
Muhammad Ali: I will not go 10,000 miles from here to help murder [00:09:30] and kill a lot of poor people simply to continue the domination of white slave masters over the darker peoples of the earth.
Winston Bowman: And that triggers this sort of administrative proceeding where basically the Department of Justice and the FBI conduct a background investigation on him to ascertain whether he meets these three criteria.
Nick Capodice: So [00:10:00] let's talk about conscientious objector status. You can claim it and refuse to serve if your beliefs oppose war, but only if you indeed meet three criteria. And they've changed a little bit since then. But these were the criteria in the 1960s. Number one, your belief must be sincere. Number two, that belief must be religious in nature. And number three, that religious compunction must be against serving in all wars, not just the [00:10:30] one you were drafted for. So Ali applies for this status. A judge in Kentucky reviews it and finds he does meet the criteria and refers his findings to the Department of Justice.
Winston Bowman: The DOJ looks at that information, but ultimately they make a recommendation to the body that whose word is law, The draft board that he should be denied conscientious objector status. And they say that he actually fails all three of the criteria.
Hannah McCarthy: All [00:11:00] right. Hang on. Let me make sure that I've got this right. Ali claims conscientious objector status. All such claims are reviewed by a judge. A judge reviews Ali's claim and finds it perfectly legitimate. But the judge also sends it to the Department of Justice. And the DOJ disagrees with that finding.
Nick Capodice: Exactly.
Hannah McCarthy: Why.
Winston Bowman: They say that he's you know, this isn't a sincere belief because he's really only asserted it since he became eligible for the draft [00:11:30] and it became an imminent possibility. They say that it's not a religious belief because the Nation of Islam is not fundamentally a religious organization that is beliefs of basically racial and political, that he doesn't want to fight in a white man's war. And then as a final part, they say that his beliefs are inherently selective about the kinds of war that he does and doesn't want to fight in.
Nick Capodice: Now, the draft appeal board could hypothetically go against the [00:12:00] DOJ's opinion, but they do not. The Appeal Board rejects his claim for conscientious objector status, but they don't give the reason why. And this is important for later, I promise. So Muhammad Ali is summoned to a now famous induction ceremony in Houston, Texas, held on April 28th, 1967.
Winston Bowman: And they're lined up and they all have to take a step forward when their name is called to indicate that they are going to join the military. And when it comes to [00:12:30] Muhammad Ali's turn, at first they call out his formal legal name, Cassius Clay, and he does not respond at that point. They call out his his taken name, Muhammad Ali. And again, he he doesn't take the symbolic step forward. And at that point, then he's taken in by military authorities and later indicted for draft evasion.
Archival: Former world heavyweight champion Cassius Clay refused to take the oath of induction into the Army. The Black Muslim [00:13:00] fighter, who is also known as Muhammad Ali, was immediately stripped of his title by the World Boxing Association. Clay insisted that he is an ordained minister and should be exempt. Clay also charges race discrimination by the Houston draft board. He faces federal prosecution and a possible five year prison sentence plus $10,000 fine.
Hannah McCarthy: What happens next? Does he go to jail? Was he fined?
Nick Capodice: Well, what happens next is a political and religious battle that takes years to complete. And we're going to walk you through all of it [00:13:30] and the reverberations surrounding the clash of politics and athleticism that ring to this very day right after this break.
Hannah McCarthy: But first, if you want to know more about everything we do on the show that's on and off the mic, that sort of thing is in our newsletter, Extra Credit. And I will bet $100 the next one will include Nick telling you why When We Were Kings is the best documentary ever made.
Nick Capodice: That's easy money, Hannah.
Hannah McCarthy: You can sign up at our website, civics101podcast.org.
Hannah McCarthy: We're [00:14:00] back. This is Civics 101. We're talking about US v Clay, the court case regarding Muhammad Ali's refusal to serve in Vietnam. So Nick, Ali files for conscientious objector status. That claim is ultimately denied. He is summoned to an induction ceremony where he refuses to step forward when his name is called. So what happens next.
Nick Capodice: A lot happens to Ali and it [00:14:30] happens very quickly. Here's Jeffrey Sammons again.
Jeffrey Sammons: Immediately after he refuses induction. So even before there's a trial, they strip him of his boxing license and in some instances of his title, he's basically becomes eventually deprived of a right to make a living as as a boxer.
Nick Capodice: Muhammad Ali was approached by numerous officials and told things along the lines of, well, you don't have to fight the war necessarily. [00:15:00] You can just go over there for morale. Do some boxing, give some speeches, that sort of thing. But Ali flat out refused over and over no matter what.
Muhammad Ali: Well, shoot them for what? How am I going to shoot them? Little and poor Black people. Little babies and children and women. How can I shoot them poor people. Just take me to jail.
Jeffrey Sammons: And he said that he was actually willing to face a firing squad to die rather than to violate his principles, to fight [00:15:30] in, you know, a kind of nationalistic war and especially one against another people of color. And that's the thing that Ali also saw of himself as a member of a global nonwhite majority.
Hannah McCarthy: He said he would rather face a firing squad than go to Vietnam.
Nick Capodice: He did. He said he was prepared to go to prison or even die instead of going to Vietnam to fight in that war. [00:16:00]
Jeffrey Sammons: His famous statement was that he had no quarrel in his war with them Viet Cong. And he actually also wrote a poem about about that.
Hannah McCarthy: He wrote a poem about it?
Nick Capodice: He did.
Hannah McCarthy: Can I hear it?
Nick Capodice: Sure.
Jeffrey Sammons: Keep asking me, no matter how long on the war in Vietnam, I sing this song, I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong.
Hannah McCarthy: Now, [00:16:30] how did the American public react to his refusal?
Nick Capodice: The reaction fluctuated quite a lot over the years, and it's important thing to consider when we talk about this case. Now we watch movies and documentaries and videos of protest, and it's easy to think that the Vietnam War was always deeply unpopular, which it eventually was. But initially, when Ali refuses, the war is much more popular. Here's [00:17:00] Winston Bowman again.
Winston Bowman: At the time that he first comes out against the war in 1966, he is widely criticized for it and really kind of made persona non grata. Even individuals like Jackie Robinson, a very critical of him for taking this stance, basically saying, you know, you're happy to take all the advantages from American society but not willing to sign up to fight for the country.
Archival: And the tragedy [00:17:30] to me is that Cassius has made millions of dollars off of the American public, and now he's not willing to show his appreciation to a country that is giving him, in my view, a fantastic opportunity.
Winston Bowman: I think it's also true that Ali's very kind of bombastic persona plays against him initially, that he does not fit the archetype of what most particularly white middle class Americans want from their sports [00:18:00] heroes at the time, right? He's sort of this larger than life character who will not be cowed. And a lot of people at the time talk about Ali as sort of getting above his station.
Hannah McCarthy: Which is patently racist.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, And Winston told me that racism was a huge part of what he called, towards Ali, a roiling cauldron of growing unpopularity.
Winston Bowman: And in fact, the files for the draft board are filled with hate mail from people saying, [00:18:30] Why haven't you drafted this person yet? Why hasn't he been charged, etc., etc.. Much of it is, you know, very clearly racially motivated. But certainly there's a widespread sense that he is a deeply unpopular figure at the time he comes up for trial.
Nick Capodice: June 16th, 1967. The trial of US V Clay begins, and this trial is over quickly.
Winston Bowman: The [00:19:00] trial takes two days. There's only a handful of witnesses called by each side, and the prosecution basically consists of calling a handful of military officers who saw that Ali was called at this ceremony, refused to step forward.
Nick Capodice: Ali's attorney argues that Ali should be considered a minister for the Nation of Islam. There was an exception for ministers. Ministers did not have to serve.
Winston Bowman: The judge sort of laughs this out of court and says, well, [00:19:30] I happen to know he's the world champion boxer. So clearly he has more on his hands than being a minister. As far as the Department of Justice's recommendations go, Ali's lawyers don't strenuously contest them. And this is probably a mistake. The jury only takes 20 minutes to deliberate and returns a guilty verdict.
Nick Capodice: The jury, six men, six women, all white, gives their verdict to the judge, who in turn gives Ali the maximum [00:20:00] possible sentence. Five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Ali's lawyers ask the judge, Judge Ingraham, for a lighter sentence, like probation or 18 months, as other people had gotten. But the judge flat out refused. Interestingly, there were about 500,000 men accused of draft violations during the Vietnam War, but only 8700 were convicted.
Hannah McCarthy: It's so interesting. This is probably one of the few instances that [00:20:30] the entire American public came to understand what happens when you don't give in to the draft.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, it's like here's the repercussion.
Hannah McCarthy: So did he go to jail?
Nick Capodice: He did not. Ali's legal team immediately started the appeal process and he was allowed out on bail, but he had to pay the fine as well as the significantly greater legal expense fees. But he was not allowed to box anymore. He couldn't box in the US and he wasn't allowed to fly out of the country to fight in other countries. Here's Jeffrey Sammons again.
Jeffrey Sammons: He [00:21:00] had to go on speaking tours to to support himself. And actually, I was a student at Rutgers when he came to Rutgers and gave a speech which I attended because I had been this enormous Ali fan. And, you know, it was amazing to to to see and hear him in in person.
Hannah McCarthy: So there's something specific to athletes that I really want to talk about here, [00:21:30] especially when it comes to being told they cannot compete due to legal issues or even injury. How old was Ali at this point? Was he in his twenties?
Nick Capodice: Yeah, he was 25.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay. So those are his prime boxing years, right? Every year that he cannot fight is a year that he can't get back.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. And this takes a few years. He appeals to the Fifth Circuit of Appeals and he loses. And you know where you go next if you lose a circuit court appeal, right.
Hannah McCarthy: I sure do, the very top.
Winston Bowman: So they initially appealed to [00:22:00] the Supreme Court in 1968. And I think most people, although it's impossible to know with 100% certainty, would say that the court would have been unlikely to take the case in 1968. But what happens is that three days after they file for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court, there's a scandal in the FBI.
Hannah McCarthy: A scandal?
Nick Capodice: Yeah, an illegal wiretapping scandal.
Winston Bowman: And it turns out that the FBI has been running a series [00:22:30] of programs where they're legally surveilling domestic political groups, including the Nation of Islam.
Jeffrey Sammons: Some of the information that is used in the case is gained by wiretaps on Martin Luther King Junior's phone authorized by Bobby Kennedy. So it shows people that we would come to believe as liberal and progressive, are determined to support [00:23:00] and protect and defend the war effort.
Winston Bowman: And it turns out that Ali had five illegal wiretaps during the pendency of of his case. So what happens is that the Supreme Court remands Ali's case and a series of other appeals back to the trial courts to see if that illegally obtained information had what they call tainted the trial in any way.
Nick Capodice: Remand, by the way, means it's not ruled [00:23:30] upon, but it's sent back to the lower court with new information. So the case goes back to that first judge in Houston to determine if the prosecution's case had been tainted by these illegal wiretaps. And this is a long hearing. The judge listens to the wiretaps in his chambers, and he eventually rules that while these taps were indeed illegal, they did not taint the prosecution's case and his previous ruling stood.
Hannah McCarthy: So Ali is still found guilty after all of this.
Nick Capodice: After all this. Absolutely. But contrary [00:24:00] to how it affects someone's boxing career in this instance, time is on his side. This wiretap issue delayed the whole process. And Ali appeals to the Supreme Court yet again. But now it's 1971.
Archival: Some 175,000 people from all walks of life with differing ideologies and purposes marched from the White House to the Capitol. Washington has grown accustomed to [00:24:30] this method of voicing dissent, though larger than most. This was an organized demonstration with parade permits...Marshals and responsible leadership...
Winston Bowman: And by that time, the whole draft process itself has come under much greater scrutiny. There's a widespread sense that the draft is unfair, that it disproportionately affects particularly [00:25:00] African-American, but also other minority groups and poor whites, because they're unable to claim college exemptions and things like this. There are reforms made to the draft machinery, but the Supreme Court, I think it's fair to say, is more concerned to show that it is also ensuring the fairness of that process.
Nick Capodice: The court decides to take the case and the arguments are heard. In April 1971, four years after Ali had [00:25:30] refused to take that step forward at the induction ceremony in Texas.
Archival: Number 783 Clay against the United States. Mr. Eskridge. You may proceed whenever you're ready...Mr. Chief Justice. And may it please the court.
Nick Capodice: Ali's advocate argues to the 8 justices that the denial of his conscientious objector status was invalid.
Hannah McCarthy: Hang on. You said eight justices. You mean nine justices?
Nick Capodice: No, [00:26:00] there was one missing.
Winston Bowman: What the reason that there's eight justices is that Thurgood Marshall, who's a relatively recent appointee, was solicitor general at the time that all these prosecution was taking place. And so he recuses himself.
Hannah McCarthy: You're telling me that the one Black justice on the court could not weigh in on a case in which race is a major factor?
Nick Capodice: He could not. And initially the justices were set to vote 5 to 3 against Ali, upholding that initial conviction in Texas. [00:26:30] But something happens before the opinions are written.
Jeffrey Sammons: One of the justices, John Marshall Harlan, is introduced by a clerk to The Autobiography of Malcolm X and comes to believe that Ali is truly a conscientious objector on the basis of religion, that his beliefs are sincere.
Hannah McCarthy: John Marshall Harlan In the Seventies,
Nick Capodice: Yeah,
Hannah McCarthy: Because there was a John Marshall Harlan before that too.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, so this one is sometimes called [00:27:00] John Marshall Harlan 2. He is the grandson of the other Supreme Court John Marshall Harlan, That is the justice who was the lone dissenter in the Plessy v Ferguson case.
Jeffrey Sammons: So he changes his his vote and makes the count four four. If it's at four four, then the lower court rulings would be upheld. There would be no opinion. Ali would never know what happened.
Nick Capodice: And some on the court believed that no opinion [00:27:30] would cause an absolute maelstrom of protests in opposition.
Jeffrey Sammons: And I forgot to mention, remember, you know, we had the assassination of Martin Luther King in 68 and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in the same year, riots across the country. So the court is really fearful of contributing to social unrest. There was a fear that if Ali were acquitted on the basis of [00:28:00] being a conscientious objector because of his membership in the Nation of Islam or even his ministerial role, that the Nation of Islam would grow enormously because Blacks would join in droves. Right. So and its strength would also grow because of that. And it was a feared organization. On the other hand, if it votes to [00:28:30] uphold the conviction of Ali, this is going to make Ali into this incredible living martyr and is going to release potential new hell on the streets of of the United States.
Hannah McCarthy: So the court does not want to leave it to a 4 to 4, because in a 4 to 4, there's no opinion issued. Right. Which means like no transparency, this whole Supreme Court case about Muhammad Ali and we never get to hear about what actually happened. And there would be protests in the street. [00:29:00] They don't want to endorse the Nation of Islam by acquitting Ali, and they don't want to imprison him because he would then be seen as a martyr. So how do they actually rule?
Nick Capodice: Now, it might be silly to call it a TKO, but Justice Potter Stewart, you'll know when you see him, found a technicality. He found a way to frame the question so none of those things happened. Hannah, you remember like 20 minutes ago when I told you that Ali filed for [00:29:30] conscientious objector status, it was approved, the DOJ reviewed it, and they disagreed and advised the draft appeal Board to deny his claim. And they did?
Hannah McCarthy: I do.
Nick Capodice: Well, while the DOJ explained their reasons why they felt it should be denied, the draft board who made the actual decision never explained their reasoning. They just denied his claim. And Justice Potter Stewart tries to convince the other seven justices to go along with him to make that the reason the denial should be invalid.
Hannah McCarthy: So they can say that that tiny [00:30:00] step in this whole saga was flawed and therefore Ali is not guilty.
Nick Capodice: Exactly. And none of their feared repercussions happened. It's just a dry technical misstep and it works. The decision is unanimous. 8 to 0 in favor of Ali. So after learning about the circuitous path this case took over the course of four years, I asked [00:30:30] Winston, Why does he teach this case? Why is it important? What does U.S. V Clay tell us about the judiciary?
Winston Bowman: For me, this case illustrates nicely the difficulty the government can sometimes have in distilling people's beliefs down into something that's sort of legible to the bureaucracy, right? The government is very good at things that fit a check box and very bad [00:31:00] at sort of messiness. And when you're talking about religious ideas and beliefs fitting into particular categories, that could be very difficult for legal organizations to deal with.
Hannah McCarthy: There's another reason why this case is so important, and it's something that you brought up earlier that still is going on today. It's this unique relationship of celebrities, specifically athletes to political discourse.
Archival: Wouldn't you [00:31:30] love to see one of these NFL owners...When somebody disrespects our flag to say, get that ______ off the field right now, Out. He's fired. Fired.
Nick Capodice: When I spoke to Jeff before the interview, he said something to me on the phone I could not get out of my head. He said, An athlete is a soldier without a weapon. They are representatives of the might of a nation. [00:32:00]
Jeffrey Sammons: And that athletes were always supposed to be loyal and patriotic and supportive of the government and and especially because they had benefited so much from an American meritocracy as as as as it were. So they were upheld as the symbols that if you apply yourself, you have discipline, determination that you can make it [00:32:30] anywhere. You know, this is happening in sport, and sport is such a crucial element to upholding sort of the American system that this notion of hegemony, of that, that's not control from the top, but it springs up from all these institutions in which people believe and in the values of the nation. And sport is an important bolsterer of that system.
Nick Capodice: To put it plainly, when [00:33:00] we look at the long history in America of athletes being chastised or punished for acts of protest, it is almost without exception, Black athletes. Jackie Robinson wrote in his memoir that he never could sing or stand for the national anthem. And over 70 years later, Colin Kaepernick didn't have his contract renewed to the 49 ERs for doing exactly that, refusing to stand, and later kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality.
Jeffrey Sammons: Kaepernick [00:33:30]. He'll never play professional football again, and it shows the influence that Ali had, but also how the reaction to the engagement of athletes and politics hasn't changed, that they're still punishing. Kaepernick is not the first one. There was the player for the Chicago [00:34:00] Bulls who wore a dashiki to an event at the White House. He also presented Bush some list of grievances, and he was never seen in the NBA again. Or the gentleman who played for the Denver Rockets who refused to stand for the national anthem. Kaepernick saw the example of Ali and John Carlos and Tommie Smith [00:34:30] and decided to use his standing as a star athlete and the platform of football to take a stand and and paid a very heavy price for. So that is a sort of cautionary tale. And that's the other thing I want to say about Ali, that that that he took on America in ways that no one else did, that that he opposed basic, so [00:35:00] called ideals and values, or at least that failure to live up to them. But he was acting sort of truly on Black terms and not willing to go along with the system. That brings up one other thing, too, that Ali had more of a support system, as it were, although he was out there all alone in some respects and paid a heavy personal price. I think the society was very [00:35:30] different than in terms of of activism.
Nick Capodice: Jeff mentioned that in the 1960s it wasn't just the Nation of Islam that backed Ali. They were part of the Black Power movement, along with SNIC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panthers.
Jeffrey Sammons: He wasn't out of step with those people, that's for sure. You know, they had his back in a kind of, you know, you're our man. We're really behind you. You are now the people's [00:36:00] champ. He lost, you know, money and his prime as a result. But he he became a transcendent figure because of his of his, you know, principled stand.
Archival: He's exercising his constitutional right to make a statement. I think there's a long history of sports figures doing so.
Archival: The United States leads the Olympics in medal awards [00:36:30] and is just about supreme in the Sprint races. Thanks to men like Tommie Smith and John Carlos, it started with the news that the Black Power Disciples, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the Olympic 200 meters gold and bronze medalists had been suspended by the United States Olympic Committee and given 48 hours to leave Mexico. I had said that if there were any demonstrations at the Olympic Games, by anyone, the participants would be sent home. President Trump tweeted the Kaepernick had sent a terrible message. The NFL had this to say. The social [00:37:00] justice issues that Colin and other professional athletes have raised deserve our attention and action. Two very different points of view.
Nick Capodice: That’s US v Cassius Clay, and hey! Before we say who we are and whose music we used in this episode, Massive, massive thanks to our friends at the Federal Judicial Center for the idea of making a series on federal court cases. It was a delight from stem to stern. So special thanks to Catherine Hawke at the American bar Association, Christine Lamberson from the FJC, and the GOAT of the ABA as far as civics 101 is concerned, the infinitely supportive Frank Valadez. [00:38:00]
Nick Capodice: This episode was made by me Nick Capodice with you Hannah McCarthy. Jacqui Fulton is our producer, Christina Phillips our Senior Producer and Rebecca Lavoie our Executive Producer. Music in this episode by a lot of the old greats, Bio Unit, Cycle Hiccups, The New Fools, AGST, Dreem, Peter Sandberg, Autohacker, Fabien Tell, Peerless, From Now On, Carlton Lees, Ikmashoo Aoi, Jesse Gallagher, Scanglobe, Needledrop Sessions, and the reigning Civics 101 middleweight champion of being used in our episodes, Chris Zabriskie. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, NHPR. Here's George Carlin.
Archival: Big fight coming up, Ali [00:38:30] and Frazier. Muhammad Ali. I call him Muhammad Ali because that's what he wants. Of course, he had a strange job, beating people up. Government wanted him to change jobs. Government wanted him to kill people. He thought it over and he said, No, that's where I draw the line. [00:39:00] I'll beat him up but I don't want to kill em. And the government told them, Well, if you won't kill em, we won't let you beat them up!