Just finished Joe Frazier's autobiography

Good post,Scartissue. I'd heard about Joe going off at Ellis.

 

I think it was more than that though. Of course some of his persona was the familiar Gorgeous George story of self-promotion. However, some of Ali's rhetoric against Frazier was inspired by his black nationalist and Nation of Islam ideology and seems a calculated attempt to weaken Frazier's support within the black community, as well as attacking his confidence - which is something he had at times acknowledged. It was, in part, about, positioning himself the black man within the wider black community in America and drawing support and confidence from that .Some and it should not be forgotten was grotesque- the racially abusive gorilla taunts, the Uncle Tom rubbish, and essentially portraying him as a race traitor. As well as the fact that he was an attention-seeking bully. You can see it with how he responded to other black fighters too, both in competition but even within training camps.

Much of it was caught up in the racial politics and conflicts of the period and sometimes that is forgotten. As well as the pressures on him from the court cases, media and social backlash. This was a period in his life and I do think he seemed to have moved on from some of those views.

 

I think Ali became a great man.

I think for much of his life he was a flawed man.

 

I think a problem is in how we portray celebrities or historical figures. Sometimes it's so black and white with no nuance. There's that phrase or point that it's important to have the ability to see that more than one thing can be true at once.

 

I told this story here before. My former friend and business partner and I were playing pool and above his pool table was a signed photo of Smoking Joe. I asked him how he got it. He knows Ali is one of my heroes. He tells me he got it at an autograph show and then sheepishly said to me he told Joe that he made Ali the way he is, i.e. Parkinson's. Joe politely said don't say that.

Ali was wrong period. He tried many times to make amends period. He was a complex guy period. He could be a hypocrite. period. He was a womanizer period. But he wasn't a bad guy period.

 

Which he didn't write.

 

A flawed guy. Only human after all.

 

Yes. Muhammad's view about those things evolved throughout his life.

 

Richard Durham was the man on that one.

 

Ferdie said it made Ali look like a combination of Joan Of Arc, Mahatma Gandhi, and Malcom X. I think I got that right. I used to communicate with him via email before he passed. Ditto for Edwin Pope, the sportswriter who was close to him when he was Cassius Clay and becoming Muhammad Ali.

 

Ali was a great fighter but not a great man.

 

THANKS I much appreciate that!

Yet I am unsure if the info you have is correct.
If it is a public apology, it should be easy to find-please send any links you have about any of these things.

"CLay" in 1967 would be wrong. But would not remotely approach the deep cruelty Ali engaged in for years.
I know Frazier went back & forth on forgiveness-I look forward to seeing any evidence of any apologies.

 

Hard to pin down a specific source in print. There are some quite commonly published pics of Muhammad and Joe at some football game,I think back in 2002. Joe was wearing a big cowboy hat. They both looked quite at ease and happy in each other's company.

 

It was the third book I'd ever read on Ali. The first and second being 'Loser But Still Champion' by Budd Schulberg and 'Sting Like A Bee' by Jose Torres. I've read every other one since.