The Emancipation Support Committee of Trinidad and Tobago joins the family and friends of Muhammad Ali, the global African community and peoples of conscience universally who stand for justice in paying tribute to the life and legacy of a hero whose warrior-hood was first widely recognized in phenomenal prowess in the boxing ring. It was demonstrated with equal power outside of the ring, in combative robber rhetoric and courageous defiance of the powerful. These qualities made him a centre of hero-worship and a target of hate. The love and the hate alike fed his skill, his strength, his speed and his savvy. He was after all Muhammad “I am the greatest” Ali, Olympic gold medalist and champion professional boxer, who often predicted the round in which his opponent would fall. He was Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Marcellus Clay III), the great grandson of enslaved persons, from Louisville, Kentucky, inheritor of African resilience; Muhammad Ali, one of the fiery spirits of the 20th century who dared to say “NO” to the draft.
We cheered when this warrior did so, standing up against the might of the white racist social structures of America in the 1960’s when death was too often the answer to those who dared to defy that system. This brash young man at the pinnacle of a spectacular and financially lucrative career, risked it all and risked imprisonment. He personified Marcus Garvey’s assertion, “Men who are in earnest are not afraid of consequences”. Fortified by courage, conviction and self-knowledge gained from master teachers such as Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, he stood up to declare that he was his own person, not an enslaved person or a “so-called negro” and he would not fight in a war that was meant to kill innocent people when his own people were denied their rights in the America in which he was born and lived.
In his immortal words
“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end.
“I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality…. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people, they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.”
We can hear Martin saying now: His spirit is free ….Free at last , free at last …..thank God almighty…free at last!
Khafra Kambon