What's
My Name

On March 6, 1964, Elijah Muhammad announced over the radio that the new heavyweight champion would be known as Muhammad Ali. The fighter had been born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 17, 1942. He was named after his father, who was named after a white Kentucky politician who had owned enslaved people before turning against slavery.

Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn't choose it, and I didn't want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name.

Muhammad Ali, 1964

On February 17, 1966, Ali learned his draft status had changed to 1A, which meant he was eligible to be called into the Army. He had failed the qualifying test twice in 1964 and been classified 1Y, or not qualified. The Army lowered the passing score in 1965 and roughly 100,000 men who had previously failed became eligible.

Reporters came to his house in Miami that afternoon and asked him about it over and over. Late in the day he said:

I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.

Muhammad Ali, February 17, 1966, to reporters in Miami

In 1967, as his induction date approached, Ali explained his position at greater length:

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 am 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.

Muhammad Ali, 1967

Ali fought Ernie Terrell, who held a share of the heavyweight title and had spent the buildup calling him Clay in press conferences and interviews. Ali told reporters a knockout would be too easy. He wanted the fight to last.

It lasted 15 rounds. Ali won a unanimous decision. He hurt Terrell badly and never finished him. Ringside reporters described Ali landing combinations and shouting the same question into Terrell's face round after round:

What's my name? What's my name?

Ringside accounts, February 6, 1967

The Long WayHouston Astrodome · 15 rounds

Terrell's face was damaged badly enough that he needed surgery on his eye afterward. Some sportswriters who had defended Ali for years turned on him after this fight. Jimmy Cannon, one of the most widely read columnists in America, called it "a kind of lynching."

Most American newspapers kept printing "Cassius Clay" for years after 1964. The New York Times held out until the 1970s. Editors argued that Clay was his legal name and that the paper should not take sides in a religious dispute.

Howard Cosell, a broadcaster at ABC, used Muhammad Ali from the start. He took years of hate mail for it. Cosell later said the decision was simple to him, because a man gets to say what he is called.

At the induction center in Houston on April 28, 1967, an officer read the roll. The name he called was Cassius Clay. Ali did not step forward. An officer took him aside and warned him that refusing was a felony carrying five years. The name was called again. He did not move.

The Stolen YearsPro career, 1960 to 1981

He was not idle, and he was not quiet. He lectured on college campuses for fees. In February 1969 he filmed a fake fight. A promoter fed punch statistics into an NCR 315 computer and staged a simulated bout between Ali and Rocky Marciano, who came out of retirement at 45, lost over 50 pounds, and wore a toupee. The two men sparred roughly 75 rounds in a Miami studio for the cameras. Two endings were filmed. American theaters saw Marciano knock Ali out in the 13th round. European audiences saw Ali win. Marciano died in a plane crash three weeks after filming and never saw it released.

The best heavyweight of his generation spent his exile acting out a fight a machine had already decided, because no state in the country would license him to have a real one.

The Super Fight, filmed February 1969, released January 20, 1970

The VoteClay v. United States · June 28, 1971