Quote from a Legend

“Why are all the angels white? Why ain’t there no black angels?”

- Muhammad Ali at a U.S.A. church in 1983

[caption id="attachment_157997" align="aligncenter" width="459"] Ali (on left) with Malcolm X, an African-American human rights activist and a lifelong advocate for Black empowerment[/caption]  

The greatest sportsman of the 20th Century Muhammad Ali was an unofficial spokesman for millions of blacks and oppressed people around the world.

In Seattle, U.S.A. for a benefit for Sugar Ray Seales, he famously said: “People say I talk so slow today. That’s no surprise. I calculated I’ve taken 29,000 punches. But I earned $ 57 m and I saved half of it. So I took a few hard knocks. Do you know how many black men are killed every year by guns and knives without a penny to their names? I may talk slow, but my mind is OK.”

Ali spoke boldly against the war in Vietnam and refused conscription into the army. This is Ali’s famous explanation made on 17 February 1966 why he refused to serve in the US Army:

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville (in U.S.A.) are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”

Ali died in 2016 aged 74 yet racism and colour bar has since existed in various political setups, including U.S.A., and various sports setups too, as is now reported in South African cricket.