Streaming Media in Cleveland Memory

Transcript

PRINCIPAL LEO CLAYTON:

Can we have the lights? May I have your attention, please? Please allow me to introduce our guest.

As you know, we have been engaged in designing the Black Festival for the entire week. I have somewhat kept this as a surprise, and I gather surprise that it is. To highlight, then, our final day of observance of Black Festival, it is my distinct pleasure to present to you a man I think everybody in here knows something about. But perhaps this is the occasion that you want to listen to him. It is my pleasure to present at this time Muhammad Ali.

[CHEERING]

MUHAMMAD ALI:

First of all, I want to establish one thing. I do a lot of speaking. I do a lot of traveling, and I speak at high schools. I speak at colleges. I speak to dominantly white crowds and dominantly Black crowds, sometimes mixed. And usually, when I speak to Black crowds, it's kind of hard. I'm ashamed to say it because I'm a brother too. But we are not really like we should be as far as respecting our own Black kind, see?

[CHEERING & WHISTLING]

Now, all of the clowning, all of the whistling, all of the howling, that don't make no sense. This is why nobody want to be with Negroes. Africans don't want to be called Negroes, don't want to be identified with a Negro. And I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm not here to show off. I'm not here to fight. I'm not here to clown. You're living in a serious day today. The whole world is at war. Everybody wants to be free.

When I speak to dominantly white crowds, I get all respect. When I'm talking to white people, they're quiet. I get attention. When I was in Africa talking to the Africans, they all listen. But I never catch [INAUDIBLE] until I come back to America and talk to my brothers and sisters. And it's [INAUDIBLE].

There you go now. Listen. I don't hear that nowhere. All that [GIBBERISH].

Now, if you want to be respected and you [INAUDIBLE] and you hold your fists up and you talk about you're so Black but act like a bunch of monkeys. [LAUGHTER - TALKING] Still there are some of them over there...he he he he or he-- big old high school children. Or he he he he he or he he he he. And you want to know why don't nobody want to integrate. You want to know why they call you boy. You want to know why you ain't free today. It's because you don't have respect for your own selves.

If I was a senator, a white senator, suddenly, you'd give me all the attention. But you see another Black face, he he he, or he he he he. And your mother, if your father loved you, and if you're wrong, they're going to spank you. And for me to stand up here, you look up to me as one of your idols, one of your heroes and this and that. And if I stand up and just let you get away with your little silly, inconsiderate ways, then I wouldn't be your brother. I'm not here to fuss. I'm not here to argue. I don't have to be here today. There are millions of places I can be for five times the salary and expense money. But I choose to come to see you. I wish when I was in high school, a world figure came to me. In my day, they didn't say Black.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

Now, here's some of you. Oh! That's true. I'm a world figure. They just made $42 million to see me work for one hour. $42 million.

[CHEERING - TALKING]

They put a $1 million in the bank yesterday-- $1 million cash for me to box several weeks from now. I'm not boasting, but when I say I'm a world figure, I'm not saying it to be boastful or to make you look like you're nothing. I'm saying that no world figure, no Black man in the history of America, in the $1 million bracket ever took time out to come to see you, to talk for you, to represent and stand up for you. Most of them go marry a white woman. They don't come around you no more when they get big. I know a couple of them from here.

They go out in Hollywood. They get contracts. They forget the families and everybody. I was told to come here to talk. And when they said it's an all-Black school, I tell the man-- didn't I tell you in the car? I said, it's kind of hard to talk to them. I didn't even know you. I used to be the same way. People used to come and talk to me, and I didn't want to listen. I wanted to hear some Temptations, or some Supremes, or some Jackson 5. That will get your attention. But when you talk sense to Black people, you don't get no attention. They go to sleep. They get restless.

And I'm the one. I've had a lot of experience. I've done a lot of traveling. And I have a few things that I want to tell you that I have learned in my travels.

You can accept it or you can reject it. But you're living in a day where you're either this or you're that. You're either Black or you're white. You're either for freedom or you're not for freedom. There are a lot of these people running around with afros, and they talk Black. But they have white girlfriends.

I travel every day from coast to coast. I go to the Black student unions. I'll be at the Black Power rallies. I see it. And if a man loves Black so much, if you love yourself so much, then he would love to have children that would look like himself. This is not racism talk. This is not hate talk. I'm not here to cause more trouble. But Jesus said the truth will make you free. He didn't say Abraham Lincoln will make you free. He didn't say open housing will make you free. He didn't say Richard Nixon would make you free. Jesus said truth will make you free, and Black people are not free because they have never heard the truth.

And before we ever be respected, we must respect our own Black kinds and our own Black self. Who's going to respect you and look at you and recognize you as a citizen and you don't even respect your own self? And number one, you'll never be free until you start respecting your Black women.

The man's woman is the field which produces his nation. And if he don't protect his field, he'll produce a bad nation. Nobody mistreat their women worse than the so-called Negro men.

[APPLAUSE]

Now, your first lesson comes from your mother. Your first teacher is your mother. Your mother is your first nurse.

And if you don't protect your mother, you'll never be recognized by white people, Chinese, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Africans. Nothing want to to be identified with but Negro because the Negros have been brainwashed. Anything good is made white. Jesus was made white with blond hair and blue eyes. All the Last Supper was made white with blonde hair and blue eyes. All the angels in heaven are white angels. But what happened to the Black angels? If we die and go to heaven, what happened when they took the picture? Why are there no Black angels in the picture? I imagine the Black angels was in the kitchen preparing the milk and honey when they took the picture.

[LAUGHTER - APPLAUSE]

So the Negroes have been brainwashed. They see Miss America, they see a white lady. They see Miss Universe, they see a white lady. They see Miss World, they see a white lady. Tarzan, the king of the jungle in Africa, a white man.

[LAUGHTER]

He's a white man swinging around Africa with a diaper on him beating up all the Africans, breaking the lion's jaw. I've been to Africa. I don't see no jungles. All I saw was cars and hotels and public school buildings. Africans have more sense than us. Africans speak their language and four more languages. You can't even speak English good.

[LAUGHTER]

Had you thinking the African was the savage, and I went to Africa, and the people have more sense than we do. They're so quiet. They're so mannerable. They listen. They don't pimp the women and beat up the women and prostitute their women and dog them. And they had me thinking Negroes were civilized and had me not wanting to be an African. I even go to Africa, and Africans are making their own airplanes in Ethiopia. We 30 million people and don't have a toothpick factory. We are 30 million people and don't make buttons for shirts. If the white race closed all the grocery stores, we would starve to death tomorrow. The Negro is only found in America. And I think this is a good topic for your week, the Black week you're having here. A lot of things I'm sure the schoolteacher can't tell you, a lot of things I'm telling you the preacher can't tell you and other people because they have certain positions where they have to represent the system and everybody, and they can't afford to it. People might try to stop him. But I'm free. I can say what I want to say. I go where I want to go. See?

So if you're going to be Black, then you have to be Black. There's a difference between a Negro and a Black man. See, Negro comes from a Greek word called nekro, N-E-K-R-O.

And nekro means something dead. There's a word called necrology. There's a word called necrology. Ology meaning study of the dead in the word necrology. We are dead socially. We are dead morally. We are dead spiritually. We are dead economically. We are dead culturally. We are dead financially. We are dead morally. 30 million people, and we were made dead because the truth was kept from you. And the truth will free you today.

The truth is, before you get respected, you must respect your women, you must respect yourself and your own Black speakers.

And once a man finds out who he is, once a man knows himself, then you will start acting like Black people. Everybody was born for a purpose, and right now, sitting in here, you should be trying to figure out what you're going to do when you get out of school.

Are you going to college? What you're going to do when you get out of college? Everything is ran by machines today. All of you can't be great boxers.

I'm sure you like nice clothes. I'm sure you like money. I'm sure you like pretty cars. You need education to get the [INAUDIBLE]. And don't do like I did. I'm lucky because I was a boxer. But if I had to make it on what I know, I'd be somewhere else right now working in some rat house.

That's right, working at some airport, working at some train station, picking up bags with the knowledge that I have. See, I make it, but I have common sense.

What you going to do when you get out of school? How are you going to take care of your wife? How are you going to buy children clothes? Where are you going to work when you get out? What are you in school for? What are you going to be? You just setting in there because the laws say go to school? Because your mother and father feed you? They clothe you and you live under their roof? What you going to do when you get a little age on you, you need some money in your pocket Where are you going to get the money? Everything is born for a purpose.

And it's your childhood is when you're supposed to start working towards that purpose because life is real short.

If you're 20 years old, you haven't lived three years. And if were to break it down to you, I can do it easy. Add up all the nights that you have slept for 20 years, almost half of your life was sleeping. If you're 20 years old, you slept about seven years. Seven years, you've been in the bed sleeping.

How long do you sit in school from the first grade to the 12th grade? How long do you sit in here? About six hours a day, 12 years in school? Three years of your life was just sitting in the classroom. You haven't grown out into life yet. How long did it take you to wash up to come to school and go home from school? How long did it take you to go to the theater and back? Wherever you traveled to and back, how long does it take? Almost two years of your life has been spent just traveling, going back and forth to where you're going.

So you're not 20 years old. You haven't left 20 years. How many television shows have you watched how many movie theaters have you attended? Just listening to somebody else's ideas and script.

Two years of your life has been spent sitting watching television or listening to the radio or watching a play. I've just been here listening to speakers. Two years of your life have been spent sitting. So two years of your life has been watching television and movies, almost a year and a half traveling en route back and forth from school, three years of your life just sitting and getting ready to go to college, because you need a college education to make anything today.

You've been sleeping about seven years. You were lucky to find two years in your life that you have lived where you can say, I'm going on a vacation for three days. I'm not going away. I'm just going to lay out in the park today. You can't find two years in 20 years that you can say I've lived. And after you get out of here and go to college, you still got three or four years to go to school every day. Then after you get out into your life -- vocations, if you're lucky enough to find it and start working on it now -- by the time you're 35 years old and going on 40, you will just be getting established in your business.

And by the time you buy a home, by the time you halfway pay for your home, and your car, and make out some way for your children, you're going to be pushing 60. So everybody has a purpose, and it's the norm of that purpose that enables every soul to fulfill it. See, a wise man is he who knows his life purpose. You were born for a purpose. God's got you here to accomplish a certain purpose, whether it be small or large. You were born to do something. And you got to learn how to find it.

Buzzards have a purpose. Pigs have a purpose. Trees have a purpose Ants have a purpose. Flowers have a purpose. The moon has a purpose. The sun has a purpose. Everything was created for a purpose. And most surely if God's got cats and dogs and buzzards and hogs with a purpose, most surely we, who are God's highest form of life, we have a purpose too.

[APPLAUSE]

And right now, while you sitting here and listening to me. You better start early, because my purpose was to be the world heavyweight champion at 12. I ran,raced the buses to school. I raced the buses home, always getting in fights, beating up somebody. I stayed and trained in school. I wanted to be the greatest fighter so bad until I didn't even work hard. All I did was get to the gymnasium, hitchhike. And now I'm here. Now I'm 29 years old, and I'm considered getting kinda old. My footwork is slowing down. Now, I got into the trade earlier, won the world title at 22, and still made a couple of dollars, and I'm almost over the hill. Now, if I started boxing at 21, which seems young, it have been too late because the time I learned this and learnt that and learnt that, I'd have been 29. So I started at 12 to get where I'm at. I had to go all through the boxing schools, the Golden Gloves and AAU, the Olympics, then professional. Then I made it. But if I'd started at 21, it would have been too late. So whatever it is that you want to do in life-- you want to be a doctor? You want to be a nurse? You want to be a janitor. You want to be a technician. You want to be a mechanic. You want to be a social worker, whatever, a school teacher. Start thinking about what it is that you want to do and start working towards it now and studying. Go home and study. Try to be the smartest one in class tomorrow. Learn how to read. If you're anything like me, you know how you can't read too good. Black people slow to read -- learn how to read when your minds are young. Learn how to subtract and add and multiply. Learn how to write. Figure out what it is that you want to do and do all you can to get into some university and go farther into it. And you're going to find out that you listen what I'm telling you, you'll say, I'm sure glad we came to school that day because that day, I thought about what I wanted to be. And whatever your purpose is, it's not your purpose if you're confused. If you're doing something and you're not sure that this is what you want to do, be sure that this is it. Check everything that you can-- what can you do best? What do you want to learn and try to do it? And you're going to find out when you start pushing 30 years old, you're going to still be just getting deep into what you want to do. And you're going to realize that if you hadn't started early, you wouldn't have made it. This is why many people today are drunk. You see them laying on street corners. These drunks you see, these men got good educations, a lot of them. These drunks you see, these dope addicts, they became discontinued in life because they discovered their purpose too late.

So you're finger popping.You're listening to the Supremes and the Temptations. And you're partying, and your mother and father's buying your clothes. Your mother and father's buying you food. And you got to come to school, and things are kind of set up for you. And you're intoxicated with youth. And you don't realize what's happening in the future. And when a person is under some form of an intoxication, they'll soon do something they wouldn't do normally.

So you're intoxicated with power. You're intoxicated with youth. And you don't see into the future. You're not even thinking about the future until it's too late. And when the mother and father started getting tired of you hanging around the house and you have to get out on your own and your rent is due, you need a new car, you need your clothes out the cleaners-- you got a girlfriend who's ashamed because you're riding the bus or a bicycle. You want to get her a car.

The girl tells you she's pregnant. The doctor bill comes at $400. You don't have it. And then the girl's got to go home, back with her mother. You don't feel like a man. You can't even support your baby.

Your baby's hungry. And you feel bad because you want to take care of the baby, but you can't. And you're going to be saying, boy, I wish I stayed in school. I wish I didn't talk during classes. I wish I didn't peep at Joey's test people. See, I used to peep at my friends' test papers. I used to make him tell me what was in his paper.

[LAUGHTER]

Every time we go to school, every time we go to school, every time we first enrolled into the new season, everybody picked their seats. And I would always find the skinniest cat with the glasses on to sit beside because he's the smartest.

[LAUGHTER]

And whenever we would get a test, I'd just lean right over. She said, 4444, what number? I look over, and [INAUDIBLE] I didn't want to give it to him. I just-- I see you. I see you after school, nigga.

[LAUGHTER]

In them days-- in those days, we didn't say Black. We said nigga. And I never had no trouble. I went right through school. They passed me, and I didn't do studying at all. And now I'm paying for it. My last lawyer just sent me a bill-- $33,000 for seven months work. And if I had the education that I should have, I could kind of do a little of that myself and read some of them contracts myself and know the meaning of some of them words. But I didn't.

Now, the next lawyer sends me a bill for $3,000 because I had to have him to check the other one.

[LAUGHTER]

See, in this business, you find out you don't get one lawyer and put your life in his hands because he might misuse it. So you hire another lawyer to overlook his papers. And if you're real smart, you'll get another lawyer to make sure these two lawyers ain't buddies.

[LAUGHTER]

So something that should cost me about $10,000, I just paid about $42,000 for it although I'm making it. But all of you are not going to be that lucky. And when you get out of here and you're not a great athlete or you're not lucky enough to make money in a big way, you're going to find yourself in bad shape. And you can't go back to school. And I learned something else: it's harder for me to study now than it did when I was your age. You can study now. Your mind is more youthful. You don't have too many problems. But I try to study my lectures. I can't study them because the draft lawyer calls me up. I've got a problem. The first wife's alimony is behind. The wife I have now, she's leased a new sports car. I got another call to speak at this college. I can't study because I'm too absorbed in daily activities. But you don't have nothing to do but come in here and study, go home and study, go out, and the other day or two, we would have a little fun. But you should concentrate on studying, learning to read. And don't be thinking you're tricking the teacher. A lot of you get teachers that you get a grudge against and you're mad. And you think you're getting by the teacher. The teacher's got it made. Teacher's getting her check. Teacher's living. So you're not tricking no teacher. You fooling yourself because as soon as you leave here, there'll be another fool there thinking he's tricking the teacher. As soon as he leaves, there'll be another fool here thinking he's tricking the teacher. As soon as he leaves, there'll be another fool here thinking he's tricking the teacher. Teacher's seen a lot of you come and go.

So you're not really tricking the teacher. You're tricking yourself because the teacher done made it. The teacher's educated. The teacher's got her life purpose.

So in my closing for my serious talk, well, I've got some poems for you, and then you can ask a question or two. But I just wanted you to understand that you may never see me again in person. I might not come through. I might. I might not run into you. It's a big world. And just remember what I'm telling you. It's hell out here. If you don't have no money, you in bad shape. If you don't have no money, you're in trouble.

Cars cost money. Clothes cost money. You take your girlfriend out to a restaurant, bill might come to $7, $8, $9.

Would you like to go to Miami Beach and see beautiful Florida? Would you like to go to Los Angeles, California one day and lay on the beach and meet the new brothers in California? Would you like to travel? Would you like to have credit cards? It takes money. And what you're doing in here is worth gold. That's what a man told me once when I was coming up in boxing. He said, every time you win a Golden Glove, every time you whoop one of these little boys, he said one day, that's going to be thousands and thousands of dollars. I said, what do you mean? He said, because you're preparing yourself. You going up, and when you get there, it'll be easier. You'll be equipped. And the man's right.

All the amateur fighting I had, all the little fights that I had that took me gradually up the ladder, when I got to people like Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston, I found myself ready and equipped and well-educated. But if I cheated as a younger boxer and they just pushed me up there, that would have got me bumped off quick. Just like you all when you go to college. You jive in school. And when you get to college, the work is so hard. That little skinny fella with the glasses that you used to [INAUDIBLE] look at, you won't find him there. And you look real dumb. He's sitting up, and you're in the front row. You can't cheat if you want to. And you find yourself falling out. Haven't you learned to pass a test? Haven't you tried to go get a driver's license or anything wonderful? Read something, and you found yourself reading real slow? And you see other cats just turning the pages, and you seem so dumb? [INAUDIBLE] couldn't read. But who do you call? The teacher you was mad at years ago. Mean trick. You found out you tricked yourself. She's trying to tell you to study to learn.

So think serious about what I'm saying. Figure out what it is that you want to be in life. And try-- don't be no boxer. Don't count on being no basketball player. Don't count on being no great football player because as soon as your body lets you down, you're in trouble. Get your mind together.

Learn how to carry a briefcase. Like, I'm not boxing now. But most boxers can't come talk to you or nothing because most of them can't talk. See, most boxers-- see, I mean, I know a lot of champions. All they can do is say.

[LAUGHTER]

All they can do is try to say.

And they are ugly!

[LAUGHTER]

You know I'm talking about Joe Frazier, don't you? Ugly.

So the reason I can talk to you now is because I'm studying. I'm educating myself. I'm reading the dictionary. I'm studying histories of certain people. I'm studying various philosophies. I ask questions. I've talked to [INAUDIBLE] of people. I should've got this in school, but I have to do it now. So get yourself ready. Your mother and your father will soon not be with you. You're going to be grown. you only come to the stage once, and if don't nobody tell you, you'll get caught. You'll get-- 

[AUDIO OUT - END SIDE 1]

[BEGIN SIDE 2]

MUHAMMAD ALI: You getting older each day. It seems like yesterday, I was in Central High School in Louisville, Kentucky listening to speakers. 18, 19 -- I thought that was old. Now I'm 29. And people who are 50 say, that ain't nothing. You're young. To him, I"m young because he's 50.

So I have [INAUDIBLE] the day that I'll soon be 50. And I'm getting ready. When I'm 50, my daughter's going to be a little older. How is my daughter going to eat? Where's my daughter going to go to school? Am I making a future for my daughter? She going to have to catch hell and walk the streets and live a bad life just to make money? Think about your children. You going to have children.

And speaking of my daughter, I want my daughter and my wife to stand up now. Stand up. Come over and meet these people.

[APPLAUSE]

Come over and meet these people. Walk on out here. My wife and my little girl.

[APPLAUSE]

That little girl right there? I got me a nice, beautiful Cadillac. I bought my Rolls Royce. And I was driving the other day, and I feel kind of bad. I'm going to tell you the truth. The car cost -- the Rolls Royce cost me $35,000. And I was driving in it. And my daughter was playing, eating a Popsicle. And I looked over at her. I said, man, I'm not going to be fighting forever. I'm starting to slip now. The day that I quit fighting and this car starts getting old, five or six more years, she'll be asking, Daddy, I need a dollar. Daddy, I need a new dress.

And all the money, I'm spending it now. I said, I better kind of take this car and cash it in and put that $35,000 into a $100,000 building. And then it'll pay for itself and by the time she's 19, she'll have some money. She won't be on the streets begging and being hungry and staying with you all. Your scope might not be as big as mine, but you got to think about yourself. Then you have to start thinking about your children. You're going to soon be grown. Your mom and daddy can't take care of you no more, and you're going to be in some streets in a raggedy apartment with an old, out of date car, lucky to buy a brand new suit. Can't even fit a carpet on your floor in your house.

[INAUDIBLE] until you get something better. [INAUDIBLE] can't even read good. Learn how to read.

I say that because I know you and I'm one of you. Today, I still can't read too good because I didn't study. So the system is fixed where if you listen, if you take it course by course, it won't be too hard. But if you jive, one day, when you walk into a place to fill a test out or to pass a test, it's going to be hard. See...if you tell me to just jump up on this stage, it's kind of hard. But if you put steps up here so I can go inch by inch, it won't be too hard getting to the top. But if you just tell me to jump up, it's kind of hard. So you're going up the stepladder now when you're in school, the first grade, the second grade, the third grade, the fourth grade, the fifth grade, the sixth grade.

And when you get to college, it won't be too tough to you because you been [INAUDIBLE] it. And then when you go out into life, it won't be too hard. But if you don't climb these steps and you just stay down here and jive, and one day, you have to jump up, it's going to be hard.

So that's all I'm going to say on that subject. Learn to read. Learn to write. Study when you go home. Take two hours out of your day to be smart tomorrow.

Try to be the smartest one in your class. Try to be the first one to fill the test. Learn how to read. Look at certain words and take one word a day and keep it on your mind and keep spelling it. If it ain't but one word a week, at least you learn 52 words a year.

One word a week ain't much to learn. If you got to -- I just start studying one word a week, I would be -- heaven. Just one word a week, in two years, I'll know 104 words.

Two years go by like that. Now, if you take one word a day, you're really moving. If you take two words a week, just learn two words, find a word that you can't spell and write it down and just walk around with it. Keep it in your mind when you go home. And keep it on your mind. Every time you see that word, whatever it come up, you'll go right to it.

So think about it. So that is my lecture, and if you have any -- uh, and I write poems. You know I write poems, and I just completed a masterpiece.

[LAUGHTER]

And this poem is a Black militant poem. And this poem describes how Black people feel today. And it goes like this:

Better far from all I see 

to die fighting to be free. 

What more fitting end could be? 

Better surely than a bed 

where in broken health I'm led, 

lingering until I'm dead.

Better than with cries and pleas, 

in the clutch of some disease, 

wasting slowly by degrees. 

Better than of heart attack

or some dose of drug I lack. 

Let me die by being Black.

Better far that I should go 

standing here against the foe. 

Is there sweeter death to know? 

Better than the bloody stain

on some highway where I'm lain, 

torn by flying glass and pain. 

Better call in death to come

then to die another dumb, 

muted victim of the slum.

Better than of prison rot. 

If there's any choice I've got, 

rather perish on the spot. 

Better far my fight to rage 

now while my blood boils with rage 

lest it cool with ancient age.

Better violent to die 

than to Uncle Tom and try, 

making peace to live a lie. 

Better if I say my sooth. 

I shall die demanding truth 

while I'm still akin to youth.

Better now than later on 

now that fear of death is gone. 

Never mind another dawn. 

How do you like that?

[APPLAUSE]