“The Greatest of All
Time,” has probably been loved by more people than almost anyone
who ever lived and the good he has done around the world is
incalculable. I know that there are still people who very
passionately hate him but my hope and faith are strengthened whenever I
go back and listen to his speeches.
He gave a speech at Harvard once in
which he shared one of his poems, which he called the world's
shortest poem:
Me? Whee!
He said in a Life magazine interview
that the greatest thing he ever did was to refuse to go to the war
in Viet-Nam.
I remember very well the time when he
refused, because I did the same thing at that time. It's difficult to
imagine the murderous hatred the act elicited unless you lived
through those years. The USA sentenced him to five
years in prison, fined him $10,000, took away his passport and boxing
title, banned him from boxing in the USA, took away his livelihood,
as well as vilifying him. He took his case to the US Supreme Court
where the conviction was reversed and he went on to further greatness
after that. He says in an interview which I embed below that the
damage done to him was actually less than the damage done to people
like me, who didn't have his resources, but the damage all around
done by the USA's Viet-Nam war was so immense that it will continue for
untold generations.
It looks on the surface as if it is all
forgotten very
There are many videos around of interviews with him but this is one of the best, in my opinion:
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