Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
In nineteen seventy, South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela was
thinking about what he wanted to do next. Two years earlier,
he co founded a record company called Chisa Records. Then
he had a huge hit song in the US, the
Song of the Summer in sixty eight. It's called Graysin
in the Grass. His new ambitions were triggered by that
(00:26):
taste of success. Now both he and his Chiser Records
co founder want more, but not just for themselves, for
the people.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
His co founder was Stuart Levine, who he met a
young Jewish kid saxophone player at Manhattan School of Music.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
That's Hugh Masekela's son, Seleema Masekela. As he recalls it,
his father and Stuart.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Levine would end up becoming like the bestest of friends,
and they would end up moving to Los Angeles. And
Stu was a lot like my father was just never
about anything square, you know, like if it was square,
like why would we even be involved. So they wanted
to constantly be pushing and creating some shit that people
(01:09):
didn't know or experience.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
The two iconoclasts took their musical mission seriously, and by
nineteen seventy one, Hugh Masekela wanted to explore new and
old musical territory. At the same time, he wanted to
combine the old jazz he'd learned in America with the
new afrobeat jazz he heard coming out of nations in Africa.
This impulse resulted in his album, Hugh Masekela and the
(01:36):
Union of South Africa. His braiding and blending of the
sounds he was after made his life feel worth living.
If he was exiled, if he couldn't go home to
South Africa due to apartheid era politics in his homeland,
well then he could find a new homeland in the
shared heritage of music. Masekela never gave in to bitterness
(01:57):
or anger. Instead, he remained.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Mildly curious and incredibly open to investigate everyone's not only
everyone's music, but everyone's culture and how they got there,
and what their experiences were in the manners in which
they might be catching hell at home.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
That last phrase, that's where he truly found connection folks
who were also quote catching hell at home. It's the
same phrase Ali used in his road trip with Joe Frasier.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And so he identified the downtrodden or oppressed, and he
stood up for them. And if you were from a
place where people were catching how that meant that the
music was probably also really good.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
This became his unofficial musical philosophy. Together, he and Stuart
Levine continued to explore. They continued to forge new musical
connections with artists in countries like Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana and
in the meantime, Hugh Masekela and Stuart Levine did what
they did best. They kept pushing at the frontiers, trying
(02:57):
to find new sounds as the sixties gave way to
the seventies. They didn't know it at the time, They
couldn't know it, but they were creating the artistic foundation
for an epic three day music festival to come, an
event that would be called Zaire seventy four. Welcome to Rumble,
(03:28):
Ali Foreman and the Soul of seventy four. I'm your host,
Zarn Burnett, the third from iHeart Podcast and School of Humans.
This is Rumble. Previously on Rumble.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
We must stand up and say I'm black, but I'm black.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
And beautiful, pretty sious.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
This really tough guy comes from a deep poverty, from
the South. He's always a little insecurity, small for a heavyweight.
Speaker 6 (03:57):
As much as we love Ali in retrospect, he was
as ugly and racial as he had to be to
get under their skin.
Speaker 7 (04:04):
He can promote the fight without calling him a gorilla.
Speaker 8 (04:08):
Where's Joe Fraser? Where's the White Folks? Champion?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
March eighth, nineteen seventy one, Madison Square Guard the fight
of the century. It's the place to be for everyone
who is anyone in New York City. As the newspaper
The Alberton later reports, the.
Speaker 9 (04:35):
Soul brothers and sisters, flamboyant and their minx and feathers
rubbed elbows with government chiefs, tycoons, sports heroes and astronauts.
Monday night at the spectacular heavyweight title fight between Joe
Frasier and Muhammad.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Ali, big stars turn up. The young and stylish roll
out to see and be seen. There's Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Junior,
Miles Davis, Dianana Ross, Hugh Hefner, Barbara Streisian, Diane Keaton,
Ted Kennedy, the Apollo fourteen astronauts, the Italian actor Marcello
(05:08):
master Roiani, and also Colonel Harlan Sanders of Kentucky Fried
Chicken fame all together at Madison Square Garden. But also
there are surprises like Bob Dylan.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
It was just a great reminder that this was bigger
than the super Bowl. It was bigger than a dozen
super Bowls. If Taylor Swift would have been there were
happening today, right.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Even the President is in on this fight.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Nixon's wapping it from the White House. This was the event,
not just the sporting event. It was the event of
the decade, really, and it was just a sign of
how the times were changing. To the civil rights movement
was over, and you see just this cultural shift where
people are living this successively. You know Grand Way and
dressing up like crazy for a boxing match, and that
(05:53):
was unheard of before.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Inside, it's an orgy of fabrics and colors, a riot
of style. One newspaper notes the fashions of a particular
DC woman quote resplendent in gold velvet hotpants and quilted
velvet coat, and also one Philadelphia woman who was quote
attired in a gut show outfit of pink crushed velvet.
Speaker 9 (06:20):
It was obvious that this was more than a fistfight.
It was a happening an event long to be remembered
after other events have been forgotten.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Its social impact was seen everywhere.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Sportswriter Mark Kriegel was eight or nine years old at
the time.
Speaker 6 (06:36):
I'm a little kid, and I remember, like, something extraordinary
is happening in the world of grown ups because I
live on Eighth Avenue. I lived like two blocks from
the garden, and I remember the Kleague lights up, and
I remember talking to kids in PS.
Speaker 8 (06:49):
Thirty three.
Speaker 6 (06:50):
Oh, but I remember something momentous was happening. I knew
that on one side were like the hippie kind of people,
and like the black panthers were on one side and
the hard hats were on the other side. That was
the only way I could sort of distinguish it culturally.
But I knew that it was immense.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
It's a zenith moment in American culture. Also, it's a
morality play wherein the culture war can play out embodied
in two powerful black men, two undefeated champions, Ali versus Frasier.
To take us back to that moment in time, Ali's
biographer Jonathan Ig adds an important context.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
It's also the seventies and we're into this age of
super hype.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
What that means for boxing.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
Is this is really when we start to see the
mythology of Ali taking hold. That he's not just a
great boxer, he's this cultural figure. And I think it's
because he's been gone for three and a half years.
This mythology has built up around him, because when he
left the ring, he was, you know, an artist. He
was you know, the Barishtakov of boxing. He was just
beautiful to behold. He seemed like he wasn't being touched
(08:00):
by his opponents in the ring. He was too fast
and too strong.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
The mythology, Jonathan Ig references was the product of the
intelligencia of the day. Think writers like Norman Mahler and
George Plimpton. They'd pen essays in notable publications, and they
deeply consider the question of Muhammad Ali as the modern superman.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
And these journalists now think of themselves as being you know,
literary giants, and Ali becomes.
Speaker 7 (08:26):
One of their favorite characters.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
So they have an interest too in puffing him up
and elevating his status, turning him into a godlike creature.
And meanwhile, Joe Fraser is just you know, just a fighter,
just a boxer.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Norman Mahler covers Ali and Fraser's Fight of the Century
for a cover story for Life Magazine. Being that it's Mailer,
he focuses on ego.
Speaker 10 (08:47):
It is the great word of the twentieth century. If
there is a single word our century has added to
the potentiality of language, it is ego. Muhammad Ali begins
with the most unsettling ego of all. What kills us
about aka Cassius Clay is that the disagreement is inside us.
He is fascinating. The more we don't want to think
about him, the more we are obliged to. There's a
(09:09):
reason for it. He is America's greatest ego. He is also,
as I am going to try to show, the swiftest
embodiment of human intelligence we.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Have had yet.
Speaker 10 (09:20):
He is the very spirit of the twentieth century.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Just as every story needs the conflict, so does a
story need a villain. Muhammad Ali instinctively understood this, and
so he makes Joe Frasier his. When Ali hypes their
upcoming super fight, he frames it as him the people's champ,
fighting against the man.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
It's the way their stories resonate with the public that
determines who's rooting for and who's rooting against and what
type of meaning they've freighted themselves with.
Speaker 8 (09:55):
So Ali got all the.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Cool people and Norman Mahler just kidding Norman. When the
two undefeated champions finally meet in the ring for their
fight of the century, the fight promoters expect one billion
people to watch the fight. At the time, there are
only three point seven billion people on the planet. Joe
Frasier is ready, Ali is ready, and the world is ready.
(10:26):
The fight is scheduled for fifteen rounds, and as expected,
the first few are punishing.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
I sent a powerful message in the fourth round when
I nailed him on the jaw with the left and
saw by the look on his face that it shook it.
Speaker 11 (10:40):
I kept out.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
There over and over again. Their bodies take the beating.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
But even as I pounded it, he was acting like
he was still in command, talking his stuff while blood
trickled from his nose. Don't you know I'm God, play,
yelled out after I landed a few good shots on him,
pinning him against the ropes. God, you in the wrong
place tonight.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Ultimately, the first few rounds are an even exchange of pam. Meanwhile,
Ali is starting to suffer from mortal doubts.
Speaker 8 (11:12):
I never fought anyone with so much drive.
Speaker 12 (11:15):
I have a new found respect for Joe sometimes his
time and his rhythm.
Speaker 8 (11:18):
It's uncanny. He moves in, takes two and comes up.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Joe Frazier is relentless in his pursuit.
Speaker 12 (11:25):
Even though I'm hitting him four blows to one. His
hooks get to me more and more.
Speaker 8 (11:31):
I gotta do something about it. The six is coming up.
Speaker 12 (11:35):
I know I'm ahead in points, but I already know
I'll need a miracle to hind it in six.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
That miracle never arrives. The fight continues on well past
the sixth round. By Pops watched the fight with his friends,
and he remembered all the bets they'd made on the fight,
and how.
Speaker 13 (11:52):
Seventh round came and went, and so that I don't care.
You know, he's gonna went on points, but Joe was
whipping him. Joe was really whipping them.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
In the ninth round, Ali unleashes an absolute fury of punches.
At this point, both men are exhausted. It feels like
Ali is desperate to end the match, but Joe Fraser
takes it. He takes it all.
Speaker 12 (12:13):
Ha something has gone out of me. I feel tired
and the fight is now half over. I know from
experience that if I hold on, I will grow stronger.
But the air and my lungs is hocked, my arms
are heavy. I look out of the crowd.
Speaker 8 (12:30):
I think how the world is watching. I've got to
do what I said out will do.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
But he is smoking, true to his name, smoking, Joe
Fraser doesn't take a backstep the whole fight. Fraser just
keeps coming at Ali. In the eleventh round, Joe Fraser's
patience finally pays off.
Speaker 7 (12:51):
Ali finally opened up and jove software he was looking for.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
I begin use of this head for better practice. Left
took left hook, lay back to the ropes and wait
for me to follow up.
Speaker 11 (13:03):
Okay, Butterfly, you asked for it.
Speaker 12 (13:06):
Frazier's bobbing, weaving more confident than ever. Suddenly he dips
under my right and comes up with the hardest hook
I ever taken in my life, and.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Boom, one of Joe's staggering left hooks finally connects.
Speaker 11 (13:20):
I nailed him with another left that sent him riling
into the ropes.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
It flung me back across the ring, but the ring
ropes catch him keep him upright. If all Lee fell
anywhere else he would have hit Candis.
Speaker 8 (13:33):
I'm almost out on my feet.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
He was really hurt and tried to find the ropes
to get his balance. I staggered him again with a
left cook and caught Hi whistle right up of cuts.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
All these legs go rubbery, but he's saved when the
fight is now an endurance contest, Will against will, Might
against might, round after round, blow after a blow, competing
chance breakout in crowd one half chance.
Speaker 8 (14:02):
Oi Oi Oi, Will.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
The other half is chanting.
Speaker 8 (14:06):
Knock him out.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Joe, knock him out.
Speaker 8 (14:09):
Joe, knock him out.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Joe, there's one more round to go. In the fifteenth
and final round.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Fay came out ad vesciblit for that final round as
if he knew he needed a knockout to win.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
But Joe Fraser keeps charging at her like a mad bull.
He keeps that pressure on.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
As he steps toward me. I dip down and let
fly another left. Heaves my feet to throw a looping
shot that landed against the right side of his face.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
He finally catches Ali unguarded. Joe Fraser hits Ali with
the full force of his anger.
Speaker 8 (14:43):
It almost explodes against my head.
Speaker 7 (14:46):
He feel so hard that he fell before anybody can
see him fall.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
There's no ring ropes to catch him. This time. Ali
goes down, his back hits canvas, his feet.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Went up in the air and he was hit boom
and then it was missed. Him on his butt, his
legs kicking up into the air, the very picture of
a beaten man.
Speaker 8 (15:10):
I don't remember going down, only being down.
Speaker 11 (15:13):
Tell you the truth.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
It was not a killer shot, but at landed right
on the foot on a very worn out man, and
the roar it set off was like from the belly
of a beast.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Ali's knocked down, but he's not knocked.
Speaker 12 (15:28):
Out, looking up and hearing the count and knowing I
had no business being down.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
All these springs back up before the RAF can count
eight the.
Speaker 12 (15:39):
Rules from the crowded in my ear jong Jong Jong,
Joe Joe phrase.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
But that was it, and Ali knows it. He's been defeated.
After the end of the fifteenth round, the judges and
the ring announcer make it official by your NaN's.
Speaker 11 (16:01):
Decision, undisputed everywhere.
Speaker 8 (16:03):
Heavin Joe Fraser that.
Speaker 11 (16:07):
I raised my handsome victory, thank the Lord, and with
a bloody mouth told Clay, I kicked your ass.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
There was no disputing that.
Speaker 8 (16:20):
Joe has come over to my corner.
Speaker 12 (16:22):
You put up a great fight, he says, his face
so swollen, I could hardly see his.
Speaker 8 (16:28):
Eyes, but I know he's looking at me. You the champ,
I say. He seems to like that.
Speaker 12 (16:36):
It's the first time as a pro that I have
to acknowledge another man standing over me.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Muhammad Ali is the loser for the first time ever.
The rest of the world is shocked by Ali once again,
but not my pops, though he was too pleased with
himself and his man smoking Joe Frasier.
Speaker 7 (16:55):
I was hard to deal with.
Speaker 13 (16:57):
On the way home, I kept explaining, I can explain
how it happened.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Meanwhile, as Jonathan I wrote in his biography of Ali,
quote in the White House, President Nixon rejoiced cheering the
defeat of that draft dodger asshole Joe Frasier had done it.
He was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
Speaker 11 (17:21):
Hear that undisputed champion.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I was twenty seven years old, and that would never
be another night like that in my life.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
After the fight of the century is over and won,
Ali's cornerman Bundini. Brown takes his fighter to the hospital
to check his jaw. Ali's treated and released. Meanwhile, when
Joe Fraser walks out of the ring, he weighs a
full ten pounds less than he weighed when he started
the fight, and the next day Joe Fraser is in
(18:01):
the hospital too.
Speaker 13 (18:02):
He took everything Ali had. They put each other in
the hospital. I think Ali should have quit after.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
That fight, Ali argues, Fraser's hospital trip is all the
proof anyone needs that he won their fight. The people
seem to agree with Ali. Without a decisive ko, it
doesn't really feel like Ali lost. In an interview with
Playboy magazine, Howard Cosell comments on the strange never enough
status of Joe Fraser. He says, quote, I feel sorry
(18:31):
for Joe Fraser.
Speaker 14 (18:33):
He's the heavyweight champion of the world, but a lot
of people don't accept him as that, and quite understandably,
it's killing him inside. He fought Ali as hard as
he could and beat him, and yet nobody really accepts him,
and so he's grown to hate Ali.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
The Philadelphia Daily News considers the question from a different angle,
with the headline quote, is Joe white Man's champ now?
That was not the conversation. Down at the barbershops. To
check on that, I asked my pops about what he
remembered of Joe Frasier and Ali's rivalry being him. He
(19:13):
made a novel comparison. My pops compared Ali's hype to
this racial dynamic that OJ Simpson benefited from. Now, for
some listeners, I warn you my father uses a language
that can be deemed offensive to the ear, but does
so in order to explain how Ali's racist taunts were
similar to OJ Simpson's murder trial verdict. Here's how he
(19:35):
put it to a friend.
Speaker 13 (19:36):
He said, I'm watching it on TV. I'm at a bar,
and the verdict just came on and all the black
people in here jumped up and started cheering. We said,
what I winded cheering that I mean? I said, well,
it's a very simple concept. It's called the nack one.
He said what I said.
Speaker 8 (19:55):
One.
Speaker 7 (19:55):
Black people don't have to know what the contest was
the one, know, did they?
Speaker 13 (19:59):
When that's all they're so used to seeing black people
being cheated out of their position, being given a fucked
up decision by a judge that if a black person wins,
it's a satisfaction that's unrelated to the issue at hand.
But this is one more time where we're going to
catch a short in. Whether we did it or not
didn't matter before, so now it can't matter now. So
(20:23):
we won.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Olie knew Black America would celebrate his wins if he
made sure that he was always undeniably the black one
in the fight. Jonathan I concurs that olie knew how
to navigate racial narratives in a way no one else could.
He just had an instinct for it.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
It's so complicated as things tend to get with Ali.
You know, he's basically a black separatist, and he's not
interested integrated, and he calls white people the devil, and
yet he loves having all white fans, he loves entertaining
the and even like plague into stereotypes with white people.
You know, he's got this gag where he goes up
to people and pretends he's outraged and he says, did
(21:06):
you just call me the N word?
Speaker 6 (21:07):
Like?
Speaker 5 (21:08):
And he pretends like he's outraged and he's gonna beat
somebody up for this, and he's just totally making it
up to just get a rise and get some laughs
out of it, Like, how do you wrap your head
around that?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
But somehow he still walks the color line.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
He's also the symbol of black pride, right Like you
could argue that the black power movement takes its you know.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Fifth for Ali, and he's this absolute.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Pivotal symbol of black pride, black dignity, inspiring them, as says,
And he's yucking it up with Jerry Lewis and Liberachi
and playing into stereotypes about black people all the time.
How nobody else could do that and get away with it?
Speaker 1 (21:44):
And that's how, thanks to Ali, a man as black
as Joe Frasier ends up being called the white man's champ,
which defies all logic. Joe Frasier is inarguably one of
the blackest people on the planet in nineteen seventy, yet
Ali's narrative has this undeniable energy. As Norman Mahler pointed
(22:05):
out earlier, Ali's story and more to the point, his
ego is irresistible to the press, and this ego is
the reason why even after he loses the Fight of
the Century, Ali still argues that.
Speaker 12 (22:20):
Joel Fraser can't go anywhere without running into black militants.
Angela Davis supporters black Muslims.
Speaker 8 (22:27):
All of them are for me.
Speaker 12 (22:29):
Joe Fraser represents all that is wrong with white America.
I represent everyone wanting a new system. Joel Fraser can't
go anywhere without people telling him you didn't whip them.
He'll never be the champion until he beats me twice.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Ali also knows the press will reliably turn that into
the story. Three months after Joe Fraser defeated him in
the ring, Muhammad Ali wins a far different fight. He
escapes from the overhanging threat of federal prison in the
summer of seventy one. On June twenty eighth, the Supreme
(23:08):
Court rules that Muhammad Ali is not guilty of the
charge of draft evasion. The Court's decision is unanimous. Ali
is once again free to fight in the boxing ring
whenever and wherever, against whomever he wants. The People's Champ
(23:29):
moves quickly to schedule a rematch against his most hated rival.
Their next bout is billed as Super Fight two. However,
before Ali can step into the ring to face Joe
Fraser and win back his title, a new contender steps
onto the scene. George the Giant.
Speaker 7 (23:50):
When I shook hands with Jeorge Former.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
His hand just.
Speaker 13 (23:54):
Kind of just enveloped my whole wrist almost not said
he hit Ali with.
Speaker 7 (24:01):
Any part of his body, He'll kill it.
Speaker 11 (24:05):
He would kill this man.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
George Foreman was a great fighter, you know, and he
was a.
Speaker 15 (24:10):
Big Foreman is a guy who he didn't have much
going for him, but he had boxing, and he had
his strength, and he had his determination.
Speaker 16 (24:20):
George Foreman did not have the intellect, the foresight, or
even the wisdom and the education that Ali had.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
George Foreman was very serious and quiet, you know, and
I also think he was maybe incredibly confident. He was
gonna talk with his gloves and you know, not with
his mouth.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
I didn't ever get close to Foreman.
Speaker 7 (24:44):
Nobody did.
Speaker 6 (24:44):
Really, you don't just become a fighter. I don't care
what anyone says. Somewhere in your story there's some profound abuse.
There's something in there.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
In nineteen ninety five, George Foreman published his autobiography with
the very on brand title by George. In the book
of his life, Foreman recalled his childhood poverty. As author
Lewis Ehrenberg explains.
Speaker 15 (25:08):
He grew up in the Bloody Fifth Ward, very poor.
His mother had to work two jobs to support her
large family.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Born in Marshall, Texas, George Foreman was the fourth child
of Nancy and J. D. Foreman. George was an enormous baby,
ten pounds. Even as an infant, he exhibited insane strength.
His aunt remembered how he'd crawl around in yanke children
down to his level on the floor. Unfortunately for young George,
(25:39):
his parents split up before he was school aged. That
left his single mother alone to care for the seven kids.
She struggled mightily. Here's one striking image from his memory.
On Friday nights, after working two jobs, his mother.
Speaker 17 (25:54):
Would bring home a single hamburger and break it into
eight pieces. Got a taste, I remember thinking, boy, that's
rich Man's fool.
Speaker 8 (26:08):
A hamburger.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
His siblings liked to regularly tease him that he was
a bastard.
Speaker 17 (26:14):
Sometimes they say you're not really are brother, And though
I never considered the words anything other than a mean joke,
I hated that tease most of all. I am to
your brother, I'd say, trying to beat on them as punishment,
I am your brother.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
On the daily, Foreman dealt with shame and embarrassment at
his school. His nickname was Shoe Booty. You see, his
family was so poor he wore mismatched handy down shoes,
a shoe on one foot and a boot on the other.
There was one constant in his childhood fighting First. Foreman
learned to fight his older siblings, any of them, all
(26:55):
of them at once.
Speaker 17 (26:57):
From the time I was six, possibly even before I
wanted to fight anyone.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
By age nine, George Foreman was regularly getting into fights
at school. His mother tried to discipline her boy, and
by her own admission, his mother quote whipped him almost
every other day. But adding more violence to his life
did no good. Somehow, everyone ignored the obvious fact that
George Foreman was a sensitive child. His violence was his
(27:26):
response to a cruel world. Meanwhile, like Joe Frasier, it
didn't take long for George Foreman to figure out school
wasn't for him. Soon he replaced education with day drinking.
A junior high dropout quick to anger.
Speaker 15 (27:40):
He gets involved in dreek crime, gang activity, smoking dope,
drinking in public, robbing people, beating up people, getting in fights.
I mean, he is not on a path toward glory.
Let's put it that way.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
At age fifteen, George Foreman stood six feet tall and
weighed one hundred and eighty five pounds, and at this
point his interests are cheap rock, gut wine, smoking pot
with his friends, and swallowing pills. Most days he pretended
to leave home headed for school, but since he'd dropped out,
he'd go get drunk. At night. He'd get in fights.
(28:20):
As George Foreman once put it.
Speaker 11 (28:22):
I was my own game.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
As a childhood friend recalled quote, I've seen him do
is pull a knife on him, say I'm gonna cut
your throat. He'd just take it away from them. I
never saw him use a knife. He didn't even have to.
His fist was bad enough. Despite the odds stacked high
against him, George Foreman decided he wasn't gonna stay in
the bloody fifth ward. His moment of choice came to
(28:45):
him like a jarring epiphany. Imagine young George Foreman running
from the cops after a street mugging went sideways.
Speaker 15 (28:56):
He is hiding out from the police, lying on underneath
a shotgun shack in one of the poorest black communities,
and if he had been caught, he would have gone
to jail, perhaps for a long time.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Lying silent in the dirt and mud, praying to God
the police and their dogs didn't find him. George is
struck by the thought.
Speaker 15 (29:21):
His mother had a really hard life, was institutionalized for depression,
and he feels he wants to give something back to her.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
The other thing that saved George Foreman a government program.
Speaker 15 (29:33):
At the same time, he sees an ad for the
Job Corps.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
He's sixteen, killing time in a pool hall midday when
he sees two of his heroes on the flickering TV screen.
Speaker 17 (29:45):
Jim Brown and Johnny Unitis were talking about how you
could get a new start, and I went crazy. They
were both big heroes.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
In my life. The two football icons were urging young
men to sign up for the Job Corps, where they
would receive skills training, practice self discipline, and receive moral guidance.
It was a place where disadvantage Jews could learn the
skill sets they'd require to begin to make something of themselves.
Foreman knew the Job Corps was his last best chance
(30:15):
to save his own life.
Speaker 15 (30:17):
At first, he goes to Oregon and he's in like
an idyllic setting.
Speaker 17 (30:22):
Only in movies and picture books had I seen such
such beautiful places, and never did I anticipate that I
would actually find myself in one green hills, winding streams,
in oh.
Speaker 11 (30:35):
That fresh sweet air.
Speaker 17 (30:37):
This was the place of my heroes and fantasies, and
where I now live.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Foreman experienced how those fictional stories could be made real,
how that could be his story, and he fell in
love with his new life. True to the TV ads
out there in the west, Foreman learned a couple trades,
bricklaying and carpentry. He also earned his ged his high
school equivalency diploma. Foreman was functionally illiterate when he quit
(31:09):
junior high, but in the Job Corps he learned to read.
This program vastly expands his horizons. Yet he still had
all that anger stored up inside. He was still hot
tempered and still quick to fight, and he was still gargantuan.
Speaker 15 (31:26):
He doesn't know how to get along with other folks,
and basically he does what he did at home. He
attempts to make himself the king of the jungle by
beating up other people and establishing his dominance, and he
nearly gets kicked out of the job Corps.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
However, luckily for Foreman.
Speaker 15 (31:45):
He makes some friends who say, you know, if you
like to fight so much, why don't you become a boxer,
and this gets him interested in the boxing program.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Foreman graduates from the Job Corps. He stays involved in
the federal program by becoming a counselor. He's sent down
to Pleasanton, California, near Oakland, where the boxing program is located.
It's there where Foreman meets a man who will be
integral to his new life path.
Speaker 15 (32:14):
The coach Doc brought Us, who essentially acts as a
second father to him.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Nick Doc Brotus was a Job Corps vocational director and
the man who introduces Foreman to boxing.
Speaker 15 (32:29):
Tries to keep him on the straight and narrow and
also teach him boxing skills, of boxing, discipline, and a
certain moral sensibility.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
In December of nineteen sixty six, Foreman laces up boxing
gloves for the first time. He steps into the boxing
ring with a much smaller veteran boxer who soundly beats it.
For the young man, who believes he's king of the jungle,
a one man gang, this public defeat is humiliating.
Speaker 15 (33:01):
He realizes that he can be beaten by a discipline fighter,
by even of a lesser weight.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Foreman doesn't return to the boxing gym for days. He
licks his wounds and nurses his pride, but he doesn't
stay away long. Doc Brotus is happy to welcome him back. Eventually,
Doc sets up Foreman's first amateur fight, and George Foreman
never shows again. Doc Brotus welcomes him back into the gym.
(33:31):
Doc gets George back training regularly, and he gets him
to believe he can become a real pro boxer. George
Foreman's first amateur fight last just one round because Foreman
easily knocks out the other boxer. This gets him to
train more seriously. He begins to build an amateur career,
(33:53):
which points him towards the Olympics.
Speaker 15 (33:56):
Nineteen sixty eight is a real flash point in sports
history because of the attempted boycott of the sixty eight
Olympics in Mexico City.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Singer, songwriter and activist Miriam Micaybo had become world famous
thanks to Harry Belafonte, the Caribbean born singer who first
convinced her to come to the US and uplifted her
incredible talent. In the early to mid sixties, Harry Belafonte's
(34:37):
word was gold as my pop remembers.
Speaker 13 (34:40):
Which trusted Harry Belafonte completely, you know, and he was
basically sponsoring her.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
As a result, she became a big star in America,
which meant in nineteen sixty seven when Mickaba released her
new hit song Pata Pata as part of an album
of the same name. The song became a huge global
success for her.
Speaker 16 (35:01):
Panta Mata is dance, we do know Johanna's rug way,
and everybody stunts to move as soon as Panada stops.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Miriam was given the loving nickname Mama Africa by her
fans for good reason. Her love shone out from her
like a mother's love. Her voice soothed like a mother's voice.
Even her confidence was like that of a mother to
her African family, the one she was exiled from by
her own homeland. But like a wise mother, she knew
(35:40):
she couldn't give in to self pitying bitterness. Instead, she
called in joy. You can hear it in her songs.
In her voice.
Speaker 13 (35:48):
She wouldn't sing it against anybody, singing for all the
Africans who had been spread around the world and had
been separated from themselves, said she was saying.
Speaker 7 (35:59):
We know where you are. We haven't lost track of you,
and we all hi together on this earth.
Speaker 13 (36:05):
No matter how this shit happened, here we are and
you felt more connected to Africa with her than anybody else.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
The title Pata Pata translates as touch, touch, and the
song is named after a traditional dance between lovers. For Miriam,
the song kindled feelings of reconnection to the homeland. She
expressed a feeling that many other dispossessed people shared. For
Black Americans, her song aroused longings for a homeland they
(36:33):
didn't know they were missing.
Speaker 13 (36:36):
She was beautiful, She could sing, but you could feel
her emotion even though you didn't know a single word
in the song.
Speaker 7 (36:42):
The emotion carried the meaning and that's the way her
shit was.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
My pop still remembers Mary mckeebay's appearances on The Ed
Sullivan Show.
Speaker 13 (36:51):
And seeing they had black people on TV all the
time in the six days that wasn't it was unusual.
So on Sunday night when Ned Sulltheran came on, if
there was anybody blas on that show, everybody in the
family had to come in the living room, sit on the.
Speaker 7 (37:04):
Floor and watch it.
Speaker 13 (37:05):
Sammy Davis Junior, Duke Ellington Pearl Bailey. I don't give
him up who it was if they were black on TV.
He had to come watch it. Mary mckiba, come on,
get jazz in.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
His But then after she recorded the album Pata Pata,
Mary Micaba had a falling out with her creative partner,
Harry Belafonte, and things changed. For one, she fell in
love with another freedom fighter, the militant Stokely Carmichael. He
was the former spokesperson for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(37:36):
turned black Panther. He was the guy who first coined
the term black power, and in March of sixty eight,
mckiba married him. Naturally, Carmichael was considered a threat by
the FBI. He lived under constant surveillance, so when mckiba
married him, she also became a threat to the FBI.
And she also had a profound influence on her radical
(37:59):
husband and Harriet Bellefonte's autobiography.
Speaker 7 (38:02):
He described it quite well.
Speaker 13 (38:04):
He said, Stokely would have been walking around wearing blue
jeans and bib overhauls.
Speaker 7 (38:09):
He married me and mckeeba.
Speaker 13 (38:11):
Next time I saw him, he had on a suck
broqute top, sook britches and an ivory handlet, walking cane,
and had developed an accent.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
There was another change after their marriage. Kiba lost a
large portion of her fan base, particularly the white moderates,
much like a Lei experienced when he resisted the draft,
but for a very different reason. Mikiba's new husband openly
called for violence against the white power structure, which white
moderates personalized as violence aimed not at systems and at institutions,
(38:45):
but at them. Not to mention, Stokely, Carmichael, who later
changed his name to Quame Terrey, was introducing Miriam Mackaba
to a whole host of other black militants, while she
was introducing him to heads of state like African liberation leaders,
and the couple also regularly met with communist leaders in Africa.
(39:07):
That's how this pair of black radicals became an enemy
of both the FBI and the CIA. The newlyweds were followed,
snooped on by field agents, and eves dropped via hidden microphones.
Miriam Micaba's FBI file, which is available online, is two
hundred and ninety two pages long. The document details how
(39:29):
the people close to her who she trusted, were secretly
betraying her as FBI informants. Miriam Micaba was spied on everywhere, anywhere,
she spoke, everywhere, she played music. This was the spirit
of the times in sixty eight. There was this general
paranoia and race based anxiety, terrifying so many in America,
(39:51):
while at the same time it was uniting so many others.
Mlka's assassination in April of sixty eight sparks a summer
of protests and uprisings in cities all across the nation,
and that is the cultural backdrop for that year's Summer Olympics.
(40:13):
As author Lewis Ehrenberg explains.
Speaker 15 (40:15):
Nineteen sixty eight is a real flash point in sports
history because of the attempted boycott of the Olympics in
Mexico City, leading the charge as Harry Edwards, a sociology
professor at San Jose State.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Edwards believed that as segregation was ending, black students could
now enjoy new opportunities, yet they were still being mistreated
and exploited by their colleges and universities.
Speaker 15 (40:42):
African American athletes were brought onto campus, but they weren't
given any kind of equality. They were there to serve
the track program or the university's image. But you know,
the coaches frowned upon interracial dating. It was difficult for
the athletes to get housing.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Even as the star athletes one glory for their schools,
they were treated like second class citizens. However, these young
black athletes have a new hero, a champion who's shown
them how to fight against prejudice. His name Mohammad Ali.
Inspired by their fellow olympian, the young black track stars
announced plans to boycott the sixty eight Games. The resulting
(41:24):
international embarrassment would become a clear and urgent demand for
change in the US.
Speaker 15 (41:30):
The athletes claim that it's important to think not of
their athletic success, but of the political implications of supporting
racial policies of the US government and the Vietnam War
and the stripping of Ali's title because of his opposition
to Vietnam. So there's a number of things that come together,
(41:51):
and it's a very difficult issue boycotting the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
And when word gets back to Muhammad Ali, the people's
champ tells the press.
Speaker 15 (42:00):
He supports the attempt to boycott the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Their hero has their back. Publicly, this matters a great
deal to the Olympic athletes. Because don't forget, they're young,
and they're doing this on the world stage now for
the People's champ Ale gets to see how his brave
stance against the draft has deeply inspired the next generation.
(42:25):
Save for one notable exception, George Foreman.
Speaker 15 (42:29):
The problem is that it comes every four years, and
if amateur athletes don't get in the year they're eligible
four years later, they're too old.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Keep in mind, Foreman is in his prime. He can't,
or rather he won't, dream of giving up everything he's
worked for or give up his goal of making his
mother proud.
Speaker 15 (42:51):
For a guy like Foreman, this is his big opportunity.
He didn't turn pro He's gonna fight in Mexico City,
and the idea boycotting just doesn't make any sense to him.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Foreman gets approached about boycotting the Olympics, but he thinks
the planned protest is kind of tone deaf.
Speaker 15 (43:10):
George Foreman, who is not a college student, feels that
the boycotters, when they come and speak to the prospective
Olympic athletes, really are you know, middle class who have
no understanding of what poor blacks are going through, which
I think is an exaggeration. But Foreman makes that case
(43:31):
in his autobiography.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
What he misunderstands is how the proposed sixty eight Olympics
boycott would become an acid test for the future of
Black America. It raises the question.
Speaker 15 (43:43):
Should black athletes support their conscience? Should they support the
policies of US government? What is their role? It raises
questions about sports as a not just a sandbox for
you know, entertainment for sports fans, but there's something serious
going on in politics. And this draws on Ali's example
(44:07):
as well.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
The intended boycott doesn't go off as planned, but athletes
still support the cause and find workarounds.
Speaker 15 (44:14):
It's decided that since they can't boycott the Olympics as such,
what each person would find, especially his own way to
protest the racism of the American government of the sporting establishment.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Most notably the track stars John Carlos and Tommy Smith.
Speaker 15 (44:37):
After the two twenty meter race run by Tommy Smith,
third was John Carlos.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
As the young Black Olympians stand on the Winders podium
to receive their medals, instead of waving to the crowd,
they solemnly bow their heads and they raise their fists.
On each fist is a black glove, the black power salute.
It's a powerful, silent protest. The winners show their defiance
(45:04):
and solidarity in combination with white Australian Olympian Peter Norman's
display of a human rights pin. The three of them,
black and white athletes alike stand together on the world
stage beneath that pair of raised black fists.
Speaker 15 (45:20):
They're in their socks, they have their heads bowed, and
they're quiet and respectful, but they're stating their point of view.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Tommy Smith describes the scene on the Olympic pedestal as
quote an arch of unity.
Speaker 15 (45:39):
Well, this just sets off a firestorm and they get
kicked out of the Olympic village. Their careers are essentially ruined.
So where does Foreman come in?
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Like Joe Frazier, Foreman is aware America is far from perfect,
but he believes the USA is still the best country
in the world. He's proud to call himself an American.
Speaker 17 (46:03):
This was nineteen sixty eight, the height of the Cold War.
All the terrible images of the Soviet athletes flooded my mind.
Robots exercising and hip deep snow, guys with nuclear fists.
To beat them, you needed to be James Bond in
a magic briefcase like From Russia with Love Plus.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
His trainer Dick Sadler, strategically keeps Foreman away from any
and all of the political talk in order to keep
his fighter focused on his time in the ring. Looking back,
Foreman later recalled with regret how at the time he
was unaware of the gravity of the protest and the
state violence. He was in his own bubble.
Speaker 17 (46:47):
Back at the village. That night, someone said that he
talked to John Carlos. John says for you to just
go out there and do your thing. He told me
you go ahead and win the gold. Is that what
he said? I asked, Yeah, he doesn't want you to quit.
He's pulling for you. You have to go out there
a little older and wiser. Now, I think it's highly
(47:10):
doubtful that John Carlos actually passed along this message.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
So what does Foreman do?
Speaker 15 (47:18):
He went on fighting.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
George Foreman steps into the ring in the sixty eight
Olympic Games and he dominates, just like he always does.
Speaker 15 (47:30):
In the middle of all this turmoil, he knocks out
three Russian fighters.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Then Foreman's big moment arrives his final gold winning victory.
Speaker 17 (47:45):
Before going to the ring, I filled my robe pocket
with some beads a girlfriend had given me in a
small American flag one of the assistant US coaches had
given me for luck.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
He stands there on the world stage. All that he
has gone through flashes through his mind and he uses
his platform.
Speaker 15 (48:03):
Foreman whips out a flags tiny American flag, kisses it
and waves it in the ring, and then waves it
on the middle stand as well. And this is perceived
as a direct attack on Carlos and Smith and a
patriotic display by a good Negro as opposed to these bad, dangerous,
(48:26):
almost fascistic with the glove fist black athletes.
Speaker 13 (48:30):
And George won and got the flag and waving around.
I think people got confused. George is an American citizen.
He just won the Olympics for the United States, and
he was excited.
Speaker 17 (48:43):
I meant the waving to say, this is an American
who won this medal. I meant it in a way
that was much bigger than ordinary patriotism. It was about identity.
Speaker 13 (48:55):
What flag was he supposed to wave? You know, like
he was basically saying, no, this is our country too.
So I want to remind you of why we protesting. Yeah,
so that didn't bother me at all. I respected it.
An American, That's who I was. I was waving the
flag as much for myself as for my country. I
was letting everyone know who I was and at the
same time saying that I was proud to be an American.
Speaker 15 (49:19):
Foreman was grateful to America for what they had done
for him and presumably for black men in general.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
But what other folks see is a black man supporting
the Vietnam War and its racialized violence. They see Foreman
counter protesting the brave black track athletes taking a righteous stand,
and the contrast could not have been more stark. His
tiny USA flag is unforgettable, and for some it's unforgivable.
Speaker 15 (49:52):
That flag waving becomes like a symbolic gesture, which is
as important, I think as the gloved fist, because for
middle class whites, they're tired of the complaining, the protests,
the riots, the notion that America is a failed society.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Whether he intended it or not, George Foreman has picked
a side in the culture wars.
Speaker 15 (50:18):
He expects to come back with a gold medal, to
be honored by his community and American general and that
doesn't happen.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Remember, George Foreman is sensitive, prone to embarrassment and shame.
Now he's the Olympic heavyweight Champion of the world, but
just like that, he's shoe booty all over again.
Speaker 15 (50:39):
When Foreman comes back from the Olympics, he visits his
old haunts in Houston, and his old running buddies are upset.
Younger people in the black community treat him as a trader.
This controversy continues into the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
So when Foreman makes his way back home he's a
folk hero. He only a hero for anxious white moderates
and conservative black churchgoers, the folks that Nixon likes to
call his silent majority. In fact, when Foreman gets back
to Houston in the summer of sixty eight, Richard Nixon's
running for president of the United States. He even approaches
(51:17):
Foreman for his public support. Instead, Foreman decides to become
a supporter of Nixon's opponent, Hubert Humphrey, who's lbj's VP
and is partially responsible for the job Court initiative that
changed Foreman's life path. So soon enough.
Speaker 15 (51:34):
He's on the stage with him in various places. He's
wearing the gold medal. He's waving the flag.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
And with that, Foreman's fate is sealed. His story is written,
or so it would appear. Back to Fight writer Mark Kriegel, to.
Speaker 6 (51:50):
Me, there are two kinds of fighters, fighters with a
story and fighters without a story. The fighters who have
a story you're invested in, and that, aside from being
able to fight, is probably fighter's most valuablester his story
or her story.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
Now it was time for George Foreman's story to take
over boxing. Next time on Rumble.
Speaker 13 (52:20):
George Jackson, Angela Davis, Black Panthers.
Speaker 7 (52:23):
All of this urban political.
Speaker 8 (52:25):
Intensity was all occurring at the same time.
Speaker 13 (52:28):
Marshall y'all called me and adm if I wanted to
go play with Bbking, I said, oh yeah sure.
Speaker 18 (52:37):
Rumble is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
Rumble is written and hosted by Zaren Burnett. The third
produced and directed by Julia Chriscau. Sound design and scoring
by Jesse Niswanger. Original music by Jordan Manley and TJ.
Speaker 4 (52:54):
Merritt. Our senior producer is Amelia Brock.
Speaker 18 (52:57):
Series concept by Gary strom Executive producers are Jason English,
Sean ty Tone, Gary Stromberg, Virginia Prescott, L. C.
Speaker 4 (53:08):
Crowley and Brandon Barr.
Speaker 18 (53:10):
Production manager Daisy Church, fact checker Savannah Hugley. Additional producing
by Claire Keating and John Washington. Legal services provided by
Connol Hanley PC.
Speaker 4 (53:22):
Casting director Julia Chriscau.
Speaker 18 (53:24):
Episode three cast Abraham Amka as Mohammad Ali, Arthur Dent
as Joe Fraser, Jonah Weston as Norman Mahler, Anthony Brandon
Walker as George Foreman, Wayne j As Howard Cosell, Julia
Chriscau as news reporter. Casting support services provided by Breakdown Express.
(53:45):
Special thanks to Lewis Ehrenberg. Check out his book Rumble
in the Jungle. It's a great resource. Also thanks to
Jonathan I for his book Ali a Life, And finally
thanks to Zarens pops Zeke, who ground this material like
no one else. If you like the show, let us know.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
Like subscribe, leave five star reviews. It really helps.
Speaker 18 (54:07):
Also check out our show notes for a full list
of reference materials.