Muhammad Ali: Stood Tall for the Rights and Principles of Expanded Democratic Process

On June 20, 1967 Muhammad Ali was convicted of violating the laws, sentenced to prison and stripped of his world heavy weight boxing title. Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted. He stands defiantly as one of the ultimate sports heroes of all time for violating the draft of young people to serve in the wars we have created abroad. He was inscrutable in his conviction that all people have certain inalienable rights to vote with their conscience against tyranny.

Although the Supreme Court over turned the ruling, Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer of his generation, returned to the ring to regain his title, not for the purpose of earning the title alone, but for the rights and privileges of all oppressed peoples. He stands on the precipice as the giant of leaders, which we sorely need to return to the public domain.

In the Olympics in China and throughout the world we need his ilk to combat the injustice of dictators and obsession of despots like the present leaders of the United States, Great Britain, Israel, Russia, China, many other industrialized nations, and in many less developed nations of the world. We need to call upon the wisdom and courage of leaders of the world of sports to raise their right-gloved fists in solidarity with all oppressed people in ending slavery, famine, exploitation of children, abuse of power of sovereign nations, gluttony of the world’s resources and the devastation of the earth. We need to raise our voices in solidarity with the working poor that their freedom and courage is not a voice that goes unheard.