Toni Morrison didn’t even like boxing. She said so when she agreed to edit Muhammad Ali’s autobiography for Random House. Ali had just been convicted of draft evasion and stripped of his heavyweight title for refusing to fight in Vietnam. He was working with a ghostwriter, Richard Durham, to rehabilitate his public image and tell his story.
Morrison and Ali had nothing in common. Morrison loved words and language. Ali disliked reading (he had dyslexia). Morrison wanted Ali’s feedback as she edited the manuscript but he refused to speak to her. He had Durham or his manager talk to her instead.
Morrison realized from the manuscript that Ali had a special respect for older women. And although Morrison was only nine years older than Ali, she started speaking to him as his elder.
“Ali, get up from there. You have something to do,” she’d tell him. And he’d do it. Ali’s autobiography “The Greatest: My Story” was published in 1975, and was hailed as a new kind of Black storytelling. A year later it was made into a movie.
This early collaboration between Morrison and Ali led to a lifelong mutual admiration. Our differences can’t separate us if we meet others where they are. We are each other’s greatest allies.