You couldn’t convince him with words, and you damn sure couldn’t convince him physically, so how in the world could you convince Muhammad Ali to change his mind? It was a puzzle that these groups of legends were just desperate to solve.
Nicknamed the Ali Summit, this Cleveland meeting was attended by 11 world-class Black athletes, including Jim Brown, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, and Carl Stokes. Their mission? Convince Ali to sign this damn deal so they could get what they truly desired: residuals from Ali’s matches.
Even members of the Nation of Islam stood to make money from the deal. But after Ali refused to sell out for our people, something extraordinary happened.
The other athletes joined Ali. Brown admired Ali’s conviction, saying: “[Ali] has something very few people I know possess. He has an absolute and sincere faith.” While Ali’s exile from boxing continued years after that decision, he avoided prison and reclaimed his title.
Muhammad Ali’s fierce resistance transformed those athletes’ priorities from incentive to inspiration. This summit showed that sometimes you have to walk alone to find the better path for your people - whether they eventually follow or not.