Which Hit Ali Harder, The Punches Or This Heist?

Left naked and deprived of his cash and jewelry, Ali was one of the victims of a house party heist. The robbers escaped with nearly a million dollars' worth of valuables. But hours before the robbery, something much more significant had happened to Ali.

It was Ali’s first fight in three years after 22 states refused to grant him a boxing license due to his stance against the Vietnam War. However, Leroy Johnson, Georgia's first Black senator elected since Reconstruction, risked his life to find loopholes to organize a match in Atlanta.

Leading up to the fight, Ali's life was also in danger. Gunshots were fired at the Atlanta cottage he stayed at every night before the match. But that didn’t shake Ali’s or Atlanta’s spirit.

ATL had it all during the 1970s: Black bankers, Black entrepreneurs, and certainly culture. When it was time for Ali’s fight, the city showed up and showed out. Prominent figures from across the country, including Sidney Poitier, Diana Ross, and Coretta Scott King, flocked to experience the energy that night.

Muhammad Ali was robbed of his political freedom way before the heist, but the city of Atlanta refused to let his legacy dwindle. When unified, we can knock racism’s lights out any day, any night.