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With his defiance, he was refusing to participate in America’s plan for a nation far away from home, especially when that plan called for murdering the enemy and violated his faith. Ali couldn’t accept betraying his faith for America while in a foreign land, only to return home to a culture of racial bias and discrimination by the country he just served. 6 Civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s came to Ali’s defense. "He is giving up millions of dollars to do what his conscience tells him is right," King said. 7 The possibility of being killed or maimed in a war zone for a country that was hostile to black Americans was not worth the price of betraying his faith. Ali was arrested for his
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He was subsequently stripped of his title. Ali was found guilty of draft evasion at his trial on June 20, 1967 and was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. A Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, however this battle would go the distance, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The trial took place for four years during the athletic prime of the prizefighter’s career; the government accomplishing what no boxer had previously done - silencing Ali’s thunderous right …show more content…
Ali had regained the heavyweight championship belt for the second time in his career, finally achieving the level of success he had prior to his conviction and becoming a beloved icon throughout the world in the process. Stripped of his championship in 1967, it took a little more than six long years from age 25 to age 32 for Ali to recover from the government’s charges against him. Ali would go on to capture the heavy weight belt an unprecedented three times during his career, leaving his mark as the greatest fighter of what boxing experts consider the golden age of boxing. Ali fought every major champion and contenderduring this era, and defeated each of them.
Michael Mann, director of the 2003 biopic film “Ali,” said, “The draft resistance was it for Nelson Mandela. When the cast had dinner with Mandela, while we were filming in Mozambique, Mandela told us that what Ali was willing to lose in order to oppose the war was the defining thing about him.” 9 Despite achieving many of the sport of boxing’s greatest accomplishments, Ali’s legacy is defined by redemption through suffering, emancipation through courage and vindication through adherence to personal conviction that began on that day in April
He was subsequently stripped of his title. Ali was found guilty of draft evasion at his trial on June 20, 1967 and was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. A Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, however this battle would go the distance, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The trial took place for four years during the athletic prime of the prizefighter’s career; the government accomplishing what no boxer had previously done - silencing Ali’s thunderous right …show more content…
Ali had regained the heavyweight championship belt for the second time in his career, finally achieving the level of success he had prior to his conviction and becoming a beloved icon throughout the world in the process. Stripped of his championship in 1967, it took a little more than six long years from age 25 to age 32 for Ali to recover from the government’s charges against him. Ali would go on to capture the heavy weight belt an unprecedented three times during his career, leaving his mark as the greatest fighter of what boxing experts consider the golden age of boxing. Ali fought every major champion and contenderduring this era, and defeated each of them.
Michael Mann, director of the 2003 biopic film “Ali,” said, “The draft resistance was it for Nelson Mandela. When the cast had dinner with Mandela, while we were filming in Mozambique, Mandela told us that what Ali was willing to lose in order to oppose the war was the defining thing about him.” 9 Despite achieving many of the sport of boxing’s greatest accomplishments, Ali’s legacy is defined by redemption through suffering, emancipation through courage and vindication through adherence to personal conviction that began on that day in April