"I aint no quarrel with the Vietcong . no Vietcong ever called me a nigger". With these bold words, Muhammad Ali announced his refusal to be inducted into the U.S. Army to fight in the Vietnam War because it was a violation of his belief as a Black Muslim.
Muhammad Ali was born on January 17, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky. Known as Cassius Clay up until the beginning of his boxing career when he was recruited by the Islamic leader, Malcolm X. He approached by Malcolm to embrace and accept Islam. As Ali saw the purity of this magnificent religion, Ali deg deeper into Islam's beliefs and fully converted himself and changed his name to Muhammad Ali.
In 1966 Ali was at the peak of his boxing career and was called out to by the U.S. government to go fight in the Vietnam War. Now to Ali, fighting in a war was against his beliefs as a Muslim. As a Muslim, Islam taught not to kill when not needed and Ali stayed true to these teachings. By Ali fighting with the government about not going to war at the peak of his boxing career at that time and age was very risky. The government soon stripped Ali of his dignity, respect, well-earned money and heavy weight belt. The U.S. government also suspended Ali's boxing license, which gave him the ability to fight all over the U.S. and without it, he wasn't allowed to step into the boxing ring.
Ali started his "real" boxing career by fighting in the Olympics on September 5, 1960 and won the gold medal in the Roman Olympics. This fight launched his boxing career and every manager in the boxing game was running to sign Muhammad Ali but at the same time weren't too sure to do so due to his political beliefs and religion. Ali was always discriminated against due to his race and religion, but the teachings of Islam taught him to be patient and just ignore it. So Ali did do so and kept of fighting to follow his dreams to become the greatest.
On October 29,1960, Ali shot off his professional career in Louisville over Tunney Flunsacker.