11. He Refused To Fight In Vietnam
Ali defended his title against a number of opponents and remained undefeated with little serious threat to his title into 1967. Elsewhere in the United States at this time, millions of Americans were being forced into war in Vietnam. Ali was conscripted into mandatory service, but he loudly and proudly refused to sign the oath of allegiance to the United States army. Ali claimed he had no problems with any Vietcong, as he claimed the Vietnamese people never “called him n*gger,” nor did they do any of the other countless racist things Ali was a victim to in his home country. Ali’s lawyers quashed the threat of jail time, but the boxing community was still able to strip Ali of his World Heavyweight Championship title, and blackball him from boxing for the next several years.
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