He Introduced “Black Power” to America
Before James Brown recorded “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud” (1968), and before Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Stokely Carmichael mentioned the term “Black Power” in the spring of 1966, Muhammad Ali had already become living proof of that phrase.
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Shortly after he beat Liston in the winter of 1964, the new champion said that he was changing his “slave name” of Cassius Clay to an almighty one – Muhammad Ali. Many sportswriters refused to call him that name, but he insisted.