The fearlessness of Muhammad Ali

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Muhammad Ali was brash at a time when we expected our athletes to be humble. He was loud at a time when we expected them to be quiet. And he was defiantly independent in an era when white America expected black men to do as they were told.

These things alone didn’t set Ali apart. There were loud, boisterous athletes before him, notably the wrestler “Gorgeous” George Wagner, after whom Ali modeled his persona. And there were proud, defiant black men, notably Jack Johnson, the former heavyweight champion who was Ali’s spiritual predecessor. What made Muhammad Ali different: Not only did he have the talent to back up his words — Sugar Ray Robinson, for instance, was more than his equal in talent — but he also had the courage to back up his convictions, both in and out of the ring.

In all the hundreds of thousands of words that have and will be written about Ali in the wake of his death Friday at age 74, that quality is the one most likely to be overlooked in the assessments of this exceptional man.Editor’s PicksFull coverage: Remembering Muhammad Ali

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Yes, Ali was big and bold and brash. And, yes, he had the fastest feet and hands of any heavyweight ever seen to that point or since. But he was also fearless, treating Sonny Liston, George Foreman, Joe Frazier, the U.S. government and white society all the same: as opponents not to be feared, but to be conquered through sheer force of will.

Ali’s decision to refuse induction into the Army in 1967 was as courageous an act as staring down Liston or allowing Foreman — by the numbers, the most devastating heavyweight champion in history — to pound away at his arms, shoulders and flanks for seven rounds before dispatching him as neatly as a hunter takes out a deer with a high-powered rifle.

In a lot of ways, his refusal was more courageous because he knew it would cost him …

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