'Cassius X: Becoming Ali' follows the early years of Cassius Clay, from bright-eyed rookie to world heavyweight champion and from working class intellectual to one of America's most influential civil rights campaigners.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00 It is always asked, "What do the Muslim want?
00:05 What is they after?"
00:07 We believe the black man should be free
00:11 from the names imposed upon him by his former slave master.
00:17 Cassius Clay.
00:21 He was box office.
00:24 Anywhere he went, he could create a crowd.
00:27 I was truly infatuated with this man.
00:30 You're standing in front of my candle, I believe.
00:32 From the first moment I was in love.
00:34 Whatever you do, pay to get in.
00:37 The civil rights movement is just about to explode.
00:42 Young black folks are hungry for something different.
00:45 White America wants Cassius Clay to be the good guy.
00:50 He didn't know what Islam was.
00:55 He and Elijah Muhammad really gave everything that was going on in his life at the time a purpose.
01:01 The nation of Islam were thought of as an ominous, shadowy group.
01:07 White people who were guilty of white supremacy try and hide their own guilt
01:11 by accusing the Honorable Elijah Muhammad of teaching black supremacy.
01:15 While he was like a younger brother for my father,
01:19 he was a bigger brother for me, and it was stopped right in the middle.
01:23 When the Honorable Elijah Muhammad cuts the man off,
01:25 well then he's automatically cut off with all of his followers.
01:28 He would not follow a student of the teacher.
01:30 He'd follow the teacher himself.
01:32 I am free!
01:34 He is someone who says, "I want freedom."
01:37 And I have to do that by tying myself back to my identity.
01:41 Whatever you call me, you're not going to call me out of my name.
01:45 And from now on, my name is Cassius X.
01:50 I'm free to be what I want to be and think what I want to think.
01:55 [music]
02:06 [thunder]
02:08 [silence]