Shortly after he won the World Boxing Championship, Cassius Clay joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. Three years later he refused to fight in the Vietnam War. As an ordained Black Muslim minister, he believed he was exempt from military service. He also felt it was wrong to ask African Americans to fight for freedoms they didn’t enjoy themselves. ‘’Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on other innocent brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?’’

He was stripped of his title, banned from boxing for three years, and sentenced to five years in prison. The Supreme Court reversed his conviction in 1971.