LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Muhammad Ali was on the ropes for refusing induction into the Army, and Jim Brown wanted to help. But first, the NFL great wanted to hear the boxing champion’s reasons for not answering the call to military service during the Vietnam War.
So Brown led a group of prominent Black athletes who hit Ali with a flurry of questions during a two-hour meeting in Cleveland in June 1967. Ali didn’t duck the questions and stuck to his principles, citing his religious beliefs in refusing to join the military.
The dozen athletes, consisting of Bill Russell, Jim Brown, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Carl Stokes, Walter Beach, Bobby Mitchell, Sid Williams, Curtis McClinton, Willie Davis, Jim Shorter, and John Wooten emerged from the meeting to publicly support Ali at a time when the champ was one of the country’s most polarizing figures.
“People got the answers that they wanted,” Brown recalled Saturday as several of the participants prepared to reunite with Ali.
Nearly 50 years after t…
