Him him him him him him him. Give me one more title for the fall. One more title is really exciting and interesting is a little bit of an expansion from our work and mormon study. It it is called bearing witness. It is an edited collection and it is a firsthand stories of the 36 mormon women in all spectrum of the states representing different stories of how they do a marriage, love, sex, marrying outside the mormon religion and the pressures that, in some cases to have a very traditional mormon relationship. Its a very interesting book and ties in with some of our feminist media studies book. One is that coming out . That is coming out in september. Steve fast is the publicity manager for the university of illinois press. Civil rights activist and president ial medal recipient, mohammed ali died on friday. He was 74 years old. In february, history professor Randy Roberts was on book tv to discuss the public and private relationship between malcolm x and mohammed ali. Im the events director here and it is my pleasure to welcome you and to welcome randy for his book, blood brothers. Randy is a distinctive professor at the university and doing biographies and u. S. Work history with Popular Culture which clearly combine in this new book so blood brothers is a friendship between Mohammed Ali A Malcolm x to offer an indepth portrait of the friendship. It goes deep and uses previously untapped resources from fbi records and other documents. We are pleased to have randy here today. I am really glad that randy is joined tonight. At the weekend at noon and weekdays at noon on friday at name, they hosted the politics our and working as a journalist since the 70s and also multiple media outlets. He is been listed among the districts most influential people by that publication, washingtonian. We are so glad that you could join us tonight, this is one of our many partner events. We are pleased to partner with them today and share their values bring them up together having great discussions and having great conversations and asking wonderful questions. Were so glad they could be here in our community and here tonight at the bookstore. Thank thank you for coming everybody. Please join me in welcome Randy Roberts [applause]. Thank you so very much. And think youll showing up on what is clearly a dark and stormy night. If you have been you also know the drink is also called the dark and stormy. Before you get started i would would just like to not only think sarah and the staff here at cramer books but wan you team is working with the team on events because we know that listeners are also readers. Tonight we are here to talk with Randy Roberts about blood brothers. We will get the conversation rolling and moved to a questionandanswer session with you after we have talked for a little while. First Randy Roberts, welcome. Thank you very much. Im happy to be here. And im happy to be here with you. First, what that you started in looking, you have written about sports stars and legends before but this is the first time you looked at this combustible mix of sports and politics in a relationship. While i have written about relationships before. I did a book earlier on joe namath and bear bryant, so i looked at a relationship. I started with the idea that i wanted to write a book about mohammed ali. I was writing this a book it was cowritten with Johnny Smiths i wanted to give him coal credit for credit for cowriting the book. Mohammed ali was my champion. If you like boxing, if you followed boxing, people who live through the 1930s and the early 1940s, joe lewis was the champion and rocky was the champion and jack dempsey, and if you lived through the 1960s in the 1970s, mohammed ali was your champion. In the ring he was your champion and what is even rarer, outside of the ring he was my champion so i thought, while i would like like to write a book about that. And johnny and i started to work on it and the more we worked on it the more we decided what is really interesting is how caches clay became mohammed ali. What went into that. And the more we looked at it the more we looked at it the more we realized it was malcolm x that cassius clay was inhabiting the mind of malcolm x. So we thought thats an interesting story. Its a short period of time, we can look at it fully and deal with all the sources that we could dig up on it. And its a moment that helps change american history. I think from that period, the first half of the 19 sixties, 1960s, the three great black leaders, Martin Luther king, malcolm x. , and improbably cassius clay who later became mohammed ali. I was a teenager growing up in south america and we sent boxes to the olympics in rome in the 19 sixties. One of the boxes we sent there, even though he got knocked out in the first round of his fight somehow he managed to get a photograph of himself and the eventual winner of the Light Heavyweight Division at those olympics. The winner in that division, at that olympics was who . It was cassius clay. And quite frankly it would not be hard to get your picture with cassius clay. He was every place in the olympics there was one article that i remember reading and one of the things that athletes in the games did was they ask changed pins. In New York Times the official winner of exchanging pins in the olympics was cassius clay, for an an athlete to expend an enormous amount of Energy Running around the olympic village, meeting everyone, except in every interview, it probably was not a good thing to do other then he won the gold medal. But then you looked at the photograph and what you follow this young man and he accomplished this at the olympic and he had what for us was the unusual name of Cassius Marcella Clay and we found out that his brother was named rudolph clay and it started with their father what we didnt know at the time was that they did not live at the lives that his appearance would have led you to believe it had read and the consciousness of the relationship between black and white people started with that. No question about that. His his father by the same name cassius marcellious clay was a sign painter. He was an artist. Artist. You can still go to black churches and see signs of his work. He believed that he was a great artist. He also believed that he was a great singer. He would break out in a song, i have listen to interviews of and archive collections and in interviews of the father. He would break into a song and he would talk about how good of a singer he he was and what a great artist he was. He was destined in his own mind to be famous. He was michelangelo, Frank Sinatra, and he thought Frank Sinatra was a pathetic singer. I cant go go along with that. But anyway, he thought he was something. But his career was stunned because he was a black it was something he talked about with his son all the time. Not sometimes, but all the time. Oppression of whites, he grew up, both of them in segregated section of louisville, and caches learned early that you stayed away from white people. If you interact with white people it can do you no good. Harm is going to come from it i interviewed one friend to as a friend of cassius when he was younger. And he thought about the lesson, dont, dont go here, dont do this, dont do that. Number one, dont get arrested because if you go to jail, we cannot protect you. Theres nothing we can do. Danger will come of it. I think of it, we are living through what seems to be an unprecedented plague of black kids being murdered, murdered is to start a war, being shot by police i maybe there is some truth to it. Thats what his parents were wanting him against. But it also helps to explain why, despite the fact that he was able to charm everyone around him, why despite the fact that he was doing so very well as a boxer, he became attractive to the nation of islam. He started to going to nation of islam meetings. Why . Well remember, lets look at, at, he was born in 1942. He was about the same age as emmett till. He remembered the murder of emmett till, his father talked about emmett till all of the time who is down in the Mighty Mississippi i think and was taken by several white men for supposedly would whipping the white woman. He had trouble saying certain letters and he used it kind of whistle because it would put his mouth and position where it wouldnt stutter. Maybe that was what happened. Anyway, whatever he did he ends up dead. Mohammed heard this over and over. Also in mohammeds neighborhood there was a family that lived a few blocks away in the joe black neighborhood and their house was firebombed. So he felt, he wasnt interested in integration, he was not part of the advancement of National Association advancement. He believed in separation of races and so obviously it appealed to them. And his brother started going in the back door of the nation of islam when he was in locations where he had a fight or some other event, he was obviously attracted to the nation and ultimately he would ultimately malcolm x. Was also very interested in who had been cassius clay. As things evolved in Popular Culture that was during a time when there is a dispute between malcolm and Martin Luther king but the best way forward would be. When we look at Popular Culture today or what i look at Popular Culture today heres what i dont. There is a movie of the popular feature film made about malcolm x. There there is a popular feature film made about ali. And it wasnt until the last two years that there was not about doctor king but his role and what has emerged as the most charismatic figures of that era turned out to be malcolm x. , and mohammed ali who now capture the popular imagination. Why do you you think that is . Charisma . Partly charisma. Martin luther king had charisma, his speaking was non peril. I think malcolm and caches and mom mohammed ali had a hard edge to them. They werent compliant, they were tougher, they were stronger. They didnt preach turning the other cheek. Malcolm once said, you shoot my dog you better watch off your cat. He was going to come after you. It was going to be a knife or a knife. And a boxer has that same sort of defiance. So maybe it is that. It seems to me that it was in part because of their relationship and impart because of both of them at one. , what hated, what people forget is there is a time when both malcolm x. And mohammed ali for hated because of their relationship with. [inaudible] youre absolutely right on that. Im dealing with a time where mohammed ali was probably the most hated athlete in american history. Now, that would change, the he never changes, america will change. But the time im dealing with he is absolutely hated. Of course, malcolm x. Was the most hated black later, the most hated politician in america. This is a person who in the president of the United States was assassinated only about a week later malcolm x. Said well as far as he was concerned it was chickens coming home to roost and americas violence was being revisited upon america. So cassius clay gets interested and malcolm x. Is the minister at the mosque in new york. How how did the to me . Cassius went to train in miami. When he was in miami he started to attend that some nation meetings and he met a person who became a tutor for him in miami, a man by the name of captain sam. Captain sam taught him about the ideas of islam and they talked about different aspects of the nation. One time when cassius was back in louisville, he got a call from captain sam sam and this was in june of 1962 and he said theres going to be a nation of islam rally in detroit. Why dont you come, i will come pick you up and we will drive up to detroit and you can meet malcolm x. Malcolm was the spokesman for the nation of islam. He was by far the most famous figure in the nation of islam. And cassius said thats fine. So they went to a luncheon after the rally and there they were sitting in the back of the table, facing the door where he always set, back facing the door was malcolm x. Cassius goes up and says hello, my name is cassius clay. Malcolm sees this big, strong, powerful man and he has no id idea who cassius clay is. He doesnt follow boxing, he just sees a very impressive, seemingly charismatic man. So he learned about boxing. The nation of islam at that point did not allow its members to participate in what they call so, why was it that despite the fact that he had a professionalism in sports and plays a boxer did malcolm x. See something there that he thought needed to be developed . That is an excellent question. By that time malcolm and Elisha Mohammed who is the head of the nation of islam were starting to split apart. There is a power struggle, who is going to defeat Elisha Mohammed, he was older, he was his help was bad, he was living mostly in phoenix at the time. There is there is a sense that maybe malcolm was too powerful. So theres a division taken place. Malcolm was beginning to go under the constraints of the nation of islam for it he wasnt allowed to do, malcolm wanted to become more active in the struggle and Elisha Mohammed said no, you stay away from it. We do not deal with members of the naacp, you stay away from king, we we are on separatist organization. This was not enough for malcolm. So i think in the back of his mind the idea was taking shape that he was going to start his own organization someday. He could see the charisma of this person. This athlete that could have a potential political use. He had. He had charisma, he talks all the time, he never seemed to listen, but he listened very closely to malcolm. Why . What this outgoing, talkative talkative person, was he the real cassius clay . Thats several questions there. Let me first say who knows who the real cassius clay was. This is a person that was the most wonderful mimic possible. He could inhabit another person. So one person said cassius clay and i heard this from several persons that if you said something he liked the next day he was better. And the third day he would set better than you would say it and he would think it was his. And he could become whoever he wanted to become. There is a poem that i like, the love song in that there is one line for the poet is talking about there will be times. Times to prepare the face, to meet the faces that you meet. The ideas who is he . Maybe we we are bunch of different people. Where one person were friends, were were another person with collects, were another person, for this is the wake cassius was. In the rom olympics for example, he was representative of america and defender of america. When a when a russian reporter asked him about racism in america he said dont worry about that. We happy important people taking care of that. It may be hard for me to get a dinner sometimes in the district of columbia but is getting taken care of. America is still the best country ever. Including yours. Then he turns professional and there is an aha moment. He had a fight in las vegas and he was interviewed early in the morning by radio and also fighting in las vegas at that time in a wrestling match was a guy by the name of Gorgeous George. So theyre both their early in the morning and the interviewer turns to mohammeds book and he says cassius, harry went to do in the fight . And he said im going to win the fight, train, im in shape, my opponent is good, its going to be good fight i encourage everyone to come out but im going to win. Then he turns to Gorgeous George and says george, gorgeous, whatever you call him, how are you going to do . Im going to murder them. Im going to rip off his arm, if i loose i will crawl across the ring on my knees, i will kiss his feet, i will ask will ask for forgiveness and cassius went wow. Id like to see that. So suddenly was burn the louisville thats another cassius clay. So i forgot the original question. He realized that was a performer that could enhance his career as so he developed that performance but in fact he was a young man looking for knowledge. Host okay back to malcolm and thats. And thats what he found that malcolm x. Was able to provide so it turns out that this young man just listen very carefully to everything malcolm x. Told him. He had never seen a man so strong, so proud, and so outspoken. He said after meeting malcolm for the first time, he said how can a black man man say that and not get shot . He cannot understand it that this guy could would speak his mind in such a forceful manner and that strength appealed to him i think. That strength appeared to him, the religion appeared to him, Elisha Mohammed applied to him but his relationship with malcolm was so close and youre going to have to read the book to find out a lot of the details of these but at the most crucial fight in his life the heavyweight championship fight against sunny is when the relationship with malcolm became closer than ever, why . Cassius clay in 1964 was probably the most fearsome man in christian hood. Or beyond christian. Sonny lipton was joel lewis, Mike Tyson Tyson then every tough fighter you could imagine. Annex con, just tough. He had won the title both with one round knockouts. It was assumed he was going to add cassius clays career. I interviewed a reporter and he told me that, when i was sent down there is he a reporter for for the New York Times to cover the fight for his senior the time said heres what we want you to do. Youre gonna cover the fight because theyre not going to send a topnotch reporter because its only going to last a few seconds. So you go down, heres what we want you to do. When. When you get down there number one, find the fastest way from the arena to the nearest hospital. Because we want you to get there first and to interview cassius clay before they pronounced him dead. And so he goes out and so every reporter says hes going to lose, everybody feels that hes afraid and this kid will not last. But malcolm gave him strength. Malcolm said, look all our has not brought you to this point for you to lose. This is ordained, you are part of allahs plan for america, america, you are going to win. This is a battle between the crescent and the cross. So malcolm came to the dressing room and they got down and they prayed together. Of course if