, Columnist
Ali Forced You to Take Sides. I Took His.
What the Champ meant to a black baby boomer.
The greatest.
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In March of 1971, when Muhammad Ali met Joe Frazier in the Fight of the Century, I was in high school in Ithaca, New York. At that time Ithaca was a sleepy Republican town. But Ali woke things up. People who had no interest in sports were taking sides.
Perhaps unfairly, Frazier had become the candidate of conservatives, the boxer who proudly carried the American flag, the man who would teach some manners to the mouthy antiwar upstart who had changed his name and (they muttered) should have been in prison.