Muhammad Ali would have supported the modern-day civil rights movement.- That's according to the former
boxing champion's official biographer Thomas Hauser.
BOXING HALL OF FAME, CANASTOTA — Muhammad Ali would have supported the modern-day civil rights movement.
That's according to the former heavyweight world boxing champion's biographer Thomas Hauser, who was inducted into the sport's illustrious Hall of Fame earlier this month.
Hauser spoke to Insider on the lawns of Canastota, where boxing legends gathered to give speeches as they were enshrined permanently in the nearby combat
"He was not averse to protesting and taking a stand against war, racism, and injustice," Hauser, an author of 39 books, told us.
This is contrary to what Ali's only son, Muhammad Ali Jr., said in 2020.
Ali died aged 74 in 2016 as a result of complications of Parkinson's disease. Combined with his work in the ring, where he fought so beautifully and took down some of the sport's biggest names, Ali was a renowned activist.
He notably resisted the Vietnam War draft despite it impacting his boxing career.
Nation of Islam members, including Malcolm X, had joined his entourage by the early 1960s.
Ali was also passionate about youth education, remedying world hunger, and even talked a suicidal man down from jumping off a ledge in 1981.
Ali Jr. claimed two years ago that Ali would have supported an "all lives matter" movement over Black Lives Matter. The fighter's son said his famous father would have regarded protestors as "nothing but devils."
The way Hauser talked, this is far from the truth.
Ali would have approved, according to Hauser
"He'd have approved" of Colin Kaepernick's message about police brutality and social injustice, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the protests in the aftermath of George Floyd's death — a 46-year-old African American who was murdered by police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020.
Regarding his own work — the work that led to his induction into boxing's Hall of Fame in Canastota — Hauser reflected on the archive of books and journalism he's published through decades spent in boxing's media business.
"Nothing will match the joy of the 10 years I spent with Muhammad Ali, writing, working, traveling, the rest," he told us. "He was obviously a very special person."
Hauser added: "At the time I was working on the book, he lived in Berrien Springs, Michigan, on an 80-acre farm, and I would go there for a week at a time.
"I had a room in the house, and he would just walk in to talk [to me]. We'd watch TV together and hang out."