The Cassius Clay you’ve never heard of
Before Muhammad Ali was The Greatest, he was a poor, black, dyslexic kid named Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr…named after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr… who was named after another Kentuckian born in 1810.
When Muhammad Ali was 12, a neighborhood kid stole his bike.
A Louisville police officer encountered Ali later that day, still fuming. And Ali told the officer he was going to “whup” the thief when he found him.
The officer told the kid he ought to learn how to box before starting any fights. The kid listened.
You probably know the rest of that story.
But before Muhammad Ali was The Greatest, he was a poor, black, dyslexic kid named Cassius.
Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.
Named after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr.
… who was named after another Kentuckian born in 1810. A rich white Lexington politician from a family that enslaved Africans.
Which partly explains why Muhammad Ali felt compelled to change his name.
But sometimes the Universe winks at us, and it turns out the original Cassius Clay was a fighter too.
Nicknamed, “The Lion of White Hall”, Cassius was born to a rich slave-holding Kentucky family in 1810. He went to law school at Yale and returned an abolitionist.
He freed his family’s enslaved workers and started The True American, an emancipationist newspaper published in Lexington.
His ideas didn’t go over well at home. He kept a cannon at his printing office to ward off mobs.
During one political debate, an assassin shot an unarmed Clay in the chest. The bullet bounced off the tip of his strapped bowie knife, which Clay proceeded to use to disarm his opponent and cut off his nose and ears.
A fighter.
He became friends with Congressman Abraham Lincoln and helped him become POTUS in 1860.
By the time he was an old man, Clay’s face and body were covered in scars. Some historians say he killed more men in duels than anyone else in American history.
Against all odds, he died peacefully in his bed in 1903. He was 92.
A racially mixed crowd attended his funeral.
Muhammad Ali changed his name publicly when he was 22. He’d recently joined The Nation of Islam and wanted what he called “a free name.” He chose one that means beloved of God.
The media resisted the change at first.
But I think his abolitionist namesake would have understood. Maybe even’ve liked it.
"I should be a postage stamp. That's the only way I'll ever get licked."
- Muhammad Ali
