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Thomas Aiello, "Return of the King: The Rebirth of Muhammad Ali and the Rise of Atlanta" (U Nebraska Press, 2025)
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- [00:00]
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Marshall Po
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- [01:41]
Craig Gill
Hello and welcome back to the New Books in Sports, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I'm Craig Gill, one of the hosts of the new Books in Sports podcast. Today we'll be talking to Thomas Aiello about his new book, Return of the King, the Rebirth of Muhammad Ali and the Rise of Atlanta. Tom, welcome to the show.
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Thomas Aiello
Thanks so much for having me.
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Craig Gill
Tom, I wonder if you could begin the interview by just telling us a little bit about yourself. Of course.
- [02:07]
Thomas Aiello
I am a professor of history and Africana studies and animal studies at Valasta State University in far South Georgia. I write about sports and race and civil rights and a variety of different things, including animals but here we are to talk about Muhammad Ali.
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Craig Gill
Awesome. I'm excited to dive in. How did. How did this project come about?
- [02:33]
Thomas Aiello
This project actually came about when I was reading a different book and it was mentioned just in passing about Muhammad Ali's return fight after his three year suspension in Atlanta. And as someone who kind of spends his life in race in the south, not already knowing that was bothersome to me. And so it sent me down a rabbit hole and I found out that there turned out to be a really interesting story there that hasn't really ever been told before. And so, yeah, just it was a dive off from someone else's work that I went jumping into.
- [03:19]
Craig Gill
Awesome. And thinking broadly about the book, what are you hoping that your audience takes away from reading it?
- [03:27]
Thomas Aiello
Well, I think that. I think there's a common caricature of Muhammad Ali's return to the ring that he decides not to go to the Vietnam War and he comes back three years later because everybody decides they hate the Vietnam War and he fights Joe Frazier and he becomes Muhammad Ali again. But I think it's not that simple. And so I think they will end up learning something about Muhammad Ali and his journey back to the ring that doesn't involve those broad strokes caricatures. They'll also learn something about race in the south because his return fight happens in the last place anybody would have expected in the heart of the Deep south where Lester Maddox was sitting as governor. And so I think there is something to learn about the willingness of southerners to participate in these kinds of events if it means either sporting glory or some kind of economic incentive for them, providing kind of poking holes in the old racial orthodoxy that existed in the region.
- [04:38]
Craig Gill
Got it. And the city of Atlanta is kind of an important character in the book itself. What's some of the kind of long term political context around about Atlanta that laid the groundwork for this fight?
- [04:52]
Thomas Aiello
Well, Atlanta for the longest time had wanted to be seen as a cosmopolitan city. There was a forward Atlanta campaign as early as the 20s. Very famously, Mayor Hartsfield in Atlanta had said that it was the city too busy to hate. And as the civil rights movement had been roiling, Atlanta watched as Birmingham and New Orleans and all these other places got these horrible reputations. Their competitor cities in the south got these horrible reputations for dealing with civil rights protest intransigently. They didn't want to be that. And so they depicted themselves as these moderates. When the sit in movement came in 1960, they acquiesced and did not allow that to get out of hand. And they desegregated much earlier than a lot of other places, and they wanted to be seen as this place that was an international, cosmopolitan kind of place. Now, in reality, the racial politics of Atlanta were, if not as bad, then certainly similar to that of places like birmingham and new Orleans. And the vast underclass of the black population of Atlanta struggled constantly and were. Were stifled in a lot of ways by that sense of moderation. But part of that sense of kind of negotiating with the black elite, rather than constantly trampling them down, was that with the aid of white flight to suburbs, Atlanta is, in the 1960s, going to grow into a slightly majority black city, which means that it has politicians in that city who can actually have a good degree of influence. And so even though it is a city dominated by white politics, and even though the governor is notorious, racist, less dramatics, the city itself has a black elite that is able to have a real influence on politics. And if they wanted something and they were willing to mobilize for it, they could get it in Atlanta.
- [07:09]
Craig Gill
And so one of those politicians that you focus a lot on in this book is leroy johnson. What's his background in this political landscape?
- [07:19]
Thomas Aiello
Leroy johnson was the ultimate beneficiary of that political dynamic. In 1962, he became the first state senator, the first black state senator, not just in georgia, but in the south since reconstruction, but certainly in georgia since reconstruction. Luckily for him, Atlanta had several districts that were heavily majority black. And with a redistricting map created at that time, he was able to win. And so he had gone into the state legislature. That made him kind of a kingmaker in the city, representing an atlanta district. And so he was very much a kind of a mover and a shaker politically. He was not a radical civil rights guy by any means. He was a kind of a savvy negotiator. He was willing to work across the aisle. He did those kind of backroom deals. And so he ended up having a great amount of influence, both in the state senate, but also in atlanta politics, where he could sway votes one way or another, and was really able to have a lot of influence, even amongst white politicians in atlanta, because they knew he could marshal the black votes they needed to get what they wanted. And so he became kind of this. This ultimate arbiter of power among the city's black elite.
- [08:50]
Craig Gill
I think that's. That's really useful context that you lay in in this book from. For the kind of period prior to the 1960s and the early 1960s, finding out what Atlanta was like in terms of racial politics and kind of large p politics and how those kind of black elites fit into that. I thought that was really good groundwork. Turning to Ali then. In order for someone to have a comeback, to have a return, they first have to have a fall, I suppose. What shape did Ali's downfall take and what was at the root of that?
- [09:28]
Thomas Aiello
Well, Ali had of course, risen to prominence as an Olympic boxer. He won the gold medal in Rome in 1960. And then ultimately turns pro and becomes the heavyweight champion. But during that rise, he also becomes enamored with and ultimately joins the Nation of Islam. An organization I should say that he first was introduced to While fighting an amateur fight in Atlanta. It was the Atlanta mosque that he actually first entered. But he ends up becoming a member of the Nation of Islam, shocking the country. And many white people turn their back on him. It was assumed by many that the Nation of Islam was a hate group. And so he was already a controversial figure to be sure. But the leader of the Nation of Islam, also from Georgia, Elijah Muhammad, had, as a result of his NOI faith, refused draft entry into World War II. And it ultimately served a couple years in prison because of it. And when the Vietnam War started and the draft was revived, Elijah Muhammad made the argument that this was a war against brown people that was going to be fought mostly with black people. And that members of the Nation of Islam should not go. This is an immoral war. We don't do this. The only just war is some kind of war to bring about the full liberation of black and brown people. And so he instructed Muhammad Ali not to agree. When his draft number was called. Ali he was of two minds. I mean, certainly he did very much make an eloquent case for why he wasn't going to go to this war. And he becomes a hero of the anti war left to. To be sure, at the same time, he was very much pressured by the Nation of Islam to do this. And if left to his own devices, he might have just gone ahead and done it and kept his title. It was very clear that his induction into the military would be symbolic more than anything else. He wasn't ever really going to have to go fight. He would have just done boxing exhibitions or something like that. But he does. And immediately upon refusing his draft notice, he is stripped of his license to box in New York, which starts a dominoes falling. And all the other states do the same thing. He is stripped of his titles. And he is ostensibly banned from boxing for the next three Years, forcing him to figure out new ways to make a living. The Nation of Islam had taken a lot of his profits from his early fights. He didn't. He also had a lot of family. He did not have very much money. So he goes on speaking tours over those three years, going to colleges and talking about anti war issues. And he even sings in a Broadway musical. I mean, he does all kinds of things to try to make ends meet over the, over the years, Staying out of the sport, but also keeping himself enough in the public mind so that he remains relevant even though he is not in the ring. It was a difficult time. Ultimately, the Nation of Islam bans him. He is suspended from the faith because he tells an interviewer at one point that he wished he could get back into the ring because he needed the money. And the Nation of Islam suspends him. And so towards the end of that three year period, he's kind of a man without a country. I mean, he has lost his profession, he has lost his religion. And Muhammad Ali was, if nothing, not a true believer in his religion. He's kind of lost everything. And so what started off as this kind of moral stand had really devolved over three years. He wasn't handling it great, I guess maybe towards the end of all of that.
- [13:41]
Craig Gill
But throughout that three year period where he wasn't fighting. You write about his work that he does, the work that he does in entering the country and talking. You also write eloquently that Ali's radicalism was not simply important because it prodded other athletes to use their platforms for meaningful causes. Ali's radicalism was doing work of its own. I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about that work and maybe draw out that difference for our listeners.
- [14:12]
Thomas Aiello
Absolutely, absolutely. Muhammad Ali is considered the fountainhead of all black athletic radicalism. He is cited as the inspiration for the 1968 Olympic boycott caught for the protest of John, John Carlos and Tommy Smith. He is cited as the reason why black college athletes in the 1970s began to unionize and wear their hair different and all those kind of things. And that's all true. I mean, he does all of that. He becomes this kind of model for how you can use sports as a vehicle to, for activism. That's absolutely true. But at the same time, I think what often gets lost in that narrative is that Ali doesn't know any of that is going to happen. And he's not doing this because of any of that. He is kind of caught between these two worlds of the anti war left. The students for democratic society and other organizations like that and the Nation of Islam, both of whom are against the war, but neither of whom really get along all that well. And he is having kind to traverse that. And he ends up being the symbol for so many things that he doesn't even necessarily really believe in. His opposition to the war, at least initially, was lukewarm. He ends up warming up to it later on and becoming, I think, sincere. But it takes him a while to get there. He is a black separatist. He does not support, for example, integration and the other goals of the civil rights movement. And yet the civil rights movement is going to hold him up as this kind of symbol of. Even though he doesn't really support the things they support, he becomes a lot of things to a lot of people. But at its heart, Muhammad Ali is doing something, making this kind of moral stand for himself and loses more than anybody else who tries anything like this, including, let's say, for example, Lou Alcindor, who will boycott the 1968 Olympics but will still go pro, still be able to do everything he does. Nobody suffers more for his beliefs in sports history than Muhammad Ali. And it's that three year period that makes that happen.
- [16:40]
Craig Gill
So you said that he's kind of out in the wilderness a little bit at this stage, at least from the sport and from a lot of kind of the white power makers in sport as well. What happened both locally in Atlanta and nationally that laid the groundwork for his potential return?
- [16:56]
Thomas Aiello
Well, I guess there are two things in particular. One, it's that influential black political class and business class, that emphasis that Atlanta had on moderation and being willing to negotiate, where this group of elite black leaders, including and especially Leroy Johnson, are able to move their weight around politically, even though the vast majority of black Atlanta was relatively poor and certainly suffering under the thumb of white supremacy. The other, a little more quotidian but just as important, is that Georgia doesn't have a. An athletic commission. And there was nothing to ban him from in Georgia. Most of the southern states didn't because of segregation. Professional team sports had not come to the deep south at the major league level. And so the only real professionalization that we see in southern sports is like race cars and minor league baseball. And other than that, we don't really get pro sports. It's the reason why the south is so worshipful towards college football. It was the only thing we had. And so if you don't have those kind of big time events coming to the south, if you don't have Big time boxing. You don't have those kinds of tent pole events that come to your area. You don't need a boxing commission or an athletic commission or anything like that to hand out licenses for these kinds of things. Atlanta was home to Georgia Championship wrestling. And most professional wrestling, even though it has predetermined outcomes, was still governed by athletic commissions and was that did still require licenses. But because Georgia Championship Wrestling, which will end up for those people who are wrestling fans, that's what's going to end up becoming WCW, the big competitor to WWE in the 90s. But because it was only running Georgia, it wasn't going out of state. They didn't need commission licenses or anything like that, like the WWF did and other things like that. So even in those kinds of things, which we know aren't really real per se, but still required athletic commissions, Georgia didn't have it. As a matter of fact, there had been a really bad race car wreck that had killed like seven people in Georgia. And there was talk about getting an athletic commission. This is in the mid-1960s. But they knew that if they did that, all the race car drivers wouldn't come there anymore. That was the benefit of nascar, was that it was just good old boys racing cars. And they had to make sure they let them do it. And so they didn't get one. And so there was no state level hindrance to the possibility at least, of bringing something like this to Atlanta. Johnson knew it, and he knew that all he would have to do is convince Atlanta power brokers he wouldn't have to worry about Lester Maddox and the state government, because there was no state athletic commission.
- [20:06]
Craig Gill
So there had been attempts elsewhere in the country to try and get Ali back into the ring.
- [20:12]
Thomas Aiello
There had.
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Craig Gill
What happened to those attempts?
- [20:15]
Thomas Aiello
None of them worked. There were 82 different cities across the United States that they tried. That they tried to get a fight for Ali. So when, when the Nation of Islam suspends Muhammad Ali, it is devastating to him personally, professionally though, it does allow that secular management to come back into his camp. And they're way better than the Nation of Islam at kind of running his career. And so they immediately start looking for fights. And they try all the main places. They also try places you wouldn't expect. There was one of the places was a small town of about 800 people called Boley, Oklahoma. It was an all black city, a small town. But the only place they had to run a fight was the rodeo ring. And it did not meet code or anything. So they didn't do it. There they almost had a deal in Toronto. Toronto actually had agreed to everything but to do that. Because when Muhammad Ali refused his draft notice, he ultimately, while all this is going on, went to trial and was convicted of being a draft dodger. He was fined and he was sentenced to five years in prison. The only reason he didn't spend this time in prison is because he was. Was out on appeal. And because he was a felon, he wasn't allowed to leave the country. And they had all kinds of people go to Washington and say, listen, all we want to do is take him across the border into Toronto. We'll be there for four hours. We'll be right back. You can send federal marshals, you can do whatever. And the government wouldn't let him do it. They were vehemently against Muhammad Ali in every single way. They had a similar deal for Tijuana, Mexico, that they weren't able to do. Finally, a lot of these guys started to look at the one place, the last place you would expect, but the one place that didn't have athletic commissions, and that was the South. Originally, they thought they might have a deal in Tampa, Florida. But as soon as Tampa said, yeah, I think we might be able to do that. White supremacists mail started flooding the leadership of Tampa. And the protests among white people that they would have a black draft dodger like Muhammad Ali come to their city just overwhelmed city offices. And so they immediately canceled it. There really was nowhere else. As a last resort, there was Atlanta.
- [22:45]
Craig Gill
I was going to ask you what the folks in Atlanta then made of the. There was plenty of white supremacists in Atlanta still at this point. And there was politicians who I'm sure were very against it. Well, what did that look like in Atlanta?
- [23:03]
Thomas Aiello
Well, Leroy Johnson is the guy who had the idea. He knows they're looking for a fight. He's like, why not here? He looked in the books, found out they didn't have an athletic commission. He had marshaled the black voting block for the mayor of Atlanta, a guy named Sam Massel, who I should say was a white mayor, but he was a Jewish mayor in the deep South. And the only reason he won is because Johnson got him black votes, even though one of his competitors was black. Johnson essentially put Massill in office, and so he knew that Massile owed him a favor. Johnson was a guy who, along with being a politician, also very much, was a businessman. He had a law office where he made money. He had worked with James Brown to try to create a series of chicken restaurants. Throughout the country. That didn't really work. But he was James Brown's lawyer, and so he had a bunch of famous connections, and he had a lot of. He's like, we can do this. This will be great, and I'll make a lot of money doing it. And so he goes to Sam Massel and he says, listen, should be. We should do this. And Mas says, absolutely not. That would be suicide here. To have a black Muslim who doesn't support Vietnam fighting in Atlanta, that is suicide. And he's like, no, we can do this, and I need your support. Massa really has no choice but to say yes, because without Leroy Johnson, he's not the mayor. And so he gets that permission. He even initially gets permission from Lester Maddox. He works with Lester Maddox. I mean, he and Lester Maddox, even though Lester Maddox is a notorious racist. Leroy Johnson will work with anybody. And he had worked with Lester Maddox for the last couple of years. And he goes to Lester Maddox and says, listen, I want to do this. And initially Lester Maddox says, absolutely not. But Lester Maddox, one of his sons, was a, let's just say a ne' er do well. And he had gotten a sweetheart deal.
- [25:10]
Marshall Po
On.
- [25:12]
Thomas Aiello
Some traffic offenses, some drunk driving incidents, and he had gotten a sweetheart deal because he was the governor's kid and he got off. And Johnson brings that up to him and says, hey, listen, everybody needs a second chance, just like your kid. And Lester Maddox says, all right, I get it, okay, let's let do it. Whatever. You have my blessing. But of course, as soon as he says that, he regrets it. And for the rest of the time, all the way up to the fight, less dramatics becomes a real problem. But he's the governor. He has nothing. He's in Atlanta, but he has nothing to do with Atlanta municipal politics. He can't do anything about it. And so they're free of him except for his ranting and raving. From then, he works with Ali's camp and is able to convince Ali. Ali is very doubtful, but he convinces Ali that this is not like the 80 something other tries that he had made, that this is legitimate, that he actually has what it takes to make this fight happen. And it works. And so now all they needed to do was figure out who he was going to fight.
- [26:16]
Craig Gill
And for lots of people, they. They hope that person would be Joe Frazier.
- [26:21]
Thomas Aiello
For everybody they wanted to be Joe Frazier. That was the whole plan. We're going to have a title fight for the heavyweight title in Atlanta. That was what everybody wanted, but that didn't happen.
- [26:33]
Craig Gill
So what happened instead?
- [26:35]
Thomas Aiello
Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali have a really weird relationship. I mean, when Muhammad Ali first lost his title, Joe Frazier loaned him money. I mean, they were friends. But that relationship had broken apart by this point. And Frazier and his manager, Yank Durham, didn't want to be a part of this thing. In Atlanta. They said, listen, if we. If you show us that he can actually fight, if you put him in a ring and he wins a fight and he's actually back, then we'll talk to you. He had a. George. Joe Frazier had another fight scheduled with the light heavyweight champ, George Foster in Detroit for around the same time. And so he pleaded that he couldn't do it, but really, he was just waiting to see if this was not one of another stops and starts that didn't actually get put on. So they needed somebody else. And if you can't get the champion, if you can't get a title changing hands, then you need the next best thing. And the next best thing in boxing more broadly, but especially in the Deep south with all of these racial politics, is to go get a great white hope. And so that is what they turn to instead. A California fighter named Jerry Quarry. Jerry Corey was the most prominent white fighter that had been in the heavyweight division since the retirement of Rocky Marciano. He wasn't a jobber by any means. I mean, he was the number one ranked contender by Ring Magazine. He was the number three by the wba. He's not. He's not just somebody they picked out of a hat because he was a white guy. He was a legitimate title contender. He had fought for the title already and lost on. On bleeding, not because he actually got knocked out. He. He was a great fighter. And so they go out, get the number one contender who happens to be white and who had two years earlier criticized Ali for not going to the Vietnam War. It was perfect theater for the Deep South. And so they bring in Jerry Quarry. And so, yeah, we get a. We get a race fight in a race town in the middle of vitriolic race politics.
- [28:57]
Craig Gill
And this fight, kind of this great white hope fight harkens back to a lot of the fights that happened at the end of the 19th century and also fights that Jack Johnson was part of. Right?
- [29:13]
Thomas Aiello
I mean, that's where we. That's where we get the term right? I mean, people coming out of the woodwork to try to get the title back to a white boxer in the days when boxing was more than just a spectacle. I mean, it was a kind of lived reality of social darwinism. And the white fighter has to be the heavyweight champion, because that's how you prove that kind of worth. And it, you know, from that point, from Jack Johnson being willing to. To take on all comers and to destroy every white guy they put in front of him while they were screaming racial epithets at him. The idea of a great white hope had always kind of dominated the thinking of white boxing fans and really does come to fruition in Rocky Marciano, who is the last great white fighter, you know, Jack Dempsey and On Up. You're kind of trading titles back and forth among races, but Rocky Marciano was for real. But once he retired, the sport was dominated by Europeans and by black Americans. And so the idea of having a white American fighter be the heavyweight champion was kind of a pipe dream for a lot of white people in the country. And Jerry Quarry was as close as they got to that possibility for a long time.
- [30:42]
Craig Gill
And to what extent did Ali kind of buy into these comparisons that were made between him and Jack Johnson?
- [30:49]
Thomas Aiello
He absolutely loved it. Jack Johnson was his hero. I mean, he's everybody's hero. I mean, Jack Johnson did something that nobody else had done, and he did it in a time when it was thought to be impossible. And he was crucified for it and ended up having to leave the country. And, I mean, he is a hero to everybody. At the same time that they're promoting this fight, the Jack Johnson bio movie comes out with James Earl Jones. And Muhammad Ali goes to the set and watches and hangs out. He goes to the premiere. I mean, he loves Jack Johnson. The day of this, his return fight, he is staying in a house in Atlanta that's owned by Johnson. And he's sitting there and they are just watching on a reel to reel. They put up a sheet on the wall, and they're just watching old Jack Johnson fights just to get ready to go to this one. He loves Jack Johnson, as do most fighters, and especially black fighters, but all fighters, because he was so innovative, so unique and suffered so much for his art.
- [32:05]
Craig Gill
So then the fight finally comes around. How big of an occasion was it? Both kind of in Atlanta and nationally?
- [32:13]
Thomas Aiello
It was gigantic. They actually, before they fight, they have some preliminary fights. The month prior exhibitions at Morehouse College in Atlanta. The auc, the Atlanta University center, is this kind of cluster of black universities in the middle of Atlanta. And they hold an exhibition bout there first where he's sparring against three different guys. And the reason was because they had had so many death threats for Muhammad Ali. And they really thought it was possible that the Klan was going to try to assassinate him on his ring walk or something like that. And so they wanted to have a practice run where. At an all black college where they would. Where somebody like that would stick out like a sore thumbnail so they could practice the kind of. The minutiae of doing that. It works. Everything goes fine. And it turns out they could have done that at the regular event because it becomes a celebration of black power in the deep south in a way that had never really happened before. Atlanta municipal auditorium sat about 5,000 people. And it is fair to say that well over 4,500 of them were black.
- [33:24]
Craig Gill
It was.
- [33:25]
Thomas Aiello
I mean, downtown Atlanta cleared out. White people left black Atlanta. Black citizens of Atlanta owned the city for that night. And it became a gigantic occasion. All the major celebrities that you can imagine were there. I mean, Curtis Mayfield sang the national anthem, the supreme sang. Actually, the color commentator for the fight on the closed circuit broadcast was Bill Cosby. Not just because he was famous. I mean, Bill Cosby was a comedian, but he actually had his own boxing promotion in Los Angeles. So he was a legitimate fan. He knew how to do color for a fight. Sidney Poitier was there. Everybody who mattered was there. It became one of the biggest deals in Atlanta. Nationally, it was the same. It sold more than 200,000 seats at closed circuit venues. We don't have a 1970 pay per view. They're doing closed circuit, which is the early version of pay per view, where essentially theaters or arenas contract out to show the fight live while it's happening. And then you, the customer would pay for a ticket, and you would just go pay for a ticket to watch it at a venue on tv. And that's kind of how closed circuit works. So more than 200,000 people around the country are buying seats to theaters to this around the world. There are hundreds of thousands more. It becomes the first live sporting event from the United States broadcast in Soviet Russia. I mean, the entire world is paying attention at that point. It was the highest grossing fight ever. And it's between a guy who hadn't fought in three years and somebody that was. That nobody had heard of, who wasn't in boxing previously. I mean, it becomes this gigantic deal. On top of that, New York wanted to show the fight in Madison square Garden because they could sell out Madison square Garden for a Muhammad Ali fight just to watch on closed circuit. But you can't show a boxer's closed circuit fights unless he's licensed in New York. And so by bringing him to Atlanta to fight New York was forced to relicense him just so they could sell out Madison Square Garden to watch his fight on closed circuit. And of course, as soon as the New York Athletic Commission relicenses him, that automatically opens up the possibility that he can fight Frazier there in Madison Square Garden. That fight cannot happen without Atlanta forcing New York's hand and Nevada's hand for Las Vegas to force them to relicense Muhammad Ali so that they could show the closed circuit and make profit off of the broadcast. And so it becomes an international phenomenon. While there were a lot of white people in the United States who were still very mad at Muhammad Ali and believed he was unpatriotic for not going to the Vietnam War, the rest of the world saw him as a hero because everybody else in the world understood that Vietnam War was an immoral, horrible thing. And they saw him as the ultimate hero. And so he was beloved everywhere, anyway, so much so that they're showing that they stuff live in Russia. And it was an incredibly big night for the city, for the country, and for the sport, I think, more broadly.
- [37:11]
Craig Gill
So with. With all the eyes in the world on Atlanta. How did the fight go?
- [37:16]
Thomas Aiello
Well, I guess that depends on who you talk to. It was this gala occasion with all this entertainment. The fight itself was relatively boring. The fight itself only lasts for nine minutes. Muhammad Ali, I think, clearly wins the first and third rounds. He gets hit once really well in the second round, but other than that, I mean, he's doing pretty well. He hits a. He hits Quarry in. In over the right eye, and it opens up a really bad cut, and the referee stops the fight after the third round. So Quarry isn't allowed, even though he wants to continue, isn't allowed to answer the bell for the fourth round, even though he's not really hurt and not a lot had happened. So the fight itself was. Yeah, you know, so. So it was. I mean, it was. It was good to get him back in the ring, but the fight itself was kind of anticlimactic. But I. I think the. The real. The real story there was that it happened at all. And even though the actual fight didn't turn out to be one of the greatest fights of all time or anything like that, it was one of the most important fights of all time. To be sure, boxing for the last three years had really lost a lot of revenue because Muhammad Ali was the show, even if you hated him. You watched the fights, and when he's not there, Joe Frazier was great, but Joe Frazier was also boring. And so the Sport needed Muhammad Ali. And so. So it wasn't one of the best fights ever, but it certainly was one of the most important fights, at least in this country.
- [38:54]
Craig Gill
Country. And what was the immediate aftermath like? What was the fallout like in the. In the days that followed?
- [39:00]
Thomas Aiello
The fallout was different for everyone involved. For Ali, he's successful. He's proven that he could come back. Now he's immediately. So for the whole time he was training in Atlanta, he didn't want to stoke the ire of white people. So he was relatively calm. He didn't do all of his normal bragging or anything else. He was very kind of cool. As soon as he wins that fight, he's back to being Muhammad Ali. And Joe Frazier is this and Joe Frazier is that, and he's coming for him, and he becomes Muhammad Ali again immediately. And it was great. He. He goes back to being himself just like that. For Atlanta, I mean, it. There is kind of, I think, a real different trajectory for the city based on that night. I guess maybe the most immediate kind of fall out for Atlanta is that some of the listeners might be familiar with this, that after the fight was over, there was a very infamous robbery. A lot of black organized crime from Harlem comes to Atlanta, sets up this casino, and in a. In a. In a house owned by a local, which is robbed, and it becomes this massive story, very infamous robbery. They make everybody take their clothes off, and they get in the basement. Portier and Cosby, who are both at the fight, they are reading all about this. This robbery becomes the big story after the fight, and they end up making a movie called Uptown Saturday Night, which is based on that event. I think Peacock just made a TV show about that robbery. I don't know the name of it, but I know it's a fictional account of. Becomes a big deal. The robbery itself becomes legendary. After the fight is over, Muhammad Ali's D there gets robbed. So that becomes a big issue after the fight. But for Atlanta more broadly, I mean, it really does put it on a different trajectory racially and for boxing, it puts it back into profitability. And, I mean, a few months later, Muhammad Ali will fight Joe Frazier in Madison Square Garden in March of 71. And when he does, they're getting $5 million each, a record by far, for one night of work for a boxer. And so, I mean, it really does change the sport overnight. And in the process, I think, changes a lot of people's opinions about the justice of Muhammad Ali's cause and certainly changes the trajectory for people like Leroy Johnson, who makes a couple hundred thousand bucks off of promoting this fight and Atlanta itself.
- [41:57]
Craig Gill
So you mentioned the different racial trajectory that Atlanta takes in the years that follow. Can you unpack that a little bit for us?
- [42:05]
Thomas Aiello
Absolutely. So black Atlanta flexed its muscles that night in a way that it had never before. I mean, it becomes, in many ways, it becomes the black Mecca that night. Atlanta is, for a lot of people, the black Mecca of the United States today. And if you're looking for a genesis point for that, one of those points is that night, Sam Massile does not run for re election the next election cycle. Now that the black population in Atlanta is the majority, now that they have proven that they can pull off the impossible, they go out and elect somebody who was sitting in the front row of that fight, a guy named Maynard Jackson, the city's first black mayor. Atlanta has never had a white mayor since. And that is not all because of the Muhammad Ali fight, but certainly it's a kind of a demonstration that when black power flexed its muscle and demonstrated that they had the ability to kind of own the town and bring in this hated guy to do this fight, it's going to lead to a lot more white flight, a lot more. A much greater black majority, and therefore much more control over the city. At the same time, Atlanta is white. Atlanta is going to give in to a lot of that as well, because they see the value of this. I mean, Atlanta had wanted to be a major league international city for so long already by this point, they had gotten the Atlanta Braves, they'd gotten the Atlanta Falcons, they were getting. They got the Atlanta Hawks, they were about to get to the Atlanta Flames for the NHL. And so they wanted to be a pro sports city. They wanted to be seen as that kind of place. And so they got it. They got it at the expense of controlling the city, but they got it. And Atlanta became, with the possible exception of Washington, D.C. the most influential majority black city in America. And much of it can be traced to that night in October of 1970.
- [44:12]
Craig Gill
And what became of Leroy Johnson in the end?
- [44:15]
Thomas Aiello
Well, his. His story is not as happy. Leroy Johnson will attempt to run for mayor of Atlanta and will end up dropping out before the actual election. Eventually, a lot of people who were not happy with the Muhammad Ali fight and how Leroy Johnson kind of threw his power around end up kind of working against him. And ultimately, a year and a half later, he is indicted on an income tax charge. It's dropped eventually, but his political career is over at that point. His. His downfall comes political Downfall comes relatively quickly. His business downfall never does. I mean, he still goes into private practice. He still lives a very kind of prominent, wealthy life in Atlanta, but his political career doesn't last much longer after that. Retribution for bringing the draft dodger to the city.
- [45:25]
Craig Gill
Well, Tom, I really appreciated you telling us all about this book. I think it fills a really important gap in the alley literature. And now that this is out in the world, I'm wondering what you're working on now.
- [45:40]
Thomas Aiello
Well, I'm worrying about working on a couple of things. One is a story about a. A civil rights protest in the small town of Sylvester, Georgia, wherein a 14 year old girl was sent to prison for seven years for telling a white student to kiss her ass. Which is insane. The, the, the other sports thing that I'm starting now, the other race and sports thing that's coming next is going to be a book on black cricket. In the 1920s and 30s, with so much Caribbean migration during the Harlem Renaissance, cricket becomes even more popular than baseball among black Northeasterners. And so I'm gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna move to cricket next. Cricket is test. Cricket is my favorite sport. I stay up at all hours of the night watching it around the world. So it's about time that I teach my fellow Americans about how great cricket is. And so that's going to be next.
- [46:45]
Craig Gill
Awesome. I'm very excited to see that when it comes to fruition. Well, thanks so much for your time, Tom. I really appreciate it.
- [46:53]
Thomas Aiello
Of course. Thank you for having me.
- [46:55]
Craig Gill
Okay, bye. Bye. Now.
- [47:09]
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- [47:37]
Craig Gill
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