Muhammad Ali with his mother, Odessa Grady Clay, in Kinshasa, Zaire ahead of his championship fight in 1974.
Footage of Muhammad Ali from the 2009 documentary “Soul Power” captures intimate moments when the legendary boxer expressed his pride in Africa while visiting Zaire in 1974.
Ali was in Kinshasa, the capital of what is now the Democratic
Republic of Congo, weeks ahead of a heavyweight world championship fight
with George Foreman — an encounter famously nicknamed the “Rumble in
the Jungle.”
Foreman was injured and the fight delayed six weeks, but “Zaire ‘74,”
a three-day music festival intended to accompany it, went on as planned
— and Ali attended. The festival brought African-American stars like
James Brown, Bill Withers and the Spinners on the same stage with
African sensations like Miriam Makeba.
In 2009, filmmaker Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte turned hours of previously
unseen video of the concert and the days leading up to it into “Soul
Power.”
Ali, with his trademark charisma and lyricism, had some of the most
memorable moments in the film. He shares his appreciation of Africa
while connecting his presence there to the broader struggle of black
people the world over to achieve justice and freedom.
“This is our homeland, this is our civilization,” Ali declares in a passionate speech. “Africa’s the cradle of civilization. Original man’s from Africa. All civilizations started in Africa.”
“This fight is for the freedom, justice and equality of the black man
in America so that I may take my take my title and my fame and go out
there and uplift little black people in the ghettos,” he concludes.
“Black people is catching hell. Black people who entertainers won’t
speak for.”
At another point, Ali seems to appreciate the relatively quiet pace
of life in Kinshasa. He mocks Americans who are supposedly afraid to
attend the fight or the concert because they worry that Africa is too
dangerous.
“No kidding, New York is more of a jungle than here,” he quips.
He then recites a litany of criminal incidents and scenes of urban
chaos. The description is comically over-the-top, but has a realistic
ring.
“Always something in America,” he finishes. “They’re so peaceful over here. And really, the savages in America.”
I’ve never felt so free in my life.
Ali embraced the music
festival as a celebration of shared heritage between black Americans
forcibly removed from Africa generations prior and native Africans who
remained on the continent. It was, as the promoter Don King put it, “a
family gathering, a welcoming back home.”
We see Ali on the first day of the festival sitting at a table eating
alongside King, Bill Withers and another friend. The camera zooms in on Ali adding spoonful after spoonful of sugar to his coffee.
“I’ve never felt so free in my life,” Ali says. “Free from America where I’m not really free.” A young girl from the area goes up to
introduce herself while Ali is sitting at the table. Ali just hugs the
girl close and kisses her repeatedly as she smiles broadly. The girl does not say anything, presumably since she cannot speak English.
(The DRC was a Belgian colony until 1960; French remains one of the official languages.) “She was ruled by the French and I
was ruled by the English, so we both done lost our language,” he said.
“But one day we are going to talk to each other in our own language.”
I AM A BLACK AMERIKKKAN WHO 32 YEARS AGO WENT BACK TO AFRICA/YORUBALAND/NIGERIA TO RAISE 4 OF MY 5 CHILDREN AS CULTURALLY BASED YORUBA CHILDREN WITH THE LANGUAGE AS THEIR MOTHER TONGUE.
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