Listening to Brown, Malcolm could tell that he was sincere in his beliefs. Malcolm clearly shared his view that famous black athletes had a responsibility to join the freedom movement. For Cassius, then, the heavyweight title was a prelude to more important accomplishments, ones that transcended sports and crossed over to politics. “Well, Brown,” Malcolm asked the football player, “don’t you think it’s time for this young man to stop spouting off and get serious?”9
Brown agreed. The title was not an end in itself; it was a platform from which to advance far more urgent matters. The plan called for Cassius to use the title for his purposes, not to be used and consumed by it.
Cassius also understood that his victory over Liston marked the beginning of a new stage in his life. There was nothing left to conquer in the world of boxing. His athletic achievements now matched his worldwide fame. His actions had vindicated his boasts, certifying his incessant claims that he was the greatest. Listening to Malcolm’s plans, Cassius didn’t brag or rhyme. He paid attention and, as far as Malcolm could tell, agreed.
Malcolm said that they talked for several hours, which is doubtful given the time line of the evening. But they did converse long enough to hit the points that were important to both of them. Finally, exhausted from a day that had included a wild weigh-in, action-filled title fight, post-fight ring antics, and several press conferences, Cassius said he needed a nap. Stretching out on Malcolm’s bed, he went to sleep.10
But he didn’t sleep long. While Malcolm was somewhere else, Cassius awoke and had a meaningful tête-à-tête with Jim Brown. They talked about race in America, the politics of the Nation of Islam, and the feud between Malcolm and Elijah. As he listened, it was clear to Brown that there was a serious disconnect between Malcolm’s plans and Cassius’s. He recalled that Clay had already made up his mind: he could no longer follow Malcolm. The Messenger would not allow it. “Elijah was a little man,” Clay told Brown, “but extremely powerful, and had always supported him.” Cassius “loved Malcolm, but from that day on, he would never again be his friend.”11
Had Clay made that choice by the early morning hours of February 26? When he ate vanilla ice cream and Malcolm whispered in his ear, had he made the hard political decision that would inevitably alter both men’s lives? Was it possible for Jim Brown and Malcolm X to have such different interpretations of Clay’s intentions that morning? Given Cassius’s avoidance of personal disagreement and his reluctance to say anything in a one-on-one personal exchange that would disappoint a friend, he might have allowed Malcolm to hear and believe what the minister desperately wanted to hear and believe. Or he may have told both Brown and Malcolm versions of the truth and kept the full truth to himself.
Huston Horn of Sports Illustrated reported on some of the post-fight events, though he knew nothing about Clay’s conversations with Malcolm and Brown. But the thought that Malcolm was even there led to a sagacious conclusion. From Cassius’s activities at the Hampton House two things were certain, Horn wrote: “His tastes are just as simple, and his thoughts on life just as murky as they have been for years.”12
SOMETIME SHORTLY AFTER two a.m., while Cassius was nodding half-asleep in bed, someone informed him that a score of neighbors were waiting in his yard for him to return to his bungalow. “They are the people I mean something to,” he said before dressing and departing the Hampton House. Once back at his house, he spent fifteen minutes or so shaking hands and signing autographs before announcing that he was calling it a night. He had another press conference in the morning and wanted to get at least a few hours of sleep.13
If Cassius had gotten to sleep, a doubtful proposition, he hadn’t been in that state for long when a loud knock at the door disturbed everyone in the champ’s bungalow. Three Los Angeles reporters—Brad Pye and Doc Young of the Los Angeles Sentinel and Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times—just happened to be driving up in “Colored Town” and by chance saw a single bulb glowing through a frosted glass window. All three knew Clay, and they seemed blissfully unconcerned about the propriety of the visit.14
Stretched out on a couch, wearing only white undershorts and gray socks, Cassius politely ignored the time and the intrusion and said, “Come in.”
This was no scene out of a Hollywood boxing movie, thought Murray. In The Champion, the Kirk Douglas character wins the title and immediately moves uptown—the best booze, broads, and clothes that money could buy. In Cassius’s low-rent dwelling, however, there were “no crowds in mink and cigar smoke, no clink of glasses, no loud music and louder sycophantry.” There was just the exhausted boxer and a small circle of half-asleep friends.