IN THE WEEKS after Clay defeated Doug Jones, the Louisville Sponsoring Group became steadily more concerned about reports of his political activities. It was bad enough that he had told Pete Hamill that he had no use for the NAACP and no desire to meet civil rights icon James Meredith. But even more alarming, he used language reminiscent of the Nation of Islam to justify his opinions. It was, he argued, just “human nature to be with your own kind.” These views contrasted sharply with the benign message of the LSG. While Bill Faversham, the leader of the group, claimed that Cassius’s “idea of a big time is four scoops of ice cream and a double orange juice,” Clay was beginning to take controversial social and political stands. The group’s leaders believed that he was advancing into dangerous territory at the same moment that he was reaching his biggest paydays.3
Although Faversham knew little about the Nation of Islam, the few things he did know rang like a fire bell in the night. Most white Americans regarded the Nation as a hate group, a weird cult that believed in spaceships and “blue-eyed devils.” Clay’s association with the organization seemed as dangerous as playing with matches in a munitions factory. It threatened to blow up the LSG’s investment and Cassius’s title plans.4
Faversham and LSG lawyer Gordon Davidson refused to intervene in Clay’s personal or religious beliefs. They managed his career and business affairs, not his life, but they agreed that a change of scenery was a good idea. A match outside the United States would remove Cassius from the gaze of suspicious reporters and the influence of his Black Muslim associates. Although there had been negotiations for matches against Floyd Patterson and George Chuvalo in the United States, on April 10 Clay unexpectedly accepted a deal to fight British heavyweight Henry Cooper in London on June 18. For months he had claimed there were only two greats in the world: Britain and himself. Now the two could take stock of each other.5
Clay invaded England on May 27. From the moment his TWA flight touched down and he made his way through customs, he confirmed all the worst British notions of brash, overconfident Americans. Soon after his arrival, he verbally attacked his popular opponent. “Cooper’s a tramp, a bum and a cripple not worth training for. If he talks jive I’ll take him in five,” he announced.6
His bombast helped him achieve his goal: building interest in the match. Whatever else they thought of him, British sportswriters agreed that “Gaseous Cassius” was a breath of spring for a sport suffering through a long winter. Peter Wilson, the famed Daily Mirror columnist, noted, “There has never been anything quite like it. He came, he saw . . . and he talked.” Contributing a stanza of his own, he wrote:
Boxing poet Cassius Clay
Hit the City yesterday,
Posing, shouting, full of action
Selling Clay, the big attraction.7
Moving from one publicity stunt to the next, Clay received front-page treatment. Not even the sensational sex-spy scandal involving Secretary of State for War John Dennis Profumo and “showgirl” Christine Keeler was able to best Cassius’s show. With his combination of charm and genuine wit, he dazzled British reporters. But every so often he stopped clowning and jiving and became serious. At those moments, the teachings of Malcolm X—indeed, his very words—rolled effortlessly off Clay’s tongue.8
The depth of his political opinions and awareness surprised some reporters. “I know wise people,” he said quietly to a group of reporters. “I learn from them.” He took what his mentors taught seriously. All the public saw was an act. The role he played was not who he really was. “A wise man can act a fool. But a fool can’t act like a wise man,” he mused.9
But what manner of a wise man was Clay? Certainly he was different from other American athletes and entertainers. He eschewed marches and integration, and argued for the complete inequality of the sexes. “The word man means master,” he said. “The animals, the trees, the chickens, everything was put here for man. Woman is for man. I see women leading men to the dance floor. That’s wrong. The man should lead the woman. The man is master.” And, he claimed, he knew who God was and when the world would end. “You’re a tough man to cope with if you know that.”10
The serious Clay mystified reporters more than Cassius the clown. Who was he? Who were the wise people with whom he spoke? What were the sources of his beliefs, if in fact he believed what he said? The journalists had interviewed Floyd Patterson, Sammy Davis Jr., Sidney Poitier, and other black celebrities, but they had not heard any of them speak like Cassius Clay.