“Say, I don’t have a record,” Clay replied, referring to Sonny Liston’s criminal past.
A day later, Cassius was already backing away from his answers. To other reporters, he did not deny that the interview had taken place, but he asserted that he hadn’t been wearing a Black Muslim pin and wasn’t a member of any organization. He was still searching for a movement under the leadership of a holy man that offered an “eternal solution and not just a temporary one,” a statement that was pulled straight out of the teaching of Elijah Muhammad. Besides, he believed that athletes and entertainers did not have the time or experience to lead civil rights groups. Someday he might join an organization, but until then he would “wait to see which is best.”32
MALCOLM X AGREED, at least publicly, that black athletes and entertainers should not define or lead the civil rights movement. On July 22, 1963, the day of the Liston-Patterson rematch in Las Vegas, Malcolm’s fight was in Brooklyn, where more than a thousand protesters were demonstrating against racial discrimination at a hospital construction site. From across the street, where he shook hands and supported the participants, he watched as policeman arrested peaceful protesters and sent them off to the station in paddy wagons. What did a million-dollar contest in Las Vegas have to do with this fight against discrimination?33
Robert Lipsyte, a young New York Times reporter, asked the question for a sidebar to the Liston-Patterson match. “They’ll always give us the opportunity to act like animals,” responded a black lawyer on the picket line. “We’re beyond the point where we can get excited over a Negro hitting a home run or winning a championship,” offered another protester. When Lipsyte approached Malcolm, he received more than a comment. The minister dismissed the reporter’s inquiry with a brusque reply: “That’s a stupid question.” With that, three shaven-headed members of the Fruit of Islam stepped between Lipsyte and Malcolm. They “formed a wall with their chests and walked me into the gutter,” the reporter recalled.34
“The only stupid question is the unanswered question,” Lipsyte shouted. Smiling, Malcolm nodded to his bodyguards to let the reporter through. “I’m pleased to see that the two best men in the sport are black,” he said. “But they’ll be exploited, of course, and the promoters will get all the bread. They let a Negro excel if it’s going to make some money for them.”
Ending the conversation, Malcolm said he hoped that Liston would “really shake Patterson up.” Floyd had attacked the Nation. Malcolm, the single-minded revolutionary, obviously knew something about boxing.
IN LAS VEGAS, Cassius worked the spectators and sportswriters who were in town for the big fight like he was performing in the showroom. Dressed in a black-and-white houndstooth sports jacket, he strutted around the streets and casinos belittling the other fighters. According to Cassius, Liston would dispose of Patterson and then have to face him. That would spell the end of Sonny’s reign of terror. And the world would be blessed with a new titleholder, a pretty champion in stark contrast with the “big ugly bear.” As he told several journalists, “That poor ol’ man, he’s so ugly, his wife drives him to the gym every morning ’fore the sun comes up, so nobody’ll have to look at him around home.”35
Generally Liston endured the verbal assaults, realizing that it was Clay’s shtick, part of the promotion scheme to get people interested in a match between them. But Sonny was a violent, unpredictable man who, given his mood of the moment, was apt to take offense. That was precisely what happened a few days before the Liston-Patterson match. Sonny was shooting craps and losing money at the Thunderbird Hotel. “Liston was a mean-tempered son-of-a-bitch,” recalled publicist Harold Conrad, “and he was losing, so naturally he’s mad. Liston picks up the dice and throws craps and there’s a big silence.”36
Then a sharp voice cracked the hushed stillness. “Look at that big ugly bear; he can’t even shoot craps,” called out Clay, leaning against a wall close to the game. Liston glared, rolled again, and once more threw craps. Again the insouciant voice: “Look at the big ugly bear. He can’t do nothing right.” It was the voice of a man about to walk the plank.
Liston had reached the limit of his limited patience. Walking over to Cassius, he fixed him with a dead-eyed stare and said, “Listen, you nigger faggot. If you don’t get out of here in ten seconds, I’m gonna pull that big tongue out of your mouth and stick it up your ass.” A New York Times reporter who watched the confrontation said that Liston also slapped Clay hard across his face, but Conrad swore that there was no slap. Just the hard eyes and violent threat and promise that worse was to come.37