In 1964, Sonny Liston seemed the indestructible superman of boxing. In his three previous fights he had knocked out his opponents in the first round. He expected his match with Cassius Clay would follow the same course. He was surprised, however, to find that Cassius had the power and the skill to hurt him. Associated Press
Though it was just a short drive from Liston’s quarters to Cassius Clay’s tiny white house on 5th Street in a low-rent district of North Miami, the two neighborhoods were worlds apart. Clay’s place had cheap louvered windows and a porch so small that only one chair could fit on it. The inside of his house matched the porch. It was tiny and crowded—a mob of men, some with the thinnest ties to his camp, slept dormitory-style three or four to a room; children slammed doors as they ran laughing and screaming in and out of the house; and the smells of cooking greens and beans soaked every room. Outside, in a dusty patch of lawn along 5th Street, men sat in cheap folding chairs under a large ficus tree talking and watching “foxes” stroll up and down the street.2
Often in the evenings, as soon as the moon rose over the city, an aide strung an extension cord out of a window and set up a movie projector and a white-sheet screen. Kids gathered on the lawn, pulling their knees close to their chests to make room for a capacity audience. While moths gathered in the light of the flickering film, Clay narrated a voice-over commentary of the action on the screen. He had watched all the movies repeatedly and enjoyed preparing everyone for the plot twists.
One movie silenced even Cassius. He showed it three or four times, and on each occasion he watched in hushed, wide-eyed respect. Only the slow crawl of traffic intruded on the film, the 1956 science-fiction horror classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The story of pods from somewhere in outer space that replicate and replace humans, transforming them into mindless, soulless automatons, transfixed the fighter.
A few white sportswriters and journalists visited Clay in his 5th Street quarters. They wrote about the chaos, the cast of characters that included jesters, trainers, hangers-on, and somber, angry-eyed, intimidating men in dark suits, white shirts, and bow ties who watched the action around them and hardly had a good word to say to any white man. Other members of Clay’s camp referred to them as “the brotherhood.” But they looked to the white reporters like a sect of pod people. They dressed alike, acted alike, talked alike, and seemed to think alike.
Malcolm X, the physical prototype for the brotherhood, returned to Miami on February 24, the day before the fight. Once again, Cassius, along with Archie Robinson, picked him up at the airport. No sooner was Malcolm in the car than Clay inquired about his standing in the Nation. “Any word from Chicago?” he asked.3
Of course, there had been. Elijah’s personal secretary had told Malcolm that his suspension was still in effect, and that the Supreme Minister remained deeply disturbed by his disciple’s independent ways. But instead of telling the full truth, Malcolm answered deceptively, “Nothing positive,” and let it go at that. He said it cheerfully, in a sort of no-news-is-good-news tone of voice, yet he knew that “nothing positive” translated to “everything negative.”4
Outwardly, Malcolm looked as cool as ever, smiling as if he knew a secret nobody else did, as if fear were an alien concept. But that night when Cassius left him at the Hampton House, he did not visit the hotel’s jazz club. He sat in his room, plotting his future. At the heart of his plan was Cassius Clay.