Sep 28, 2013
The power structure had successfully created the image of the American Negro as someone with no confidence, no militancy. And they had done this by giving him images of heroes that weren’t truly militant or confident. And now here comes Cassius, the exact contrast of everything that was representative of the Negro image. He said he was the greatest, all of the odds were against him, he upset the odds makers, he won. He came victorious, he became the champ. They knew that if people began to identify with Cassius, and the type of image he was creating, they were going have trouble out of these Negroes because they’d have Negroes walking around the streets saying “I’m the greatest.”
Malcolm X on Muhammad Ali, (1965?)
