Return of the King

In 1892, a Black boxer named George "Little Chocolate" Dixon defeated a white opponent before a large crowd at a New Orleans boxing event. White backlash ensured that no interracial boxing contest occurred in the Deep South for the next 78 years. Author Thomas Aiello traces the convergence of forces that produced the next such event: Muhammad Ali's October 1970 comeback fight against white heavyweight contender Jerry Quarry in Atlanta, a bout made possible by the political maneuvering of Georgia State Senator Leroy Johnson and the racial dynamics of a city that branded itself "too busy to hate."

Aiello builds his narrative on three parallel histories. The first is Atlanta's Black middle and upper class, which grew through finance, insurance, and real estate in the early 20th century. By midcentury, Auburn Avenue was hailed as the wealthiest Black street in the country, yet most Black Atlantans remained in low-wage jobs and deteriorating housing. White business leaders cultivated an image of racial moderation to attract northern investment, negotiating with Black elites while leaving working-class Black residents largely unserved.

The second thread follows Leroy Johnson, born in 1928 on Atlanta's west side. After attending Morehouse College and law school at North Carolina College at Durham, Johnson became the first Black assistant prosecutor in the Southeast. In 1962, after the Supreme Court struck down Georgia's county unit system, Johnson won election to the state senate as the first Black Georgia state senator since 1870. He built influence through dealmaking and favor-trading, marshaling Black voting blocs to support candidates who would reciprocate. His pragmatic style earned legislative victories but drew criticism from younger activists who saw him as an accommodationist.

The third thread follows Muhammad Ali. Born Cassius Clay, Jr., in Louisville in 1942, he began boxing at 12, won the 1960 Olympic gold medal, and turned professional. He first encountered the Nation of Islam (NOI), a Black separatist religious organization, in 1958. After deepening his involvement, Clay defeated Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship in February 1964, announced his membership in the NOI, and was renamed Muhammad Ali by the group's leader, Elijah Muhammad.

When the military lowered its aptitude standards during the Vietnam War, Ali's draft status changed from ineligible to eligible. He applied for conscientious objector status, citing his religious beliefs. A hearing officer found his objection sincere, but the Justice Department overruled the finding. Ali refused induction on April 28, 1967. He was stripped of his title, banned from boxing in every state, and convicted of draft evasion, with a sentence of five years and a $10,000 fine. He remained free on bail while pursuing appeals but was barred from leaving the country.

During his exile, Ali sustained himself on speaking fees, television appearances, and a role in the Broadway musical Buck White. His stand inspired Black athletic activism, including the raised-fist protest at the 1968 Olympics. In April 1969, Elijah Muhammad suspended Ali from the NOI after Ali publicly admitted he needed money and would return to boxing. The suspension allowed secular management to take over, and publicist Harold Conrad approached dozens of states seeking a venue for Ali's return. Every attempt failed as governors, commissioners, and veterans' groups blocked any fight.

The breakthrough came in August 1970, when promoter Robert Kassel contacted Johnson about staging an Ali fight in Atlanta. Johnson discovered that Georgia had no state athletic commission, meaning only the mayor and board of aldermen needed to approve a bout. He created House of Sports, Inc. with Jesse Hill, an insurance executive and civil rights activist. Johnson persuaded Mayor Sam Massell, whom he had helped elect, to support the fight. He then met with Governor Lester Maddox, a notorious segregationist, using the lenient sentence recently given to Maddox's son for burglary to argue Ali deserved a second chance. Maddox initially agreed but reversed under pressure from white constituents, though he lacked legal authority to stop the bout. Johnson also removed a Reconstruction-era ordinance barring interracial boxing.

Johnson had hoped to match Ali against Joe Frazier, the reigning heavyweight champion, but Frazier's camp declined, and the opponent became Quarry. On September 2, Ali fought an exhibition at Morehouse College, demonstrating he had not lost his skills. A federal judge then overturned New York's denial of Ali's license on Fourteenth Amendment grounds, creating competition and prompting Johnson to announce that Ali would fight Frazier in Atlanta next.

Ali arrived on October 14 and stayed at Johnson's lakeside vacation home, where gunshots rang out on multiple nights and threatening calls targeted Ali, his wife, and the police. Maddox declared fight day a day of mourning and ordered flags flown at half-staff. On Johnson's advice, Ali avoided provocative statements.

On October 26, Ali entered Municipal Auditorium to a roaring ovation from roughly 5,000 fans, about 90 percent of whom were Black. Observers called it the largest gathering of Black wealth and power since Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral. Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson led Ali's entourage in prayer before the bout. Ali dominated from the opening bell. In the third round, an overhand right opened a deep cut above Quarry's eye, and Quarry's cornerman stopped the fight before the fourth round. Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s widow, presented Ali with an award in her husband's memory. More than 100 million viewers watched worldwide, the largest boxing audience in history to that point and the first American sporting event broadcast live in the Soviet Union.

That night, masked gunmen robbed roughly 200 guests at a post-fight house party, forcing them to strip and seizing more than a million dollars in cash and jewelry. In the ensuing weeks, at least seven of the robbers were killed in underworld retribution. The robbery later inspired the 1974 film Uptown Saturday Night.

The aftermath brought divergent fortunes. Ali fought at Madison Square Garden in December, then signed to face Frazier in March 1971, ending Atlanta's chance at the championship bout. Johnson's home was shot at, and Maddox stripped him of his only committee chairmanship, actions Johnson attributed to retaliation for the fight. Ali lost to Frazier in March 1971 but won a unanimous Supreme Court ruling that June, overturning his conviction on technical grounds. He regained the title by knocking out George Foreman in Zaire in October 1974.

Johnson ran for mayor of Atlanta in 1973 but lost to Maynard Jackson, who became the city's first Black mayor. The IRS charged Johnson with tax evasion in 1974, and he lost his senate seat that same year to Horace Tate, a longtime rival. The tax charges were eventually dropped, but Johnson was convicted of filing a false affidavit and received 60 days and probation. His political career was over.

Quarry's decline was steeper. Heavy drinking, financial ruin, and brain damage followed his boxing career. Diagnosed with pugilistica dementia, a form of chronic brain damage caused by repeated head injuries, he spent his final years unable to perform basic tasks and died in 1999 at 53.

At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Ali, who by then had Parkinson's disease, lit the Olympic cauldron in a moment that stunned the global audience. Outside the stadium, civil rights activist Hosea Williams protested the Georgia state flag, which still incorporated the Confederate battle flag, the same flag that had flown at half-staff the night Ali defeated Quarry 26 years earlier. Aiello frames the ceremony as erasing the radical dimensions of Ali's legacy, presenting Ali as a universally beloved figure rather than the controversial activist who had been threatened in the same city a generation before.