MUHAMMAD ALI AND MALCOLM X

One of the things that makes a man a man is the ability to admit he was wrong, especially when he's messed up very badly.  I admired him so much for admitting what happened between him and Malcolm.

I didn't see Will Smith in "Ali."  I wonder if this part of Muhammad Ali's story is there, the real strength in vulnerability part?


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"Malcolm had been declared persona non grata by the Nation for what they saw as self-aggrandizement. He was also criticized for revealing that the Nation's revered founder, who was addressed as "the Honorable Elijah Muhammad," had fathered several out-of-wedlock children with his secretaries. Furious at being questioned by an underling, Elijah Muhammad suspended Malcolm and forbade him to speak publicly. Malcolm left the Nation soon after the rupture. 

He thought Ali would go with him.

He was wrong.

...Both men were in Africa, in Ghana, when they met in the plaza outside the Ambassador Hotel in the capital city, Accra.

And what happens, recounts Smith, is this:
"Ali and Malcolm, their eyes meet. And at that moment, Malcolm says, 'Brother Muhammad! Brother Muhammad!' He wants to engage with him, say hello. He doesn't know Ali is mad at him, that they're no longer friends. He's got this half-smile on his face. And Muhammad Ali, just stone-faced, says, 'Brother Malcolm, you shouldn't have crossed the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.' And he essentially walks away from him."

Ali was accompanied by Elijah Muhammad's son, and he could hardly have been seen to embrace the man whom the Nation had declared its mortal enemy.

A marked man, Malcolm was assassinated early the next year.

Randy Roberts says, "One of Ali's greatest regrets — and he said as much — is that he never patched things up with Malcolm, that he never told Malcolm how important he was to him." Interestingly, Ali would also eventually leave the Nation of Islam to convert to Sunni Islam, the same orthodox Muslim faith his former mentor had embraced after leaving the Nation"

~NPR 

Read More:http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/02/25/467247668/muhammad-ali-and-malcolm-x-a-broken-friendship-an-enduring-legacy