BILL O'REILLY (HOST): Poorly educated, Ali nevertheless was born with a keen wit and quick mind. His boxing success in the early 1960's led him into the fast lane, and one of his fellow drivers was a man named Malcolm X who steered Ali into radicalism. Not yet 22 years old, Cassius Clay, his birth name, gravitated toward the black power movement and fell under this way of Elijah Muhammad, the head of the Nation of Islam, whose disciples would eventually assassinate Malcolm X.



Mr. Muhammed was an anti-white fanatic who had served four years in a federal penitentiary for interfering with the draft during World War II. He believed blacks were the master race, and should not participate in a government run by, quote “white devils.” Elijah Muhammad became a father figure to Muhammad Ali, so when Ali was drafted during the Vietnam War, it should not have been a surprise that he refused to serve.

Previously:



On Fox, Muhammad Ali's Daughter Speaks Out Against Anti-Muslim Rhetoric