If you wonder what the difference between them and me is, I'll break the news: you never heard of them. Most of them ... can fight almost as good as I can. I'm just saying you never heard of them.
I did not take the name, I just named myself Cassius Clay, this is a honorable, Mohammed Ali, given to me by my religious leader and teacher, the Honorable Elijah Mohammed, and I would like to say that Mohammed means in Arabic "one who is worthy of praise" and one praiseworthy, and Ali means the most High, but the slave name Clay meant dirt with no ingredients.
People don't realise what they had till it's gone. Like President Kennedy - nobody like him. Like The Beatles, there will never be anything like them. Like my man, Elvis Presley - I was the Elvis of boxing.
I'm sure no intelligent white person, in his or her right white mind, want black men and women marrying their white sons and daughters and in return introducing their grandchildren to half brown, kinky haired black people.
When I heard the truth about my name was not Cassius Clay, like I knew a black man in America named John Hawkins. Now, you know who John Hawkins was.He was a slave trader from England. But the white people of that time, if one had five slaves and his name was Jones, they would be called Jones' property. [...] Now that I'm free, now that I'm no longer a slave, then I want a name of my ancestors.