The word had spread and people were piling around us. But then very suddenly, Sonny Liston froze me with that look of his. He said real quiet, 'Let's go on over here.' And he led the way to a table and the people hung back. I ain't going to lie. This was the only time since I have known Sonny Liston that he really scared me.
Sonny Liston is nothing. The man can't talk. The man can't fight. The man needs talking lessons. The man needs boxing lessons. And since he's gonna fight me, he needs falling lessons.
I hated the sight on TV of big, clumsy, lumbering heavyweights plodding, stalking each other like two Frankenstein monsters, clinging, slugging toe to toe. I knew I could do it better ... circle, dance, shuffle, hit and move ... make an art out of it.
I was always at the gymnasium every day at six o'clock after school. In the mornings I would run, looking forward to future golden gloves and Olympic tournaments.
Emmett Till and I were about the same age. A week after he was murdered... I stood on a corner with a gang of boys, looking at pictures of him in the black newspapers and magazines. In one, he was laughing and happy. In the other, his head was swollen and bashed in, his eyes bulging out of their sockets, and his mouth twisted and broken... I couldn't get Emmett Till out of my mind, until one evening I thought of a way to get back at white people for his death.
Mr. president, I've been a citizen of the United States of America for thirty three years and was never invited to the White House. It sure gives me pleasure to be invited to the Black House.
White people cannot destroy me like they have other big ministers of Elijah Mohammed in the past by telling us oh, you speak good, you should be the leader.