Quotes from Jonathan Eig

We were marching against the humiliation of the fact that your money can't buy a hot dog, can't rent a Holiday Inn. It was sense of the dollar dignity. We weren't fighting just to be with white people.

I just said I'm the greatest; I never said I was the smartest," he told reporters.

They called it "a disgusting exhibition of calculated cruelty," as if boxing were supposed to be anything else

You cannot deceive me if I'm not looking for anything from you.

Ali's stand against Vietnam made him a symbol of protest against a war in which black men were dying at a wildly disproportionate rate

For Ali, it was the beginning of a battle to overcome the dyslexia and poor reading skills that had hampered him since childhood.

We've mistaken King's nonviolence for passivity. We've forgotten that his approach was more aggressive than anything the country had seen—that he used peaceful protest as a lever to force those in power to give up many of the privileges they'd hoarded.

There is no attempting to comprehend a prizefighter unless we are willing to recognize that he speaks with a command of the body which is as detached, subtle and comprehensive in its intelligence as any exercise of mind by such social engineers as Herman Kahn or Henry Kissinger.

who was never seen drunk, a man whose power rested in quiet confidence and calm deliberation

Great men Ã¢â'¬Â¦ have not been boasters and buffoons," wrote Emerson, "but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it.

I am America," Clay will proudly declare. "I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me

Scottish philosopher William Drummond, read: "He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot reason is a fool; he who dares not reason is a slave.

Ali was everything everybody wanted their child to be, except some ignorant-ass white folks, and they don't count

Howard] Cosell spoke in a Brooklyn accent, with vowels that got trapped in the back of his nose and consonants that exploded from his mouth with unexpected force and speed. It was a voice that reminded listeners of a trumpet in the hands of a non-trumpeter.

He loved baseball so much that he sometimes went home after a game, rounded up a few of the kids from the neighborhood, and played in the street until dark.

To accept evil without challenging it, King concluded, would be to condone it.

Guided by anger, prejudice, or patriotism, boxing's rulers decided that Muhammad Ali was unfit to wear the sport's crown because he was a Muslim who refused to fight for his country.

the World Boxing Association and the New York State Athletic Commission had suspended Ali's boxing license and stripped him of his championship title. Soon after, with a unity of spirit, all the other boxing commissions in the country fell into line. Never mind that they had long tolerated the mafia and professional gamblers in their sport. Never mind that Ali had not yet been convicted of a crime.

Sonny Liston is America's curse. He is the black menace sprung from white racist stereotypes. And he likes it that way.

Italian-Americans in New York had not been in much of a flag-waving mood prior to DiMaggio's arrival. By the All-Star break, the rookie had established himself as a wonderful player (.358, 10HR, 60 RBIs), fully justifying the acclaim. But Gehrig was even better (.399, 20 HR, 61 RBIs). He was leading the league in nearly every category, including invisibility.

Greatness is a spiritual condition, worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration.

Now, it was the Black Muslim radical against the bully, and it was not at all clear to fight fans which one was less evil. Ambiguity was not the thing sports fans craved.

This is when the pill became widely known as The Pill, perhaps the only product in American history so powerful that it needed no name. Women went to their doctors and said they wanted it. They wanted The Pill. Some of them might still have been uncomfortable talking about birth control. Others might have been unsure of its brand name. But The Pill was The Pill because it was the only one that mattered, the one everyone was talking about, the one they needed.

learning to read rewires the brain. Reading teaches us to block out the world, and in the process certain kinds of visual processing skills get lost. That may be why some dyslexics exhibit exceptional visual talents