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conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight about Ali, Muhammad, Ali's with the genre: History, Americas.
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conversations.value: Here, the author (Muhammad Ali: A Thirty-Year Journey), Muhammad Ali's best friend and favorite photographer, contends that the former heavyweight champ's greatest legacy is that, owing to his conversion to the Nation of Islam and subsequent refusal to enter the military during the Vietnam War, Ali served as a touchstone for the racial and antiwar upheavals that rocked the Sixties and changed our country. the author offers a friendly portrayal of the conscientious objector/Black Muslim minister Ali but doesn't beyond a shadow of a doubt answer the question of whether his motives for evading the draft were self-serving, racial, or religious--though it is easy to imagine that at the least they might have evolved from the former to the latter. One cannot deny Ali's influence on his times, though. And neither can one deny that, whatever his motives for refusing military service, he paid a great price by being banned from boxing for three and a half years during his prime. While not "The Greatest," as its subject proclaimed himself, the author's book deserves a place in the sports collections of most public libraries. With a foreword by Ali himself, this book ably supplements the Hauser and Remnick biographies.<BR><I>-Jim G. Burns, Ottumwa P.L., IA </I><BR>Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
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conversations.value: , IA </I><BR>Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. the author offers a friendly portrayal of the conscientious objector/Black Muslim minister Ali but doesn't beyond a shadow of a doubt answer the question of whether his motives for evading the draft were self-serving, racial, or religious--though it is easy to imagine that at the least they might have evolved from the former to the latter. One cannot deny Ali's influence on his times, though. And neither can one deny that, whatever his motives for refusing military service, he paid a great price by being banned from boxing for three and a half years during his prime. While not "The Greatest," as its subject proclaimed himself, the author's book deserves a place in the sports collections of most public libraries. With a foreword by Ali himself, this book ably supplements the Hauser and Remnick biographies.<BR><I>-Jim G. Burns, Ottumwa P.L.Here, the author (Muhammad Ali: A Thirty-Year Journey), Muhammad Ali's best friend and favorite photographer, contends that the former heavyweight champ's greatest legacy is that, owing to his conversion to the Nation of Islam and subsequent refusal to enter the military during the Vietnam War, Ali served as a touchstone for the racial and antiwar upheavals that rocked the Sixties and changed our country.
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conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this book.
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conversations.value: Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight
  Ali was so passionate about his dream that in early 1970 he decided that he had no desire to ever box again. Instead, he would devote his life to his plan for black economic justice. In May, Esquire magazine—a long-time supporter of his anti-war stand—offered Ali its pages to outline his economic plan and explain what he would do if he were President of the United States. In a five-page treatise headlined I'M SORRY, BUT I'M THROUGH FIGHTING NOW, he announced that the only way he would go back into the ring would be to fight a series of exhibitions with the current heavyweight champion Joe Frazier to help relieve poverty.
  In response to the question of what he would do if he were President, he envisioned his State of the Union address to the American people: "Now, fellow Americans, we owe these black people for four hundred years of back labor," President Ali would announce. "They've done a lot for us. They died in the Japanese war, the German war, the Korean War, the Vietnam War. We're repaying them. I'm going to take this $25 billion I was gonna spend on helicopters in Vietnam, and it's going to Alabama and Georgia and Mississippi, and pay for $25 billion worth of houses, nice brick houses. Each black man who needs it is going to be given a home. Now, black people, we're just repaying you. We ain't giving you nothing. We're guilty. We owe it to you."
  At the time, much critical attention was being given to the American government's policy of destroying huge quantities of food and paying farmers not to grow crops as a means of keeping agricultural commodity prices artificially high. President Ali reserved his harshest words to address this situation: "Now, after all the boys get back to America [from Vietnam], I'm going to tell you people that's been getting paid for not growing food that you'll get the electric chair if I catch you destroying any more food. We need that food. I'm gonna hire a bunch of people with all those billions we've been spending on the war. I'm going to pay them $300 a week to help their brothers. And I'm gonna say, 'General Motors, listen here. I want you to make 50,000 diesel trucks. I'm gonna fill those trucks up with canned goods and all the food that you people have been throwing away. We're gonna take it all down to the people of Mississippi and charge them nothing.'"
  For the rest of his career, Ali would continue to speak out on and fight for economic justice, later extending his efforts to help poor whites as well. He also repeatedly challenged other successful black celebrities to help revitalize the ghettoes. But this side of Ali's personality and character, perhaps the most serious and important, was consistently ignored by the media or denigrated as "naive."
  Jerry Izenberg was also intrigued by Ali's burgeoning economic philosophy. "He told me something very interesting around this time," recalls the sports columnist. "He told me that his boxing career was only a tool. He said, 'Fighting hunger, fighting illiteracy, these are the things I really want to do. That's what my boxing fame made possible.'"
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conversations.value: Give me four more paragraphs.
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conversations.value: Chauncey Eskridge, representing Ali, began arguing the case of Cassius Clay vs. the United States of America before the eight justices. Representing the government was the U.S. Solicitor General Erwin Griswold. Earlier that week, Lieutenant William Calley had been convicted at his military court martial of ordering the brutal massacre of more than three hundred Vietnamese civilians three years earlier. Calley was given a life sentence.
  In Congress, Representative James Mann of South Carolina argued that he could not understand the justice in Calley's conviction while "Muhammad Ali still walks the streets of America, a couple of million dollars richer by virtue of his failure to serve."
  A poll conducted for Richard Nixon the same week revealed that, despite the rapidly changing social climate, America still had a long way to go in its attitude about the war. Only 7 percent of Americans agreed that Calley should have been convicted while a full 78 percent registered their disagreement with the verdict.
  Similar attitudes seemed to be reflected on the bench of the highest court of the land. While Eskridge pleaded his case before the justices, his arguments were met with considerable skepticism, even hostility.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: While Eskridge pleaded his case before the justices, his arguments were met with considerable skepticism, even hostility. the United States of America before the eight justices. Representing the government was the U.S. Solicitor General Erwin Griswold. Earlier that week, Lieutenant William Calley had been convicted at his military court martial of ordering the brutal massacre of more than three hundred Vietnamese civilians three years earlier. Calley was given a life sentence.
  In Congress, Representative James Mann of South Carolina argued that he could not understand the justice in Calley's conviction while "Muhammad Ali still walks the streets of America, a couple of million dollars richer by virtue of his failure to serve."
  A poll conducted for Richard Nixon the same week revealed that, despite the rapidly changing social climate, America still had a long way to go in its attitude about the war. Only 7 percent of Americans agreed that Calley should have been convicted while a full 78 percent registered their disagreement with the verdict.
  Similar attitudes seemed to be reflected on the bench of the highest court of the land.Chauncey Eskridge, representing Ali, began arguing the case of Cassius Clay vs.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Assassination of Malcolm X, George Breitman, Herman Porter, and Baxter Smith. (Pathfinder, 1991).
  An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad, Claude Andrew Clegg III (St. Martin's Press, 1997).
  The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X, with the assistance of Alex Haley (Ballantine Books, 1973).
  Fighting on Two Fronts: African Americans and the Vietnam War, James E. Westheider (NewYork University Press, 1997).
  Vietnam and Black America: An Anthology of Protest and Resistance, Clide Taylor (Anchor Press, 1973).