My Day: Ali and Dallas

By Dr. J. Ester Davis

Muhammad  Ali created and lived the “Audacity of Hope” decades before Barack Obama published his thoughts on reclaiming the American dream, making it a number one New York Times bestseller. He channeled his thoughts into sweeping poetry.  Muhammad Ali was the perfect Drum Major for James Brown’s “I’m Black and I’m Proud”.  In the book, “Having Our Say” by Sarah and Elizabeth Delany, the sisters confronted the days of Jim Crow, rose to professional prominence, middle class status, during the Harlem heyday.  I think they would say Muhammad Ali carried their message to world class status, just beautifully.

The greatest athlete of all times and the world’s greatest self ordained ambassador for racial respect came to Dallas several times. Most people remember his ever present voice  on the black radio shows  and visiting college campuses.

I met Ali the first time in 1974.  I was the pageant director for the Miss Black Dallas Pageant and at the time, advisory member for the Miss Black America and Miss Black USA Pageants. The 1974 pageant was historic because we had pageant queens in from Colorado, California and Florida.  In the 70’s we had these pageants in every major American city with large audiences,  major contributors, celebrities, advertisers and supporters.  After Muhammad Ali died last week, Saundra Lohr, Miss Black Dallas 1974, posted a memoir on Facebook and we talked.  After catching up, I started looking for the stack of souvenir books I had somewhere.

Going about my day this week, I started talking to people, both young and old, about Muhammad Ali.  At the service station, I casually asked this lady attendant about Ali.  She immediately lighted up and said “I talked to him on the phone once. . . when I was thirteen year olds”.  Of course, I had to hear the rest of the story.   She was a student at Oliver W. Holmes, recuperating from a broken leg and listening to the “Tom Joyner Show”.  Every day she called in to the “Tom Joyner Show”.  Well, this particular day Tom Joyner’s guest was Muhammad Ali.  Tom Joyner allowed her to talk to Muhammad Ali.  She still had every word recorded in her memory bank.  And the excitement in her voice was as thought it happened yesterday.

This story is significant and is the root cause of Muhammad Ali’s greatest.  He could walk and talk with kings and queens, politicans and filmmakers, adversaries and haters,  promotors and Indian Chiefs, CEO’s and COO’s and still not lose the common touch with everyday people.  The other significant story I heard from my community survey was “I think I admired him more after his fighting career”.  This accounting of Muhammad Ali centered around his openness to display his illness.  His courage and bravery in and out of the ‘center ring’ will live forever in the hearts of his world fan club.  He was indeed

. . . the greatest.

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