One Night That Changed It All

Chain Gang

In the film One Night In Miami, Malcolm X aggressively prods the men in his hotel room to use their talent and stature to help Black people, taking particular (and some critics say unfair) aim at Sam Cooke. The back and forth between the friends, at turns passionate, poignant and funny, serves as a kind of fictional preamble to what happened afterward in the lives of the four men.

On the morning of Feb. 26, 1964, the day after he won the championship, Cassius Clay emerged in the Miami Convention Hall and proclaimed to the throng of reporters that he had joined the Nation of Islam.

"I believe in Allah and in peace," he said. "I don't try to move into White neighborhoods. I don't want to marry a White woman. I was baptized when I was 12, but I didn't know what I was doing," he said. "I'm not a Christian anymore. I know where I'm going, and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want."

In a week's time, Clay's words would also turn out to be a declaration of freedom from Malcolm X. As Clay's spiritual mentor who had recruited him to Islam, Malcolm X had tried to persuade the boxer to join him in leaving the Nation of Islam. He had grown disillusioned by its leader, Elijah Muhammed. Rumors swirled that Ali would soon follow him.

By the night of the Clay-Liston match, Malcolm X was well aware of the talk that he would be assassinated for breaking with the Nation of Islam. After Ali chose Muhammad over their friendship, Malcolm X openly expressed his fears to the press. According to a late-March 1964 FBI report quoted in Eig's book, Muhammad had warned that the only way to stop Malcolm X is "to get rid of him the way Moses and others did their bad ones."

Even so, Malcolm X moved with rebellious speed to establish the Muslim Mosque, positioning it as an alternative to Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent civil rights movement. "Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself," he said. And yet he also began to support desegregation and soon voiced regret for his earlier condemnation of the entire White race.

As he recruited members to his new organization, Malcolm X appeared hopeful that his former friend and protege would return to him. In April 1964, Malcolm embarked on the Muslim spiritual pilgrimage to Mecca known as the Hajj. Later staying at the Hotel Ambassador in Accra, Ghana, he caught a glimpse of Ali, who had also been touring Africa.

"Brother Muhammad!" Malcolm X exclaimed to Ali, who was traveling with Herbert Muhammad, the son of Elijah, according to Eig.

Ali turned to Malcolm X in the hotel lobby. "You left the Honorable Elijah Muhammad," he said sternly. "That was the wrong thing to do." He later made fun of Malcolm X's long white robe and walking stick, according to news reports at the time.

On Feb. 21, 1965, just a few days shy of the first anniversary of the Ali-Liston fight, Malcolm X was shot to death at the age of 39 as he took the stage for a rally at the Audubon Ballroom in upper Harlem.

Decades later, in his 2004 autobiography, "The Soul of A Butterfly," Ali wrote that spurning Malcolm X "was one of the mistakes that I regret most in my life."

"I wish I'd been able to tell Malcolm I was sorry, that he was right about so many things," Ali, who died in 2016 at 74, wrote. "But he was killed before I got the chance."

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"then i go to my brother, then i say brother, help me please, but he winds up knocking me." - Sam Cooke

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"there's been time that i thought.. i couldn't last for long, but now i think im able to carry on." - Sam Cooke