Muhammad Ali refuses induction into the U.S. Armed Forces
April 28, 1967
In this April 28, 1967 file photo, heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali is escorted from the Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station in Houston by Lt. Col. J. Edwin McKee, commandant of the station, after Ali refused Army induction. Ali says he was a conscientious objector who would not serve in the Army of a country that treated members of his race as second-class citizens. Associated Press
On this day in 1967, Muhammad Ali reported to the draft board in Houston where he refused to step forward when his name was called. “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?” he said. Judge Joe Ingraham handed down an unusually harsh maximum sentence: five-years in a federal penitentiary and a $10,000 fine.
Zinn Education reports: The summer of 1967 marked a tipping point for public support of the Vietnam “police action.” While the Tet Offensive, which exposed the lie that the United States was winning the war, was still six months away, the news out of Southeast Asia was increasingly grim. At the time of Ali’s conviction, 1,000 Vietnamese noncombatants were being killed each week by U.S. forces. One hundred U.S. soldiers were dying every day, and the war was costing $2 billion a month.
Zinn Education reports: The summer of 1967 marked a tipping point for public support of the Vietnam “police action.” While the Tet Offensive, which exposed the lie that the United States was winning the war, was still six months away, the news out of Southeast Asia was increasingly grim. At the time of Ali’s conviction, 1,000 Vietnamese noncombatants were being killed each week by U.S. forces. One hundred U.S. soldiers were dying every day, and the war was costing $2 billion a month.