Road Work
“One morning I got a call from the Miami Beach Police saying they had a tall, skinny kid (he was only about 183 pounds then) who was running across the causeway and who said he was my fighter. At the time, the City of Miama Beach had a law that “people of color” were not allowed in Miami Beach from sunset to sunrise.”
source: My View From The Corner, by Angelo Dundee, pp 62
Ali’s early 60’s Colored Town home (now called Liberty City) in Miami Florida as recorded in 2015
Special thanks to Ali’s Colored Town neighbors, Fred Jones, Mom Jones, Fred Philpot, and Elmore Philpot
A Special Note From The Editor and Curator of the Primary Source
I’m so proud to be able to offer The Primary Source to you. Do you know that if you visit any Muhammad Ali memorabilia website you will find that one poster can cost anywhere from $50 to thousands of dollars? With The Primary Source though, you can convert any picture you want to a poster.
This Ali collection obsession started for me on the morning of October 27, 1970. I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was the morning after the first fight marking Ali’s return from exile. It was Ali vs Jerry Quarry. Dad sat at the kitchen table reading the newspaper account out loud. I was mesmerized…and without knowing it, I was hooked. Suddenly I found myself collecting and saving everything Ali that I could get my hands on. Every pre and post-fight article, every build up and follow-up article, every feature story, every biographical account…And, when friends and family started learning what I was doing, they started giving me more stuff; like the original program from Ali Frazier I at Madison Square Garden. (Which you will now have.)
I also remember sitting in the dark privacy of my room with tears running down my face as I listened to the radio account of Ali losing his first fight. It was to Joe Frazier. That bout made my obsessive-compulsive behavior worse. I started saving some of the side articles and advertisements to accompany
the main article…because it lends to perspective on the time period. The Malcolm X articles are another example…because he led to Cassius Clay changing his name.
I wrote a book-length manuscript on Ali. But this is better because it’s an unfiltered look at what people were saying when it was happening. Not someone’s interpretation of what happened years after it happened. It’s contemporaneous. And, it’s all original copies. That’s why it’s called The Primary Source!
So what are you waiting for, buy The Primary Source and donate to our important GoFundMe at the same time. (Ali would have liked that.) Feel free to contact me should you have any questions.
Best,
C. Merchant