Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker. Deep in our strictly regimented and divided country, Ali danced rings around apartheid. I had first heard about the inspirational boxer from a black man, Cassius, who sold bottles of beer from the illegal shebeen he and his friends ran across the road from our house.
Cassius and his crew kept their illicit stash hidden in the drains outside the corner shop owned by an irritable Greek man. Whenever my football was booted over the garden wall, Cassius chased after it. After a dazzling display of slightly drunken footwork he would return the ball with a cackle. One day, while showcasing his trickery, he sang a strange song: “Ali, Ali, float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, Ali, Ali, Muhammad Ali.”
Cassius flicked rangy left jabs into the winter sunshine as his huge feet danced. He wore a pair of battered brown sandals that had split at the seams. They fluttered over the tar while the soles flapped in a jitterbug of their own. He pretended to be outraged when I asked who he was singing about: “You mean the baasie [Afrikaans for little boss] don’t know?” When I shook my head he became serious: “Ali is the heavyweight champion of the world.”
A thrill surged through me. Cassius told me how he was nicknamed after Ali – who had been born as Cassius Clay. I struggled to understand how one man could have two names. Cassius explained that the master boxer was a black American who dreamed up those happy bee and butterfly lines.
Years later, in 1974, when I had just turned 13, I learned that Ali had been stripped of his world title in 1967 when he refused to fight in the Vietnam war. But he had become even more of a mythical figure to me because Ali entranced our frightening Afrikaans teacher with the same spell he cast over Cassius.
When we summoned the courage to ask him why he liked Ali so much, while suspecting he was a staunch racist, the teacher softened. He spoke of the beauty and brilliance of Ali in the ring. Rather than being “one of our blacks”, Ali resembled the king of the world.
On 30 October 1974, Ali finally had a chance to regain the title when he faced George Foreman. We were agog that the fight would take place not too far from us, in Zaire [now the Democratic Republic of Congo].
The Rumble in the Jungle was promoted by Don King who underlined his ingenuity by taking the bout “back to Africa”. Zaire’s dictatorial President, Mobutu Sese Seko, agreed to pay the boxers an unprecedented $5m each.
Although the rest of Africa felt as far removed from our privileged suburb near Johannesburg as it did in Hertfordshire or New Hampshire, King brought the continent into our classrooms. Other kinder teachers confessed their fondness for Ali and favoured him over Foreman. Ali was also hailed by the black cleaners and gardeners who serviced the school and our homes. And the shebeen corner – from the Greek shop owner to the biggest drinkers – still belonged to him. Only Ali could forge such an alliance.
No heavyweight was bigger or more threatening than Foreman, who had become world champion when demolishing Joe Frazier in two rounds. Frazier was so good he had beaten Ali in the Fight of the Century in 1971 – but he was blown away by Foreman who had a 40-0 record with 38 stoppages. Big George rained down bludgeoning punches, bringing sorrow to every fighter he faced. Only the 32-year-old Ali remained.
“Foreman by knockout,” I predicted mournfully. Maybe I made that pessimistic forecast because I feared so much for Ali. A quick knockout would save him from permanent damage. But Bennie da Silva, my friend’s dad and the only real boxing expert we knew, backed Ali. He was a stocky Portuguese man who made us laugh while flooring us with his ring knowledge.
He promised that Ali would dance the night away until Foreman was so dizzy he wouldn’t know what hit him. Ali would rumba through the rumble and be crowned world champion again.
Television was still banned in South Africa as the government regarded it as a tool of communist propaganda. So we could not watch the fight in the early hours of a spring morning. But we listened to games of English football on the BBC World Service every Saturday afternoon that meant our schoolyard was packed with staunch followers of Arsenal and Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester United.
My dad helped me tune into the BBC radio broadcast and, in bed, I trembled as Ali went into battle with the ogre. But I was stunned as, in the crackle and hiss of the wireless, Ali did not do the rumba. He simply refused to dance.
He not only stood still but, in an act of supposed madness, leaned against the ropes and allowed Foreman to hit him. Ali took every ruinous blow and still he stood, waving his man in and doing the “rope-a-dope” trick we would try to copy at school.
Then, as if he was as exultant as Cassius on the corner or Mr da Silva boxing in the kitchen, Ali began to pick off Foreman. Through the static and electrifying commentary it sounded like Ali was weaving a new kind of black magic.
Abruptly, near the end of the eighth round, it was all over. A cry reverberated from the tiny speaker, as penetrating as any factory siren: “Foreman is down! Foreman is down!” I tumbled in disbelief, wondering if there could be as much bliss in the hearts of Cassius and the scary Afrikaans teacher, wherever they were that memorable daybreak.
Ali, truly, was the king of the world and we felt proud that his coronation happened in Africa – from where, at last, we knew we really belonged.
• This article was amended on 28 October 2024. For Rumble in the Jumble, Zaire’s President, Mobutu Sese Seko, agreed to pay George Foreman and Muhammad Ali $5m each, not $10m each as an earlier version said.
