Muhammad Ali, Executive Creative Director, Leo Burnett ME“My name is Muhammad Ali, and you will announce it right there in the center of that ring.”
In 1964, the world’s most iconic athlete hollered those words LIVE on air to a stubborn announcer who insisted on calling him by his given ‘slave’ name rather than his chosen one.
For Ali, his name was a declaration of independence, a defiant stance against a government and culture that echoed nothing of his beliefs – but rather systematically oppressed, undermined and mocked those values. Ali endured threats, fines, disqualifications, abuses and humiliations of all kinds. But perhaps the most insidious of these assaults was this simple act of not saying his name.
His name was a m
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