never to argue with whites or blame them for his problems. Young Arthur, naturally defer - ential, did as he was told. Clay Sr. remained unbowed. “There was nothing modest about Cassius, Sr.,” wrote Ali’s friend Howard Bingham in his book Cassius Clay vs. the United States of America (written with Max Wallace). “I am the great- est!” the father would announce to anyone within earshot—including, presumably, his oldest son. The young Cassius would appro - priate his father’s catchphrase; more import - ant, the father’s racial grievances inspired a self-reliant ambition in the son. After Till’s death, Cassius Jr. knew that the only way he was going to beat the system was by doing it himself. Ashe, a straight-A student, became fa- mous for his thoughtful reserve and his abil - ity to move easily between white and black worlds. But he would also be accused of not being militant enough in the African-Amer- ican cause. Billie Jean King, tennis’s resident revolutionary, once claimed that “a lot of blacks have told me that in many ways they can relate to me better than they can to Ar - thur.” The self-effacing patience and prudence Ashe learned in Richmond were just as much a product of the black experience in the South as the self-dramatizing rebellious- ness that Ali learned from his own father in Louisville. By the time Ali and Ashe entered their teens, each had found a refuge from their highly circumscribed surroundings. The box - ing ring and the tennis court became places where they could remake their worlds the way they wanted. Ali claimed that he started fighting as a way “to make it in this country,” but he took his first boxing lesson at age 12 for a more practical reason: His bike had been stolen. “The usually easygoing youngster erupted in fury,” Bingham and Wallace wrote, “and
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