He refused to join the army because he didn’t believe in the war.
I’ve talked about this before, but in sociology, agency is an individual’s capacity to act independently and make their own choices.
It’s their ability to think critically about decisions that shape their experiences and act on them.
For example, in 1967, boxer Muhammad Ali used his agency and refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army to fight in the Vietnam War.
He knew there would be major consequences.
He knew he was going to lose his boxing titles and money. He knew his passport was going to get revoked and he wasn’t going to be able to leave the country. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to box for an extended period of time.
He knew there was a chance he was going to prison for draft evasion.
But he stuck to his beliefs anyway.
Ali believed America’s involvement in the Vietnam War was unjust and didn’t want to be involved with it because he felt the Vietnamese didn’t wrong him and that America had.
And he didn’t want to help America increase its empire.
Via Alpha History:
“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?
No, I am not going ten thousand miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would put my prestige in jeopardy and could cause me to lose millions of dollars which should accrue to me as the champion.
But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is right here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality…
If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. But I either have to obey the laws of the land or the laws of Allah. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail. We’ve been in jail for four hundred years.”
So, he protested by refusing to join the armed forces and accepted the punishments like the champion that he was.
As a result, Ali was stripped of all his championship titles and he wasn’t allowed to compete in a single boxing match for nearly four years. He also had to pay fines.
He was financially broke.
That never deterred him though. He continued to speak his mind and stand up for the little guy.
In 1971, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned his conviction.
However, many believed that he lost his prime boxing days and wouldn’t come back as the dominant striker he once was.
And they were correct.
But it didn’t bother Ali because he used his agency to fight for something bigger than himself.
“Some people thought I was a hero. Some people said that what I did was wrong. But everything I did was according to my conscience. I wasn’t trying to be a leader. I just wanted to be free. And I made a stand all people, not just black people, should have thought about making, because it wasn’t just black people being drafted. The government had a system where the rich man’s son went to college, and the poor man’s son went to war. Then, after the rich man’s son got out of college, he did other things to keep him out of the Army until he was too old to be drafted.”
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