and in "clashing over commerce," dartmouth college economics professor douglas irwin looks at the history of united states trade policy. look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for many of the authors in the near future on booktv on c-span2. .. southern festival of books. it's my pleasure to have the opportunity to introduce jonathan eig, this morning. an author i really really admire. i have been reading his work for years and he's here to talk by his new book, his biography of mohammed ali. of this is his third stop and

it's on honor for us here in nashville before jonathan speaks i been asked to mention a few things. first, the book festival is free, but if you like to contribute to the cause, you can do that at the headquarters for the book festival outside or online and also remind you that after his remarks jonathan will head over to the signing tent next to the parnassus tent on the main plaza, so you can have them sign your book over there. jonathan's regard is one of the countries top riders of narrative nonfiction, which is my favorite style, fantastic author. in addition to writing for best-selling books including two i have read on luke garrick and chomsky robinson jonathan has written for the "new york times" , the new yorker, esquire and the "washington post" and today he is a contribute writer for the "wall street journal". his biography of mohammed ali is one of the most anticipated books of the fall and if you check out reviews, probably the

most highly rated book of the fall as well. there's also a national connection. i don't know if you plan to mention these points, but mohammed ali's widow is a vanderbilt graduate and if you had a chance to meet coach ed temple, legendary coach of the tigers used to tell the story of after the rome 1960 olympics, summer olympics where caches clay was smitten with wilma rudolph, after those olympics he would come to nashville in his pink convertible cadillac looking for wilma, so jonathan i don't know if you drove from chicago and it had a lack or flew down, but we are excited to have you and thank you for coming. [applause]. >> thank you. it's a thrill to be here and every time a homily was introduced like that he would take thank you for the introduction and there are not

as damage to. i would not do that. there's a lot of things mohammed ali could get away with that i couldn't and we don't have that much in common as you might notice from looking at me although we have unbelievably fast job. did want to see it cracks. [laughter] >> do you want to see it again? that's in all the joke and it's important as a biographer to recognize you don't have that much in common with your subject usually in the job of a biographer is to understand that subject is-- can often from a distance and that means really paying attention to the fact, doing the research. i did about 600 interviews for this book with more than 200 individuals. are you'd-- interviewed many over and over. i did-- i counted the number of times all he was punched and worked with statisticians and speech scientists to look at how this punches affected his speech and over as deeply into his life as i could because a part of his

job is to help you understand that person's life and how that life was shaped and to understand how that life shaped us as a country and as a people and with all the one of the most important men of the 20th century would argue, it was a huge responsibility that i felt and also a biographer have to keep empathy and try to empathize with your subject. it doesn't mean you have to celebrate them or accuse him in the job is not to glorify or pretty him up. he was pretty enough to begin with and not to knock them down either, but to always have empathy for your subject and i would like to talk about that process and what i learned along the way and the challenge that i face. dick gregory the great comedian and social activist that passed away said to me when i interviewed him, he said there is no point in the writing this book, white boy if you aren't going to be able to explain-- a

sling to me and your readers how a black kid growing up in jim crow louisville felt like he could be special. what made him think he could go aroundcalling himself the greatest of all time when america said he was inferior and a second class citizen in the laws, not just the people around him, but the laws said so to. you will have to help your readers understand what made this kid think he could be different and that felt like a great challenge as a beacon this quest of four and a half years getting to know ali, trying to meet all. i began this when he was alive. one of the first things i did was interview some of the people who knew him best especially some older folks. in the beginning of the process it's rereading old material and interviewing people. i began with all these second wife who and to come through chicago a lot. she was known as belinda and was 17 years old when she married

ali. she came to chicago a lot. she was here this night pre-movie premiere. she corporation in chicago. that was in florida and i showed up to a movie premiere and i said i'm ready mohammed ali's biography and i would like to talk to you and she looked at me like where un who gave who gave you permission and the answer was no one and i would like for you to talk to me anyway and again, sense of responsibility as a biographer. like i'm taking this guy's life in his hands and he did not ask me to, but i'm going for it anyway and i explained to her i wanted to do this right give him the kind of biography he deserved, not another love fest or another book that makes him out to be a saint, but something that shows how important he was and who he was and i need you, you were married to him for 10 years from the vietnam protest through all of the joe frazier

fights and i need you to tell me what it was like to be married to this man and she said okay, how much are you going to pay me i get that a lot in the boxing world. this is all these brother. i called him up a few times and would not talk to me and finally i said one question. he said i'm not talking to you unless you pay me and i said i just want to know one question, what familiar dog a set of thousand dollars. is that your dog's name? he said no, not going to tell you unless you give me a thousand dollars. i said i don't pay for interviews, but i'm persistent. you can ask my wife. in boxing may say you are fighting above your weight. my wife is an impressive woman and the fact she would go out with me tells you how persistent im i am. this is a home where ali grew up rock on tommy that hollywood can

in the crack between the houses on the right and a challenge him to throw rocks at him to see if he could hit him. there's not much room to dodge the measured it, 72 inches between the two houses because i wanted to write that the view out of his window was the next house over 72 inches away and he would stand in that crack and challenge his brother to throw rocks at him and some people say that's the reason he became so quick. i also learned from always wife that he was dyslexic and never able to read well in school and that's why he became a class clown. i learned his father was abusive alcoholic, running around with a lot of women. ali came from difficult circumstances. he was not poor. this was a fairly middle-class neighborhood compared to most boxers economic poverty. this is the block where he grew

up with school teachers and principals and lawyers and doctors, all african-american, of course, but nonetheless he saw opportunities around him and he sighs biggest opportunity to escape and to find a way out when he was 12 years old. him he know the story of always stolen bicycle? most people have heard that he had his bicycle stolen and it happens to be a great legend that is true. so often when i dive into these things, he did not put his arm around jackie robinson. this turned out to be true. he wrote his $50 when bicycle, the guilt. he ducked into an auditorium to escape rain and he came out in his bicycle was gone. he finds a policeman and tells him his bike had been stolen and he's going to beat up who took it and the police officer said do you know how to fight and he -- he was cash's clay at the time he said no but i'm tough and the police officer said why don't you learn to box and all he begins boxing and falls in love with it, absolutely

transfixed just by the gym. not just the heavy bags, something else important. there were black kids and why kids fighting in the ring together. black kids punching white kids. you cannot do that in america in the 1950s. if you did uconn trouble. you could be arrested for far less than my and ali saw this and it began to rewire his brain in crazy ways like what else can i do and get away with and he begins taking boxing seriously. there's another myth that ali used to raise the bus to school. one of the things i learned from robert carroll, the great lbj biographer is that you always ask what it was like to be in the room with your subject and you ask it over and over until the subject is sick of hearing it, so i would ask ali's classmate what what is like to be on the bus when all he was racing. i asked over and over and it

wasn't making sense to me like i couldn't picture in one of the guys, his friend tommy that it was a city bus and they pay 10 cents to write to school and one day it hit me. i called a win any said you said it was a city bus. doesn't the city bus stop a lot? like almost every block? he said yeah, so all he was racing a bus that stopping and he said yeah and plus we got off at chestnut and transferred. he would wait with us for the next bus. so, was he really racing the bus i asked and he said of course not. he was trying to entertain us and remind us he was a big shot boxer and he wanted to be famous. he didn't really want to be faster than the bus and this is a key moment for a biographer when you say okay, i get this guy now. he wants to box and become great , but he also just really

wants attention and now i'm starting to get to know ali a bit. this is the gym where he trained and found joe martin in the basement. he not only trained there, but when he was done he would go to another jim and joe martin by the way was a white police officer, so here's a white police officer who is not arresting black people, but helping black kids, rewiring the brain of what he was taught growing up and he also finds a black trainer and when he's done training which oh martin he trains with fred stoner in another jim and bite 1960 by the time he's a senior in high school he is the olympic lightweight champion. comes back to central high school and he's a hero, the toast of the town. are failing almost every class in part because he's dyslexic any boxing on the time, but they pass him for the principal said someday this kid will be famous and i don't want to be remembered as the principal who flunked the champ and he

discovers he loves attention. at the olympics in 1960 which is described beautifully in david's book, ali becomes the mayor of the olympic village. everyone from every country was their picture taken with him because he has such charisma and he realizes that being outspoken and wound-- loudmouth that is good for his career and giving him attention and bigger fights and making him more money. he loves money, also. he talks about how the lacks you own and how all the different shades of the rainbow and this attitude standing up and making himself known and heard is helping him get bigger fights and by 1964, he gets his first shot at the heavyweight championship against the sky, the biggest, baddest, meanest baddest man on earth. knocked out his last opponent in a matter of seconds and ali is perhaps more unpopular than sunny. he has a criminal record. 's autobiography is called the champ no one wanted.

he's a very unpopular man. ali is more unpopular because a black kid being so unsportsmanlike and bragging about himself is seen as repulsive to most white americans and people are actually rooting for sunny which he was not used to. it is seen that this is the end of ali's career and there is no way he can beat sunny. sonny is so bad, but all he has something that sonny is not prepared for and that's perhaps learn from dodging rocks, but also something that was given as a gift to him. he is so fast that he-- heavyweights are not supposed to box. they're supposed to keep their heads up, hit hard and duck punches, but all he is so good he can move out of the way and these punches miss him altogether and opponents are so frustrated that they can't get near him and that's what happens to sunny. you see him throwing giant punches looking for the early knockout and all he is gone the

punches halfway through the air in the next few know is that left the job almost as fast as mine hits sunny in the face and he is getting tired and getting mad and the matter he gets the harder he swings of the more he misses and by the fifth or sixth round you see sony is gone with no chance he does not get up until the sixth round and gives up without even being knocked down or out because mohammed-- cash's claim was too much for him and what happens after the fight, ali announces that he is no longer-- he's the champion king of the world. he said i told you on the greatest and by the way i am now a member of the nation of islam. i'm not a christian. christianity was a religion forced upon me on my people. the name cashes clay is a slave name and might as well be a brand seared onto my flesh and i

don't have to do that anymore and he makes this pronouncement that changes the world and changes the way people not only see black athletes, but black pr -- people all over. he said i don't have to do what you tell me to do or say what you tell me to say or be what you want me to be. i am free and in 1964 those are fighting words and if he was unpopular before being unsportsmanlike, he's way more unpopular now and soon after he announces he's changes-- changing his name from caches clay to mohammed ali. you will notice in almost every picture of ali from the 60s and 70s that his brother who was named rudy is somewhere in the picture. rudy is always hanging around his big brother. and that's a lie to mohammed in the bill-- middle.

he's considered a threat to democracy. this is not orthodox islam, but a group that believes black people in america are never going to be treated equally and there is no-- point in wasting your time on the civil rights movement and the only ways for black people to forge their way out and build their own businesses, improve their lives and health and eventually start their own country and america will be forced to give a segment of the us to the nation of islam for black people to start their own country and all the crew up hearing something similar from his father who also is not a big fan of integration about black people would never be treated equally and told ali you would never be rich or anything because of the color of your skin. get used to it and ali believed what his father said but was not prepared to get used to it and he believed because he was different because he was a boxer , because he had a platform that america had to listen to what he had-- said. joining the nation of islam gave him a platform to do that.

when other black leaders in this country spoke when elisha mohammed spoke their words were filtered by the weight media. the "new york times" decided-- cbs news decided which clip to use, but when mohammed ali stepped in the center of the reed-- in the ring and set on the greatest and all praises do is to elisha mohammed, the whole world heard that no one could edit it and he gave ali a special platform and that explains why he thought he could fight when a lot of other black athletes were forced to accept the deal, the deal being you did her job, performed your sport and kept her mouth shut. some black athletes are told today that all he did not think he had to accept that any paid for. he refused to fight in the vietnam, convicted of draft evasion.

first he said i just want to go. we think of him now as being this conscious objector and pacifists, but first he said take my tax dollars and go buy all the bomber jets and tanks you want. on making a lot of money and don't want to go and then he said this war's not fair to black people and we are not even treated as equal in our own country why should we fight for a country that treats us like second-class citizens and then he said it's against my religion , so he evolved as many people that were opposed to the vietnam war the bald. he was convicted, sentenced to five years in prison and ban from boxing for three and a half years and it loses millions of dollars in endorsements finally after three and half years out of the ring he gets a chance to come back and this is really in many ways a key moment in ali's career as an athlete.

he comes back against joe frazier, the fight of the century, the only time to undefeated heavyweights squared off in the ring and by now it's 1971 and our views on vietnam have changed and most americans feel like the war was a mistake and we see all he paid for his convictions, suffered and he was willing to take that. he was willing to sacrifice for his beliefs whether you agree with him or not you have to respect that and then he is put on his rear end by joe frazier in the 14th round with a vicious left hook and he was up in a second and a half and said he was unconscious on the wake down and the ground woke him up. he bounces up and finishes the fight. he loses and he has to start fighting his way back to a rematch with frazier, to a shot at the heavyweight championship and this is what i think you see americans beginning to show respect for all the because his toughness is now not in

question. used to be they thought he was so quick and pretty and talkative that he couldn't really fighting was not a true champion, but now people admire his tenacity if nothing else. they still may not agree with his political opinion, but it's the 70s now in the political rights movement has moved up the streets and into the courts and he's on johnny carson on the time. here's this guy that said he hated white people that they were the blue-eyed devil and he is still saying stuff like that, but also joking around with johnny carson and he has this ability to charm as. it's almost impossible to hate the guy. you could not be a bad mood around him and even when people went into the room thinking this is a draft dodging trader, they couldn't resist the guy. he was so likable and when he starts fighting his way back, stanley crouch the writer said in the 60s that ali was a grizzly bear, wild, untamed. by the 70s he's more like a circus bear.

he still dangerous, but he's fun and entertaining and at the last activist of his life cities like a teddy bear and we all went to embrace him and i want us to think about why that is the case. he gets his shot at heavyweight championship and fighting george foreman. this becomes the fight for black fight-- pride to declare it was the biggest, toughest, black man on earth. don king pulls off this bizarre spectacle in zaire under this dictator and no one has had anything like this in ali with slower and bigger now and i mentioned i counted the punches he took. i calculated he had about 200,000 punches if you included amateur fights and sparring sessions, but by this point in his career he is training to take those punches and having sparring partners hit him because he believes he can build up resistance and no one can build him out if he builds up resistance.

iq would be immune to a knockout and he lets george foreman, the strongest man in the heavyweight boxing pound away at him until formant arms start to get tired and then only begins to fight back. foreman told me off the cuff here that he believes he was drugged before that fight by his own manager. he also told me that he gave $25000 cash to the referee to make sure it was a fair fight and he found out later all these people gave more than $25000, so i called ali's manager and said a georgia says he gave 25 to make the referee in uk mark and his manager said that's the stupidest thing i ever heard. we only gave him 10000. take it for what you believe. but, he beats george foreman incomes that way champion again and elisha mohammed calls him and said you have done it all and it's time to retire and devote the rest of your life to

your religion, your family. after this fight he divorces khalil and mary zane other woman, veronica. ali cannot stop. he keeps boxing and in those last years he fights another six years and keeps getting slower and slower and takes more punches and you can see that affect his having on him and he begins to ask his friends, do you think i am getting brain damage and you can hear if you coin youtube and watch his videos and you can see how much his speech is slowing down now and how he's beginning to slur his words, but he's a celebrity and he likes hanging around with sonny and cher doing tv shows and the entourage. he loves the attention. he can't get enough of it, so this goes on and he continues to fight into the early '80s. finally in 1981-- in 1980 fights larry holmes and takes a terrible beating and fights one more time and loses again.

not the way he wants to go out, but he gets a third act. in the late '80s early '90s we forget about ali. he disappears, really. you can hire him for $3000 to come to your used to call it-- car dealership and he loved to around people. if he was born he would stand in the middle of an intersection to seal on it would take for people to notice him and many would invite some people in the intersection to go out to lunch and maybe come to his next fight. he could not get enough of people. if he could not sleep he would call for a taxi and go visit people in the hospital he did not call attention to himself. he disappeared and he was depressed and in 1996, how many people remember watching this on tv? it was amazing because no one knows who will light the olympic torch in atlanta and there are rumors that might be commander holyfield another rumors and always aim is not mentioned in

the torch goes up the steps and it's handed off to someone behind a partition and he emerges in this white tracksuit and the crowd doesn't roar, the crowd is not applaud, it's silent and then you hear an audible gasp. it's ali and then the chance start to go up. ali, ali, ali and it's as if we rediscovered him. we have forgiven all of the horrible things he said even those of us who thought he was a traitor for his stance on vietnam. you have to admit, this guy took his punches and there he is with his hand shaking. he can't quite light the torch and it looks like he will set himself on fire and we are worried he will be able to pull it off, but he gets it lit and the crowd roars and it's in that moment that all the is rediscovered and it's in that moment, i mean, the next day you can see from the press coverage that he becomes the teddy bear

that we want to put our arms around him. i would argue we got only one to remember him as the teddy bear. we want to remember him for the warrior he was and it's a great that he was willing to do this and let us see him suffering and to let us see what this parkinson's disease and what the punches had done to him, but that's not who he really was or why he matters today. 1p i needed to do in working on this book was not only interview his wife and brother and his friends and fighters who he faced, but to try to meet ali. i had been working on this thing for like i said more than three years before he passed away, so several times i went to fundraisers where he was supposed to appear and he was ill and didn't make it, but i met his wife and i told her i was working on this and i told her the same thing i told ali's friends and families why they should talk to me for free

because i was taking this seriously and wanted it to be the book that ali's grandchildren and great-grandchildren would read not to just see how wonderful he was, but how much he mattered and why and ali's wife said to me yes, that's great and i'm glad you are doing that. you should come meet him. i got back at one of the events and wrote lonnie a letter and said it's nice to meet her. my daughter who was five at the time i asked if she could write a letter to mohammed. she asked me how to spell his name. she wrote dear mohammed, my daddy really loves you. do you love my daddy? love lola. that so sweet and also really can work. [laughter] lonnie can't resist this so i stuck it in the envelope and lonnie called and said you should come and bring lola when you come mohammed loves children and i said it so happens we will be in phoenix in a few weeks, can we visit and she said sure as long as it's not an interview and you don't come with a tape recorder or cameras.

no, i went to meet him. on spending five years of my life practically and i will spend the rest of my life talking about him so lola and i went to his house and he wasn't feeling well that would day and was not-- he did not come out of his room so we spent time with lonnie and she loved my daughter a lot more than she liked me, which is good. in a few months i found out he was going to be in louisville and line would be there for an awards ceremony and i went down to louisville head hung out with ali's brother and childhood friends and i was so nervous, i mean, what am i going to ask him or say to him if i get a chance to meet him and i decided to go for a run on the route ali used to run. i'm a big runner. i thought i'm running on the streets where ali used to run and i'm thinking how ridiculous as this. emphasis-- empathy is report and do i really think me, this should guy some odd years later running in his footsteps that i would learn anything to be a black kid growing up in jim crow louisville?

it's preposterous. i thought okay, now i know what i will ask. it came to me while i was running kirk if i get to meet him i know what i will say. and i went to the event and ali was there sitting on a table with lonnie and one of ali's friends grabbed me and said we had to meet him before anyone else gets there and ran to his table and lonnie introduced me to mohammed and i leaned over and put my hand on his arm and looked him and i and i said my name is jonathan eig and i'm writing your biography and i know you did not ask me to. it's an unbelievable privilege and i'm trying to write in a way to know if there is anything you want to say and he did not answer. he looked at me and i think he knew what i was saying. lonnie told me later he knew who i was and what i said but he did not answer and that was hard for me, but i think in a way it was a good thing because it's my book. it with his life. he lived it and he told us every day why he mattered and what he

was trying to do. he told us from the minute he knocked out-- defeated sonny. he told us every step of the way i'm here to say that a black man can call himself the greatest. i've here to say at that idol have to do what white society tells me to do. i'm here to say that we have a right, a responsibility to five for what we believe in in this country. he did all those things and showed us every day of his life and i think when you do those things has all he did, when you stand up to power, when you get knocked out and get back on your feet, that's when you burn the right to call yourself the greatest of all time. thank you very much. [applause]. >> thank you, jonathan. this is the ultimate treat for us to have such a fascinating

subject and brilliant writer coming together. thank you for coming to nashville haircut we are on c-span today so if you could come to the microphone and lineup to ask your question of what jonathan. we have about 10 or 15 minutes for questions and then after jonathan answers the questions we will head to the intent to sign copies of his book. thanks again. >> the question i have is that i admire ali and one of the stories about mohammed ali was after he won the olympics that he threw his gold medal into the river and i have read that, but i don't know if that is true or not. have you discovered anything about that? >> the good news is the bicycle myth turned out to be true. the gold medal that's, probably not. the story goes that first appellate-- appeared in ali's bottom-- autobiography that he was not from the olympics wearing his metal that he roared everywhere and he obviously

wanted to show it off. he slept with it on and he was in a restaurant and could not get served and according to his autobiography a white motorcycle game chased him out of the restaurant and as he was fleeing going across the bridge he threw it into the river in frustration and protest that even a gold medal does not earn you service at one of these restaurants. when his book was published someone asked him about that and he said what are you talking about. he said it's in the book and he said i didn't read the book. what you talk about? i asked ali's publisher and he said no, he lost the metal and he was frantic for days searching for it, where could it be. he barely took it off, how could he have lost it, but several people who knew ali at that time said he definitely lost it, so i think that's one of the myths that does not turn out to be true. >> i'm a vietnam veteran and at

the time i was also involved in the civil rights movement and i did find the majority of the people drafted and those of us that were involved in the civil rights movement and black. my unit was mostly black, so there is a basis for his belief that the government was out to stop that civil rights movement at the time to make interesting. no question that black americans were serving and dying in disproportionate numbers to white americans seem a good morning, jonathan. i'm a published author as well and when you spoke about wanting to really capture that at that-- essence and so forth and be sure you are getting-- expressing things the way they were in debunking myths and so forth. i'm in the process of ghost writing a book, so i had that

same obligation, but even more of finding their voice and what i'm wondering is when you started asking questions and they were asking how much money, before that had you considered unauthorized biography or did she want to be totally free and so forth? >> when i started working on the book and ali's family and lawyers found out i was doing this, one of his lawyers called and asked if i would be willing to make this authorized project and in exchange they would give me access to the family and access to ali and they would take half the money, also. that wasn't really the issue for me, but the question what kind of book i wanted to write and if you write an authorized book you are subject to your partner and their wishes for the book and they may not want certain things in their. all he was clear about the fact that he was not a saint. late in life talked about it a lot and said there was tally angel who was watching everything he did in keeping track of the good things and bad things and if he had more good

things and bad things he would go to heaven, but he said he did a lot of bad things and needed to make up for those in the second part of his life and he believed he had a chance to do that and worked hard through the act of charity, diplomacy, but he was not a saint and i thought it was important this book show the man in full. i didn't want to write a book where i had my hands tied in any way, so i never even considered the idea of doing an authorized book with the ali management team. >> good morning. you are the author of icons in sports. jackie robinson and the character what was the love affair with mohammed ali that made you want to write that book? >> i'm really interested in the stories of the rebel. i was a huge ali fan as a kid with his poster on the ceiling of my room and i was thinking

about why he seemed so different from my sports heroes. he was on a different level than terry bradshaw or o.j. simpson. he was almost like a superhero because first of all he was in an individual sport which ali lupton said he would never bother playing football. he said to be guys on the field and he would not getting enough attention plus he had this where a helmet and no one could see a preview was, but he almost seemed like a superhero. unbelievable entertainer who was so witty. he think about his engagements with howard cosell. he was a tv star and could have had his own variety show. he was also this unbelievably important political figure taken a stance making front-page news so he always seemed like something more than a sports figure. i've never been interested in writing a straight sports book. i'm interested in sports books that tell us who we are as a

country and all he seems like the best possible sorry. to me it was like the greatest opportunity of my life to tell that story. i was so thrilled i got the chance. >> thank you. >> sure. >> good morning. i was wondering what you learned about the relationship between mohammed ali and howard cosell. >> cosell i mentioned they were a great partnership and i think in some ways they-- it really was a business partnership that they recognize that they were good for each other. cosell was one of the first journalist to accept help-- ali's name change and said he can be whatever religion he wants maybe because cosell was jewish. we can tell hollywood actors they couldn't change their names or tell jewish people they couldn't drop their long jewish sounding names, so why should we tell all he that he cannot change his name for his new religion. its hypocrisy and reverses him, but cosell thought past that. he was one of the few in the beginning and ali recognize that

being on tv and clowning around with cosell showed his warm and human side, so it was good for both of their careers and i don't think they were super best friends ford dined at one another's homes, but they had a real mutual professional admiration. >> can i get you to comment-- i find a real odd but i read mohammed ali obituaries that we praised him for his resistance for his courage and then later-- when did he die? >> june, 60. >> three months later we are dealing with-- my math is off, a year later we are dealing with kneeling football players in the national anthem and it seems like his legacy is just evaporated.

>> that's a good question and a good point. a troubling when because you are correct. you would think we had learned something that ali sacrificed and a show that black athletes in particular should be entitled to be more than athletes and entitled to their political opinions. yet, here we have at the nfl we have at the president saying they should do their jobs and keep their mouths shut and we are running into same issues and i think it's bad and shows how some people have ingrained these racial attitudes. >> i have been reading the book and it's a meeting. the writing is so good. you have brought the stories back to life even though i've heard so many of them before. that's a real testament to the book. my question is, a lot of the books i think are well known about ali are all written by

white pin and now jonathan eig has a new biography or quit you think it says about ali, the most well-known books about him are all written by white men. why don't people from the black community write books about him? >> i don't really know and i can't speak for why someone is it writing a book, but the early collection on ali is superb with others written by african-american writers that are wonderful, also. i don't know why, but i think ali was someone who appeal to a lot of people and appeal to a lot of sportswriters. at the time there were few african-american sportswriters covering the boxing and that might've been a factor secular kid who was in the press pit and covering the fights its almost

all white writers that doesn't excuse it, but that probably has something to do with it. >> thank you. >> sure. >> last question, frayed and then i will sign books. >> i just wanted to know what you learned about-- i understood that i think up until maybe his death joe frazier had really disheartened by during those five ali would do what he did in his promotion and everything but frazier thought he took it too far in reference to the guerrilla and i thought that frazier died bitter about that and i was wondering if you found out that relationship was ever rectified? >> that's one thing that ali was not proud of and one thing that tally angell probably gave him bad scores for. joe frazier was kind to ali especially when he was out of boxing, lent him money and offer to help them find work and went

ali returned it to ring he was brutal and merciless towards frazier and called him a cult common try to humiliate him and it hurt joe and his whole family. his son said he was taunted at school because your daddy is uncle tom and it was strange because ali always treated his white opponents better than his black opponents, so i'm not sure i can explain the behavior. it's a shame no one ever said to him, back off of joe it's not funny anymore. i think all he thought he would give him an edge in the ring, a psychological edge if he could get under the skin of his opponent, but he later apologized to joe late life, but i get the impression from joe that maybe it was too little too late. thank you very much for being here. it's really been a pleasure. great book festival. thank you so much. [applause].