Cassius X - Stuart Cosgrove
Category: Autobiography & Biographies
Narrator: Kevin R. Free
Tags: Autobiography & Biographies, Sport & Recreation, Adults
Although Muhammad Alis decision to assume a new name has often been portrayed as a sudden transformation, Cassius Clays conversion to Islam was a process, not an event. For many months he received guidance from Malcolm X, who had traveled from Harlem to Miami to be his mentor as he studied for his entry into the deeply divided and fratricidal Nation of Islam. The name he assumed over those now-forgotten months was Cassius X. This is the story of Cassius X over twelve months in Miami, a city that was changing faster than America itself, as he trains for the fight that will bring him global fame: his world heavyweight title fight against Sonny Liston in February 1964. Change was happening on every conceivable front, not least in music where two significant coincidences brought Cassius X into contact with the two major forces in sixties music: Beatlemania and the newly emergent soul music. The Beatles famously turned up at Clays training camp at the 5th Street Gym and Sam Cooke negotiated
