In 1967, Muhammad Ali refused induction in the US Armed Forces. The boxing champion objected to the Vietnam War, asking, “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?”

“[It] reverberated through the whole society,” said civil rights activist Julian Bond of Ali’s refusal. “[Y]ou could hear people talking about it on street corners. It was on everyone’s lips. People who had never thought about the war before began to think it through because of Ali. The ripples were enormous.”

In response, Ali was stripped of his title as the heavyweight champion. In Esquire, former boxing champion Floyd Patterson wrote, “The prizefighter in America is not supposed to shoot off his mouth about politics, particularly when his views oppose the Government’s and might influence many among the working classes who follow boxing.”