The Soul Of A Butterfly (3 page)

Think well of all, be patient with all, and try to find the good in all
.

the

INNOCENCE

of youth

WHEN MY YOUNGEST
child, Asaad, was about four years old, he said something that brought tears to my eyes. My daughters Hana and Laila walked into the hotel room where my wife, Lonnie, and I were staying in Los Angeles; Asaad was playing with his mother on the bed. It was summer, and Asaad had been swimming all week, so his skin had gotten darker. When Laila walked into the room and saw him, she picked him up and gave him a big hug and kiss. She then innocently said, “Wow, Asaad, you sure got black today!”

Asaad replied, “I’m not black, I’m clean!”

What he said made me think about when I was his age, and how different the world was then. Asaad was still new to the world. He hadn’t yet learned about the concept of color. His mind and heart were still innocent. And I thought to myself how wonderful it would be if we could all hold on to the innocence of youth.

* * *

Holding onto my innocence as I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s was difficult. I began to recognize the injustice of segregation around me. There were restaurants with signs that read, “Whites Only” and “No Coloreds Allowed.” Blacks could only drink from water fountains and use restrooms that were labeled “Colored.” My brother and I didn’t run into any real trouble with the white kids, but there were times when we were called “nigger” and asked to leave certain neighborhoods. We didn’t experience the same violence that many blacks did in other parts of the South, but Louisville was segregated. It was strange going out into a world that looked at blacks as second-class citizens while being raised with pride and self-awareness at home. Although my parents tried their best to shield us from the cruelties of the world, some problems were inevitable.

One of my first encounters with prejudice happened when I was too young to remember, but I’ve heard my mother tell the story. She and I were standing at a bus stop. It was a hot day and I was thirsty, so we walked up the block to a small diner, where she asked if she could have a cup of water for her son. The man said he could not help us and closed the door in our faces. I can only imagine the pain my mother felt when she tried to find the words to explain why the man would not give me a glass of water. Even during these times my mother would say, “Hating is wrong, no matter who does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.”

When I was a little older, I saw a newspaper with a front-page story about a boy named Emmett Till. He was a black boy about the same age as me, who was brutalized and lynched while on vacation in Mississippi, supposedly for whistling at a white woman. A picture of him in his coffin was in the newspapers, with a gruesome description of what had been done to him. It made me sick, and it scared me. I was full of sadness and confusion. I didn’t realize how hateful some people could be until that day.

Although I didn’t know Emmett Till personally, from that day on I could see him in every black boy and girl. I imagined him playing and laughing. As I looked at his picture in the paper, I realized that this could just as easily have been a story about me or my brother. They caught the people that did it and put them on trial, but an all-white jury found the defendants not guilty—even though there had been eyewitness testimony that the defendants had been the ones who had kidnapped the boy. Emmett’s mother said, “When something like that happened to the Negroes in the south, I said, ‘That’s their business, not mine.’ Now I know how wrong I was. The murder of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us anywhere in the world had better be the business of us all.” I believe that this is true.

I knew that my heart could harden in a world with so much pain, confusion, and injustice. Somehow, I knew that if I were going to survive, I could not become bitter. I would have to love even those who could not give it in return. I would have to learn to forgive even those who would not—or my soul would wither away.

BLACK

is

Beautiful

WHEN I LOOKED
in the mirror I was proud of what I saw, but there were many Black people who didn’t want to be Black anymore. Little Black boys and girls had no public role models. We didn’t have any heroes who looked like us. There was no one for us to identify with, and we didn’t know where we fit in. Even pictures of Jesus Christ were always White. I was taught that Jesus was the son of God, and I wondered if God looked like Jesus, too. Jesus was always depicted with long blond hair and blue eyes. Then I noticed how all of the angels in pictures were White. There were never any pictures of Black angels. And everyone at the Last Supper was White. So, one day, I asked my mother, “What happens to us when we die? Do we go to heaven?”

“Naturally, we go to heaven,” she said.

And I said, “Then, what happened to all the Black angels when they took the pictures? Oh, I know. If the White folks go to heaven, the Black angels would be in the kitchen preparing the milk and honey.”

That was okay because I didn’t like milk and honey anyway. I just wanted some answers. I wanted to know why everything good was always shown as White.

One Halloween, a little Black girl was trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, dressed up in a superhero costume, but her face was painted white. When I asked her why, she said that her sister told her that there was no such thing as a Black superhero. She was right. When I turned on the television, everyone was always White. Superman was White, Santa Claus was White. They even made Tarzan, king of the jungle in Africa, a White man. I noticed that Miss America was always White, and the president living in the White House was White, too. Nothing good reflected our image. At that early age, I could see that something was very wrong. I didn’t understand it. I thought that my skin was beautiful, I was proud of the color of my complexion. But everything black was considered bad, and undesirable. Like black cats bring bad luck. Devils’ food cake was the dark cake, and angel food cake was the white cake. These may have been subtle messages, but the affects were profound. Every day these messages shaped the images that I and other nonwhite children had of ourselves. I didn’t know how, but I knew that I was going to help my people. Somehow, I was going to make a difference in the world. The more injustice that I saw, the stronger my feelings grew. It made me feel that I was here for a reason.

EVERYTHING THAT GOD
created has a purpose. The sun has a purpose. The clouds have a purpose. Rain has a purpose. Trees have a purpose. Animals have a purpose; even the smallest insects, and fish in the sea have a purpose.

Regardless of how large or small, we were all born to accomplish a certain task. It is the knowledge of that purpose that enables every soul to fulfill itself. One person with knowledge of his life’s purpose is more powerful than ten thousand working without that knowledge.

It is important for each of us to figure out why we were put here on earth by God. The importance of life is to accomplish the task we were given. Without working on this task, life is meaningless. Human beings have a basic need and desire to accomplish something before they die—to make a difference. When working toward this goal, man has hope and energy. Therefore, it is essential that each of us learn what we were meant to do as early as possible in order to have a satisfying and productive life.

Your purpose may be bigger than mine or another person’s, but that doesn’t make mine any less important. God would not place a burden on a man’s shoulders knowing he could not carry it, nor would he give a person a purpose without significance.

Everyone has his or her own lessons to learn and obstacles to overcome. The experiences should not be weighed against each other because they are all equally important in the end. Each time I thought I had achieved my life’s purpose, I discovered it was only another step in my journey. I thought boxing would help me be that public Black role model who was missing while I was growing up. I thought my purpose was to be that hero who showed children that Black is beautiful. I thought my purpose was to be that champion who showed White people they couldn’t treat Blacks like second-class citizens. I learned that all of these accomplishments were important, but even more important, I gained a platform that allowed me to carry out my real mission, which has been to encourage all people to respect each other and to live in peace. I am still discovering God’s purpose for me.

AWARENESS

I HAVE ALWAYS
had a curious mind. Even as a young child I would think and wonder about things that most kids my age paid no attention to. From the very beginning I was different; I even had chicken pox and measles at the same time. My mother would say that my mind was like the March wind, blowing every which way. I would look into the heavens and wonder about the Creator of all these things. As I grew older, I began to think more about the relationship between man and God. Some of my questions about this relationship were answered, but some of the answers only produced more questions.

I felt I was here to do great things. I felt I had a special place in the world. Something in my heart made me believe it. As the years passed, the feeling grew stronger. When I was about nine years old, I would wake up in the middle of the night and go outside to wait for an angel or a revelation from God. I would sit on the front porch, look up at the stars and wait for a message. I never heard anything, but I never lost faith, because the feeling was so strong in my heart. I didn’t know it then, but in the years to come something would happen to put me on the path to discovering my life’s purpose. It would take me forward in my journey.

birth of a

DREAM

I discovered my way at the age of twelve.

Lance Armstrong, a champion himself,

recently wrote a book called

It’s Not About the Bike
.

Well, for me it was all about the bike.

IT WAS THE
winter of 1954; I just received my red-and-white Schwinn bike for Christmas. A friend and I rode our bikes over to the Louisville Home Show at Columbia Auditorium. There was an annual Black bazaar going on, and we spent the day picking up free samples of food, popcorn, and candy. When it was time to go home, I discovered my bike was gone.

I was so upset I went looking for the police to report it. Someone directed me down to the gym run by a local policeman named Joe Martin, who was teaching young boys to box in his spare time. I told Mr. Martin that I was gonna whup whoever stole my bike. I was half crying and probably didn’t look too convincing. I remember Mr. Martin telling me, “Well, you better learn how to fight before you start challenging people that you’re gonna whup.”

I joined Mr. Martin’s gym and began boxing with a vengeance. All of my spare time was spent on training; I was the first one in the gym, and the last to leave. Boxing kept me out of trouble. I trained six days a week and never drank or smoked cigarettes.

Joe Martin was the man who started me out in boxing, but regularly I trained with a Black man named Fred Stoner, who taught me how to jab. If I ever found out who took my bike, I was going to be ready. Mr. Martin produced a local television show called
Tomorrow’s Champions
as part of the Columbia Gym’s amateur program. It offered instant local celebrity status to his boxers. When I first started boxing, all I wanted was to someday buy my parents a house and own a nice big car. I figured if I could turn pro and get on Saturday night fights, I could make four thousand dollars just for one night. Then my dreams started to grow. When I was in school, sometimes I would pretend that they were announcing my name over the loudspeaker
system,
saying “Cassius Clay, heavyweight champion of the world.” Other times I would draw a picture of a jacket on a piece of paper, and on the back of the jacket I would write, “Cassius Clay, Golden Gloves Winner,” or “Cassius Clay, World Heavyweight Champ.”

From the beginning, I was determined to be the best boxer. I knew that meant I was going to have to stay focused and work hard. I can remember one occasion when I was in the gymnasium sparring with another kid, named Willy Moran. Willy was a hard hitter who later turned pro. Anyway, I had just finished talking to Mr. Martin about wanting to get a scooter. When I got into the ring, I was still thinking about what color it was going to be. I thought red would be nice. Then, all of a sudden, Boom! I blacked out. I had been knocked out cold. When I woke up, the first thing I said was, “Which way was the scooter going when it hit me?”

That’s when I learned the importance of remaining focused. Soon thereafter, I had my first amateur fight. I was twelve years old and weighed about ninety pounds. I can remember walking down the aisle with my father, headed for the ring. When I looked up to see who I was fighting, my eyes widened. It was another beginner named Ronnie O’Keefe. He was a White boy who was a little bigger and a little older than I was. I was scared to death. I looked up at my dad and said, “Cash, do you see who I’m fighting?”

Cash looked me in the eye. “Yes, and we’re going to whup him.” Hearing my father say that inspired me. Suddenly I felt good, I had my dad in my corner and I won my first fight.

* * *

At that early age I learned another important lesson. Although I was the one in the ring, I won as part of a team. I continued fighting and training hard. By the time I was eighteen, I had already fought 108 amateur bouts. I won six Kentucky Golden Gloves Championships, two National Golden Gloves tournaments, and two National AAU titles.

It all started coming together, when I realized that boxing was how I was going to succeed in life. People began recognizing that I had a talent, but to the world outside of Louisville, Kentucky, I was still unknown. Before I could change that, there were two more obstacles that I had to overcome. The first was Corky Baker.