On this day in April 28, 1967, boxing champion Muhammad
Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army and was
immediately stripped of his heavyweight title.
Ali, a Muslim, cited religious reasons for his decision to
forgo military service.
The future three-time world champ changed his name
to Muhammad Ali in 1964 after converting to Islam.
On April 25, 1950, the Boston Celtics made Chuck
Cooper an All-American forward from Duquesne
University, the first African American picked in
the NBA draft.
With the selection, the first pick in the second round,
Cooper breaks the NBA’s color barrier and changes
the league for the better. Cooper died of cancer on
February 5, 1984,
Cooper was inducted into the Naismith Memorial
Basketball Hall of Fame on September 9, 2019.
Charles Henry Cooper (September 29, 1926 – February 5, 1984)
On December 20, 1957, while spending the Christmas holidays
at Graceland, his newly purchased Tennessee mansion, rock-
and-roll star Elvis Presley received his draft notice for the
United States Army.
Muhammad Ali, the reigning world heavyweight boxing champion, entered the combative ring of politics and culture by refusing to
serve in the United States military at the height of the Vietnam
War on this day in history, April 28, 1967.
"I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong," Ali famously said the
year before, the exact quote the source of some dispute, in a
battle that made it all the way to the United States Supreme
Court. The Vietnam War was at its heights at the time.
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Ali was convicted and given five years in prison for refusing induction in to the United States draft as mandated by the Selective Service Act.
