Remembering Muhammad Ali's lasting influence beyond the ring.

When Dr. Martin Luther King came out against the war in Vietnam in 1967, he was criticized by the mainstream press and his own advisers who told him to not focus on “foreign” policy. But King forged forward, and to justify his new stand, said publicly: “Like Muhammad Ali puts it, we are all – black and brown and poor – victims of the same system of oppression.”

When Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island, he said that Muhammad Ali made him feel like the walls were not there.

When John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists on the medal stand in Mexico City, one of their demands was to “restore Muhammad Ali’s title.” They called Ali “the warrior-saint of the Black Athlete’s Revolt.”

When Billie Jean King was aiming to win rights for women in sports, Ali told her, “You are the queen!” She said that made her feel brave in her own skin.

What Muhammad Ali did – in a culture that idolizes black athletes while criminalizing black skin – was redefine what it meant to be tough. Through the Champ’s words on the streets and deeds in the ring, bravery was not only standing up to Sonny Liston. It was speaking truth to power, no matter the cost. He was a boxer whose very presence taught a simple and dangerous lesson 50 years ago: “Real men” and “real women” raise their voices and fight for peace.

My favorite Ali line comes from when he was suspended from boxing for refusing to be drafted into the Vietnam War. He was attending a rally for fair housing in Louisville when he said, “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No, I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over.

“This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again: The real enemy of my people is here.”

For an emerging movement demanding an end to racism and an emerging anti-war struggle, he was a transformative figure.

As Ali said years later, “Some people thought I was a hero. Some people said that what I did was wrong. But everything I did was according to my conscience. I wasn’t trying to be a leader. I just wanted to be free.”

DAVE ZIRIN is the sports editor of The Nation.