Football star Jim Brown organized the Cleveland Summit in response to Muhammad Ali’s refusal, a month earlier, to enter the draft for the Vietnam War. This gathering was composed of 12 leading African-American men, eleven athletes. The participants expressed support for Ali’s decision in a press conference following the summit.
It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, June 4, 1967. Some of the greatest Black athletes in the country gathered in a nondescript office building in Cleveland.
According to legend — and countless media reports in subsequent years that failed to challenge that legend — the athletes had come together to decide whether to lend their support to Muhammad Ali, who had been stripped of his heavyweight title and faced charges of draft dodging for his refusal to serve in the Vietnam War.
Ali needed support, that much is true. Ever since he’d changed his name from Cassius Clay, joined the Nation of Islam (NOI) and refused to join the military, he’d become one of the most reviled men in the nation, hated almost as much by Black Americans as by White ones. So the fact that other black athletes would convene in support of Ali held significance. The men meeting in Cleveland that day — including Jim Brown, Bill Russell and Lew Alcindor — were widely admired.
Those in Attendance:
Athletes:
Muhammad Ali – Heavyweight Boxing Champion
Bill Russell – Boston Celtics (NBA)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) – UCLA Basketball
Jim Brown – Cleveland Browns (NFL)
Walter Beach – Cleveland Browns (NFL)
Willie Davis – Green Bay Packers (NFL)
Curtis McClinton – Kansas City Chiefs (NFL)
Bobby Mitchell – Washington Redskins (NFL)
Jim Shorter – Cleveland Browns (NFL)
Sidney Williams – Cleveland Browns (NFL)
John Wooten – Cleveland Browns (NFL)
Civic Leader:
Carl Stokes – Democratic State Rep. and soon-to-be Mayor of Cleveland
There were multiple interests at play in that room and differing conceptions of the best way to advance the position of Blacks in America. Some of the men were ex-military. Others had economic stakes in the outcome.