I have no idea where you were the evening of Oct. 26, 1970, but I was in Atlanta for an evening of sheer terror and high drama.
How would you like to be standing between Diana Ross, wearing a see-through blouse, and Muhammad Ala, who had just knocked Jerry Quarry senseless in three rounds. Diane was screaming, 'Muhammad, you are the best in the world at what you do!' And Ali was screaming, 'Diane, you the best in the world at what you do, too.'
I was between them, holding my little tape recorder, thinking, 'I'm pretty darn good at what I do, too. But my expertise was not in boxing, and I wasn't about to arouse the wrath of the former World Heavyweight Champion by staring at Diana's chest. (I did take a couple of quick glances, and really, the view just wasn't that terrific.)
But I'm getting ahead of myself. My trip started by driving my old Starfire Olds from Route 4, Piedmont, to Atlanta, where I had reserved a room at the Georgia Tech Motel. I had taken it upon myself to file for press credentials the moment I learned of the fight, and was shocked to learn I had been granted access to this history-making night. All of that was the fun part.
The scary part started when I drove over near the auditorium. Maybe you have heard that Sherman and his Federal Forces burned Atlanta during the War of Northern Aggression. He didn't burn this particular auditorium because he figured it would fall down just any day, anyway. It was in a seedy part of town. It was old, and dirty, and small. The Black Panthers were protesting and handing out literature as I walked by, with briefcase in one hand and portable typewriter in the other.
Scared?
You bet your butt. I kept wondering, 'Fant, what the heck was you thinking when you did this?
Then I saw a familiar face making the same walk. Dan Foster, the Sports Editor of the Greenville News, was a half-block behind me. So I waited and we walked together. We got thorugh the door just fine, then discovered the place was packed and it was almost two hours until fight time.
A seat? On press row? Unthinkable. There was a fellow there with an arm band, and we walked up to him and preesented our credentials. He laughed at us. He called us hillbillies, and said we were just stupid for walking into a championship fight this close to fight time and expecting to get a seat.
Then Jesse Jackson got into things. Jesse, who is a Greenville native and a former halfback at Sterling High School, looked around, saw us standing there, and said, "Hello, Dan, Reese." And turned back around. The usher's jaw was on his chest. when he got his mouth back under control, he said, "I don't know who you two are, but you are somebody if Jesse speaks to you. I'll find you seats."
He did, too. Dan and I laughed about how any high school football standout would know the names of the sports writers for the local paper. Jesse knew.
We hardly had time to get seated before Ali started beating Quarry like a yard dog. He hit him with everything but the corner stool, and in the third round Quarry decided he had enjoyed all he could stand. he hit the floor.
The place erupted. We had been shown a room, over beneath the balcony, where Ali would be making his victory statement. That's what we were told before the fight started. Where Ali wold be making his victory statement.
So, still expecting to have someone snatch my briefcase and typewriter, I rushed over to this room, waved my credentials, and went though the door. And practically everyone in the auditorium followed me. It was a madhouse. That's when I discovered I was the buffer between Ross and Ali. The oley quotes I got on tape were the two of them sceaming at each other. In just a few moments, Ali was gone, along with the 'famous folks' who had pushed through the doors. The room was still packed, but it was packed with ordinary folks, like me.
And here came Tom Brokow. He was working for an Atlanta television station, and he was letting a few other writers in on a big secret. Back then there was an African American Senator in Atlanta, and I am hoping I remember correctly that his name was Johnson.
Anyway, Brokow said there was a private victory party to be held in one of the Senator's homes, in West Atlanta, and Brokow had wrangled invitations for us sports writers to attend.
Not this country boy. I was delighted to be invited. (I still believe Brokow made up the invitation part and was going to use the rest of us as leverage to be allowed into the party. Brokow stressed that it was in these after-fight parties that Ali opened up and talked.
I kept nodding and writing down the address as Brokow talked, and I was knowing all the time I knew exactly where the Georgia Tech Motel was, and if Ali came there, I had questions. Otherwise, I was through interviewing for the night.
And I eased out of the auditorium and beat it down the street, looking everywhere for leftover Black Panthers.
The next day, listening to the radio heading back to Greenville, I was thinking about everything I had seen and been a part of the previous night, when a news item came across.
It seems a large group of people who had received invitations to an after-fight party in West Atlanta, had been met at the door by two men with shotguns. They were escorted into a side room, forced to completely disrobe, then led to the basement, where they were made to lie flat on the floor.
The only thing I could think of was Brokow's white rear shining like a beacon in the midst of those victims. That was 44 years ago, and I have never got close enough to ask Brtokow, 'Did you end up nekkit in the floor after the Aki-Quarry fight? I've always figured, even if ye did, he's lie about it. I would.