Just to get you all ready for St Patrick’s day, I have compiled some of what I think is the best Irish music.
The best of Irish music
Category Archives: Irish History
When Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali
On March 6,1964 Cassius Clay announced that he no longer would be known as Cassius Clay but as Muhammad Ali.
Clay had been linked to the Nation of Islam, although they initially had refused him entry as a member due to his boxing career. However when Clay beat Joe Liston in 1964, the Nation of Islam did accept him , I can only speculate that this was a good Public Relations move for them.
Shortly afterwards on March 6, Elijah Muhammad gave a radio address that Clay would be renamed Muhammad (one who is worthy of praise) Ali (most high).
Muhammad Ali had claimed that his old name Cassius Clay was a “slave name and a white man’s name”
Unfortunately this is what happens so often when athletes, musicians, actors or other celebrities get involved in a political movement(although the nation of Islam had religious elements, it was really a political movement) they get very enthusiastic about the cause and sometimes forget to do all the research.
Cassius Marcellus Clay had been a slave owner, but he also was a politician, and emancipationist who worked for the abolition of slavery.
He was a founding member of the Republican Party in Kentucky. It was in this same state where a certain Mr. Abe Grady from Ennis in Ireland, met a free African-American woman and married her. They had a son named John Lewis Grady. He married Birdie Moorehead and the couple had a daughter Odessa Lee Grady . Odessa married Cassius Clay Sr, who was the son of Herman H. Clay(born in 1876 after slavery had been abolished in the USA).
In 2009 Muhammad Ali visited Ennis to trace his routes.
No one can ever deny the genius of Muhammad Ali, but I do think he was a small bit blindsided by the politics surrounding the Nation of Islam.
However all in all he was a great man and a generous human being. When it comes to boxing he was without a shadow of a doubt the greatest. There probably will never be a boxer of his caliber again, especially when you look at the boxing industry nowadays, and I say industry because it is very little to do with sports anymore.
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Sources
https://www.espn.com/sportscentury/features/00014063.html
https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/muhammad-ali-irish-roots
James S Jameson-Heir to the Whiskey empire and full time Psycho.
James S. Jameson was the great-great-grandson of John Jameson, the founder of the famed Irish Whiskey company, and as such was heir to the family fortune.
Like many rich heirs of the era, Jameson considered himself something of an adventurer, and would tag along on the expeditions of more accomplished explorers.
The end of the 19th century was a time of unimaginable cruelty in Africa as the nations of Europe sought to divide it into imperialist states. Millions of Africans were killed by the conquering forces from the north as white men pillaged the land for its vast natural resources, gold, and diamonds. Expeditions were sent to the heart of the “dark continent” hoping to uncover treasures.
One such excursion featured the wealthy James Jameson, heir to the whiskey empire.
According to an affidavit by Assad Farran, a Syrian translator on the expedition to the Congo, Jameson expressed an interest in witnessing cannibalism in 1888. He was advised to purchase a slave girl, which he picked up for the bargain price of six handkerchiefs. Jameson gave the 10-year-old girl as a gift to cannibals. She was lashed to a tree and stabbed to death, then hacked apart and devoured. Meanwhile, Jameson stood by, making a series of rough sketches of the incident.
The girl was tied to a tree,” said Farran,
“the natives sharpened their knives the while. One of them then stabbed her twice in the belly.”
In Jameson’s own diary he then wrote, “Three men then ran forward, and began to cut up the body of the girl; finally her head was cut off, and not a particle remained, each man taking his piece away down the river to wash it.”
Later, he would render a series of illustrations and display them to others in the group. In describing them, Farran said “There were six of them, all neatly done. The first sketch was of the girl as she was led to the tree. The second showed her stabbed, with the blood gushing from the wounds. The third showed her dissected. The fourth, fifth, and sixth showed men carrying off various parts of her body.”
Jameson died shortly thereafter, but not before writing a rebuttal of the incident. Although he claimed that he was present for an incident of cannibalism, he claimed he was averse to it. He even corroborated the point about the handkerchiefs, although instead of payment, he claimed that they were given to prove the cannibals would actually go through with it. The rebuttal seems rather flimsy in retrospect, and as other members of the group would testify to Jameson’s rather execrable character, he likely operated with sinister intent.
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I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
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History of Sorts 
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