African Americans and their children need to tell their own stories, instead of enabling misguided bigots to seize the narrative – a false narrative that misrepresents them, as a people and threatens their uniqueness, as individuals.

The boxing champion won many battles in and outside the ring during the 1960s and 1970s. Ali’s life illustrates the role of African Americans in sports and its relationship to the broader struggle against national oppression.

What do African Americans have to gain from their continued support for centrist Democratic candidates? Joblessness, poverty, mass incarceration, police terrorism and institutional racism remain. African Americans must break with the Democratic Party to establish their own organization that will speak in their name, fighting for a program of total liberation and socialism.

US President Barack Obama expresses pride in his African heritage, but his regime over the last seven years has not demonstrated any substantial commitment to the wellbeing of the African people. He has merely continued the imperial interventions and militarism of his predecessors.