Taken from the works of Patrick Parr, the author of three books, most recently Malcolm Before X.
ON FEBRUARY 25, 1964, Malcolm X, 38, suspended from the Nation of Islam, sat in row 7, seat 7, watching Cassius Clay fight Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship. Rain hammered the half-filled Miami Convention Hall, and many, especially the boxing media men surrounding the ring, had believed Clay would lose.
Malcolm knew otherwise.
The complicated friendship between Malcolm X and Cassius Clay—shortly after the Liston bout, Clay officially changed his name to Muhammad Ali—has been described in books, films, and documentaries, but long ignored is how much ring experience Malcolm had.
Starting in childhood, Malcolm Little emulated his brother Philbert and participated in Golden Gloves bouts, often losing. In Malcolm’s 1965 autobiography, via Alex Haley’s interpretation, he described being knocked out by a white 13-year-old named Bill Peterson. “That white boy was the beginning and the end of my fighting career.”
If you don’t count prison, then yes, it was…
Very little has been documented about Malcolm’s prison years. That’s understandable, since what goes on behind prison walls is hard to verify. But through a combination of prison files, prison newspapers, interviews, and site visits, I’ve managed to find quite a bit about Malcolm’s six and a half years behind bars. One very interesting fact that can now be verified is that during his 15-month stint at the Massachusetts-Reformatory in Concord (1947-1948) Malcolm boxed against three different fighters. In fact, there is even a round-by-round analysis for each fight.
The men at MR-Concord had organized “Monday Night Club Boxing,” held periodically throughout the year, but largely January through April, at 7pm in MR-Concord’s Tufts Hall, named after the first prison superintendent Colonel Gardiner Tufts and located “under the chapel.” Typically, six or seven three-round bouts were scheduled across weight classes.
The event had been organized by the men incarcerated. There were two referees, a timekeeper at the bell, three judges and an announcer. There was even an in-prison reporter, 23-year-old Pennsylvania born William Paul Williams, documenting each fight, his accounts becoming a part of MR-Concord’s Our Paper.
On February 3, 1947, less than a month after being transferred from the ancient hell of Charlestown State Prison, Malcolm, not yet a member of the Nation of Islam and serving an 8–10-year sentence for burglary, stepped into the Tufts Hall ring.
At Charlestown, Malcolm was not given much chance to be active, forced to spend 17.5 hours a day in a 6 x 9 cell. Now, at Concord, he had a proper gym and equipment to use. His opponent that night was Robert D. Nash, 20. Nash weighed in at 180, and Malcolm 176.
Opponent #1 – Robert D. Nash
According to Nash’s prison file, he was black and had lived in the “poor and colored” sections in and around Lynn, Massachusetts, the second oldest of ten siblings. His mother gave birth to him at 16, and his parents separated when he was 17. Nash had dropped out of school midway through the 7th grade, but continued taking classes in “the art department” of “public schools,” because his teachers believed he had a talent for “sketching.”
Nash worked with Malcolm for a few months in MR-Concord’s furniture department. He was given a five-year sentence for operating a motor vehicle without authority, after his “right to” operate had been “suspended.”
For his “leisure” in prison, Nash read “current magazines,” such as Life, Reader’s Digest and Collier’s, dabbled in wood carving, and attended “Catholic services regularly.” His mother explained to a prison official that “Robert enjoyed dancing and singing. He was very proficient in both. It is his custom to become acquainted with all the latest songs.”
Here in full is how prison reporter Williams saw Malcolm’s three-round fight with Nash: “Nash took left jabs from Little then countered with a right that did not do any damage. Little ripped a hard right in the second then both threw light jabs. This continued throughout the final round, therefore the punches had little or no effect on the other at the bell.”
The winner was not reported in the paper unless a KO or a TKO occurred.
Opponent #2 – Frank R. Willis
One week later and Malcolm was back at it, his opponent Frank R. Willis, 22, white, and three days away from being released on parole.
Willis was the only name out of the three on the 1950 Census, which confirmed that he was white. According to Willis’s lengthy prison file, Willis’s father died when he was two, and he dropped out of the 7th grade to help his mother, but soon ran into a “gangster” named Ranahan, known for being an intimidating “prize fighter.”
After Willis was sentenced at 19 for “using a car without authority,” Willis’s mother was in a way relieved. She felt jail was a good way to escape the influence of gangsters, and Willis had once hoped to join the Marines to support his mother while evading Ranahan’s influence.
On that Monday night in Tufts Hall, Willis tapped gloves with Malcolm weighing 175, while Malcolm remained 176 for the bout.
For Malcolm, the fight proved more difficult than the Nash fight a week before.
Per Williams: “Willis hammered lefts and rights to the head and body of Little in the opening round. Light jabs were hitting their marks then Little connected with hard blows to the head of Willis. In the second Little caught Willis with three jabs to the head at the bell. The final saw Willis the aggressor as he fired repeated lefts and rights to the head and body. Little continued to jab until the final bell.”
When looking into Malcolm’s own prison file, medical reports show him receiving treatment for a “laceration” on the chin on February 11. Most likely, Willis landed a shot that cut Malcolm and left a ½ inch scar near the bottom of his chin.
Opponent #3 – Floyd Johnston
Malcolm took a couple months off after the Willis fight, but on April 28, he entered the Tufts Hall ring six pounds heavier, set to fight 21-year-old Floyd Johnston, who came in at 180.
Johnston’s prison file states that he was black, and worked as a dishwasher and farmhand before prison. He’d been charged with five counts of robbery, stealing money from five different individuals, and sentenced to five years. For Johnston’s leisure, he read “sports and adventure stories,” and played football and baseball while attending Concord’s school program “four nights a week”—he’d finished the 8th grade—and sometimes attended Protestant services.
Johnston also worked in the furniture shop for three months, which meant he would have at some point been working near Malcolm.
As you’ll read, the fight was by far for Malcolm the most punishing of the three.
According to Williams, “Johnston recovered from a slow start when in the second he unleashed savage blows at Little who went down for a count of 7 being saved by the bell. Again, in the third, Little was counted for 7 but recovered and went to a finish more or less in a defensive sort of a way.”
At least as was reported in Our Paper, Malcolm did not fight again on Monday nights at Concord after being knocked down twice by Johnston. On April 29, 1947, the day after his brutal bout, Malcolm was written up for carrying a handmade six-inch blade, or “shiv.” It was indeed possible, since MR-Concord was notorious for younger men turning aggressive, the average age being 21. Or, perhaps Malcolm still had beef with Johnston. The prison file doesn’t have the full story.
Flash forward 17 years, and there was Malcolm, taking in the Clay-Liston bout with a keen sense of what it took to be a fighter. He’d prayed with Clay just before the bout, and helped to empower him. “Except for whatever chemical it was that got into Cassius’ eyes and blinded him temporarily in the fourth and fifth rounds,” Malcolm explained, “the fight went according to plan. [Clay] evaded Liston’s powerful punches. The third round automatically began the tiring of the aging Liston, who was overconfidently trained to go only two rounds. Then, desperate, Liston lost. The secret of one of fight history’s greatest upsets was that months before that night, Clay had out-thought Liston.”
Soon after the fight, Clay pushed away from Malcolm’s influence, taking the side of Elijah Muhammad, an act he’d later wish to take back. As he explained 40 years later in his autobiography, The Soul of a Butterfly, “Turning my back on Malcolm was one of the mistakes that I regret most in my life.” Not only did Ali turn his back on a friend and mentor, but a man who understood the courage it takes to step into the ring. “He was a visionary—ahead of us all.”
Adapted from Malcolm Before X, published by the University of Massachusetts Press. Patrick Parr is the author of three books, most recently Malcolm Before X. He is professor of English at Lakeland University Japan and lives with his wife near Tokyo.
