The Daily History Chronicle

On April 28, 1967, Muhammad Ali refused military induction in Houston and was stripped of his title before the day was out. Most people know the broad arc. Fewer know that Ali reportedly told Sugar Ray Robinson he couldn't refuse that Elijah Muhammad had ordered it, or that the Supreme Court reversal came within one vote of going the other way, decided ultimately by a procedural technicality rather than principle. This episode holds all of it at once: the courage, the institutional pressure, the servicemen who had no Ali option, and the accidental chain of events that made him a free man.