Muhammad Ali's 1964 Homecoming to Ghana

Muhammad Ali landed in Accra on May 16, 1964, less than three months after he beat Sonny Liston for the heavyweight title and dropped the name Cassius Clay. Ghana’s foreign minister, Kojo Botsio, met him at the airport on President Kwame Nkrumah’s behalf, and a crowd pressed in so tightly that Ali reportedly called out, “Who’s the King?” The answer came back from the crowd: “You are!” It was the first stop on a two-week visit that would take him through Accra and Kumasi.

Nkrumah received Ali at Flagstaff House and gave him a length of Oyokoman kente cloth, the pattern traditionally reserved for Ashanti royalty, along with copies of his own books “Africa Must Unite” and “Consciencism.” Ghanaians took to calling the visitor “Kwame” Ali, the Akan name given to boys born on a Saturday, the day he had arrived. At a press conference during the trip, Ali kept reporters guessing about what he might say next: “Right now, I’m in no mood for talking. But when I start talking you’ll have to hold your ears.”

The visit doubled as a spectacle and a diplomatic event. Nkrumah’s government had Ali stage boxing exhibitions in Accra and in Kumasi, where roughly 40,000 people turned out to watch him spar with his brother, Rahman. In Kumasi, Ali also met the Asantehene, Prempeh II, and toured the city with a stop at the shrine housing the legendary sword said to have been driven into the ground by Okomfo Anokye, a sword no one has ever managed to pull free.

Nkrumah, an outspoken critic of colonial rule who was pushing for a unified Africa, used state radio and newspapers to present the young champion as proof of Black achievement on the world stage. Ali left Ghana for Nigeria after two weeks, continuing a tour that had been encouraged in part by his friend and mentor Malcolm X, and returned to Africa a decade later for the 1974 fight in Kinshasa that would become known as the Rumble in the Jungle.