125 pages • 4 hours read
James Patterson, Kwame AlexanderBecoming Muhammad Ali
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Middle Grade | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Becoming the Greatest and Overcoming Oppression
Many people know Muhammad Ali as “the Greatest,” and this novel shows that the boxer’s charisma has always been a part of his personality. However, the illumination of his childhood and the years that he spent training—years in which he always rose again but still struggled at times—provides more of a context for what shaped the great boxer. Throughout most of the novel, he is Cassius Clay. The book narrates the moment he first begins boxing with Joe Martin and his journey from there to winning his first Golden Gloves championship in Chicago.
Patterson and Alexander use the novel in verse to portray Cassius’s inner thoughts and sense of self. Round 1 describes Cassius’s loss in his first national Golden Gloves tournament, after which he sets out his goal immediately: “’Cause Cassius is courageous, / tenacious / and one day / he’ll be / the greatest” (19). There is no doubt in Cassius’s mind of where he is going. Though the novel’s chronology is not strictly linear, beginning with this fight lays the groundwork for where Cassius plans to end up.
Outside the ring, Cassius encounters the racial tension rampant in the 1950s, and he sees boxing as a way out of this, imagining “how boxing / was gonna set me free, / set us all free” (12). Cassius believes in justice, and he sees boxing as a way to show the world who he is, even though many think less of him because of his race. He points to several of his heroes throughout the novel, highlighting Black historical figures whose stories were subsumed and replaced by white men. He roots for the boxers Jack Johnson and Sugar Ray Robinson, asks for music by Black artists to be played in the boxing gym, and mentions Invisible Man, a novel about race by Ralph Ellison.
However, the historical figure who most shapes Cassius’s desire to be the greatest is Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African American boy murdered in 1955. When Cassius learns the news of Till’s death, he is shaken. Poem 100, “After,” is purposely short, letting the single stanza resound as Cassius describes explicitly how stricken he is by Till’s murder. The single stanza also illustrates how Cassius, who is often verbose and energetic when he talks about his fights, can barely describe how he feels, even as he racks up victories. It is in the wake of Till’s death that he realizes that boxing “could save us, / take me away / from all this” (217). After this epiphany, time moves faster, and Cassius becomes more and more focused on boxing, showing how hard he is willing to work and echoing the long-term effects of seeing the life of a young boy like him cut short because of the color of his skin.
Cassius’s reasons for fighting never leave his mind. He knows that boxing is a sport that reproduces racism, putting down an Ernest Hemingway story about boxing because of the derogatory language Hemingway to talk about African Americans. He notes that because of police involvement in a fight between Jack Johnson and Tommy Burns, there is no film of the first Black heavyweight champion receiving his title.
Yet, Cassius’s desire for being “the Greatest” is not just about victory. As Lucky recounts later, Cassius once told a reporter that he’d like to be remembered for his love, patience, generosity, faith, and concern. It is also about “not wanting / to be /invisible” (258). Boxing is a very public sport, and by becoming the greatest, Cassius also shows that despite every obstacle erected by a racist system, he is still able to rise up.
Remembering Who You Are and Where You Came From
This coming-of-age story recounts how Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali. Cassius embodied many of the characteristics that would come to define him as an adult while he was still in high school. The novel-in-verse form follows Cassius’s developments as they occur, and the use of retrospective prose from Lucky’s perspective compares and contrasts this with a much older Muhammad Ali, particularly in Round Ten. From the start of the novel, Granddaddy Herman tells his grandson that he needs to “know who you are, Cassius. / And whose you are. / Know where you going / and where you from” (25). Cassius keeps this reminder in his head throughout the book, understanding it more and more as he grows older. It helps set the precedent for becoming Muhammad Ali, laying a foundation of family and community that Cassius carries with him no matter where he goes.
In Round 2, Cassius says that “I’m from the Kentucky Derby / and the land of baseball bats, / from the two Cassius Clays before me—one / black, one white. / I am from slavery / to freedom” (28). He is aware of his history through Granddaddy Herman, and he is also deeply grounded in his present setting in Louisville. Right before he passes away, Granddaddy Herman reminds Cassius again to remember who he is and to keep that history with him.
The novel ends with an echoing of Granddaddy Herman’s phrase, as Cassius visits his grave just before leaving for Chicago. On his way to what will be a major moment in his career, he knows that he must be true to himself, to his family, and even to his community. Whispering over the gravestone, he tells Granddaddy Herman, “Because of you / I know who I am / I know whose I am and / I know where I’m going / I hope you can see that / Your words changed me” (292). His visit to the grave is symbolic of Joe Martin’s assertion that “the fight is won before you get in the ring” (187). Going to Granddaddy Herman’s grave and repeating his words shows how Cassius has prepared mentally and how he feels grounded. When he meets his first opponent, he even says, “Tony Madigan didn’t stand a chance / ’cause I was fighting / […] / for Louisville / for America / for my chance / for my children / and their children / for a chance / at something better / at something way / greater” (297). He has already won.
This character development is part of what makes him not just a great boxer but a great man, and it is something that stays with him for the rest of his life, especially in his endeavors to work for justice in the world.
Public and Private Personas
The entire novel provides an introspective look into Cassius Clay’s life and a glimpse into the way he interacts with people both in public and in private, presenting a fully developed picture of the boxer. It also helps explain how Cassius became Muhammad Ali as an adult. For someone often described (and self-described) as “the Greatest,” Cassius’s quieter, more introspective side may seem surprising. However, the novel’s poetry allows Cassius to describe his feelings and thoughts in intimate detail. Poem 5, “Long Count,” exemplifies this insight into Cassius’s mind. As he lies on the ground in the ring and the referee counts up to the knockout, Cassius thinks about home, “wish[ing] my father / was sitting ringside / shouting my name” (11). As the referee counts on, Cassius wills himself to stand up, striving back toward victory against Francis Turley.
Lucky meditates on Cassius’s humility in Round 8, explaining that “deep down, where it mattered, he could be very humble. It was another part of him that he didn’t let most people see” (231). The poems provide more direct evidence of when Cassius is humbled, as when he fights Corky Butler and tries to conceal “the fact / that I was scared / to death” (249). His mother also keeps Cassius humble. He wants her to not have to clean houses for rich white families, but she takes pride in this work, which he must respect. She tries to keep him from thinking that he is above anything, and Lucky emphasizes that no one could humble Cassius like Odessa Clay.
Emmett Till’s death is a huge moment for Cassius, forcing him to recognize the real danger that young Black men face simply because of the color of their skin. In Poem 101, “I Was Thirteen,” Cassius details everything he experienced in his 13th year, ending with how deeply moved he was upon learning about the brutal nature of Emmett Till’s murder. He says that seeing Emmett Till’s face—which was famously exposed in an open casket because his mother wanted the world to see the violence that had been inflicted upon her son—ensured that he saw “the face / of America” (215). Hearing Cassius’s inner thoughts, the private persona that does not have to project confidence at all times, reveals that this is the moment when racism becomes intimately clear to Cassius in a way that it was not before.
In Poem 25, “Two Louisvilles,” Granddaddy Herman describes the dichotomy between the Louisville where it is safe to be Black and the Louisville where the racism is palpable. This is another aspect of Cassius’s public and private personas; he is taught the need to adjust his behavior depending on the setting. Lucky remembers when Mrs. Clay sat the boys down and explained that “[i]t sounds crazy, but it was true. We had to be one way for ourselves and another way for the rest of the world. We couldn’t let white people see what we really thought or how much we really knew. It was the only way to stay safe” (129).
Lucky also notes that there was a moment when Cassius’s mother was turned away because she was Black and that it was a defining episode for Cassius. To Cassius, this is blatantly unjust, and boxing is a way to bridge this. He knows that he shouldn’t have to switch between behaviors. He should not have to fit into a white definition of what is respectable.
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