Muhammad Ali - HISTORY

In 1954, a boy from Kentucky had his bicycle stolen. Seeing him angry, a police officer suggested that in order to beat the thief, he'd better learn how to fight. Specifically: how to box.

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At a press conference held at the United Nations in 1979, boxing great Muhammad Ali is asked about the role of politics in sports.

On December 15, 1971, at the United Nations Security Council meeting, Pakistan's foreign minister bursts into an angry and tearful tirade, accusing the council of legalizing aggression while the Indo-Pakistani War rages on.

Live coverage of boxing champ Joe Louis is captured in a broadcast from Olympia Stadium in Detroit on January 3, 1951. Mounting a comeback, Louis beats Freddie Beshore in the fourth round.

In 1954, Medgar Evers became the first state field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi. As a civil rights leader, he fought to end the racial injustice he experienced growing up in the South.

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. A commentary on the ruling explores the differing theories on integration at the time.

From 1954 until 1960, Martin Luther King Jr. was the pastor of the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, the only church where MLK pastored and the site where he began his Civil Rights activism.

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