I love history but not 1,000 page history books. The last few years I have been buying audio books and listening to them in my car. I bought the Carl Sandburg one volume history of Abraham Lincoln. It is about 20 cds and I am still only half way through although I have been listening for probably a year now.
Anyway, today on SCOTUS blog, there is a great – and short – history of Muhammad Ali’s refusal to join the army and how it got to the Supreme Court. I lived through it but did not know more than a small percent of the details – especially the details that were not in the movie Ali with Will Smith. The link is here. The link includes a link to the Supreme Court’s opinion and an audio link to the Court’s oral argument. Apparently the conundrum was factual; was Ali refusing to fight this war or refusing to fight all wars? The article includes a discussion about Ali’s fights to get his boxing license back in New York. Highly recommended.