"Ali had just gotten his title taken away because he had refused to go in the Army, so he was a martyr. Our story was Let's do him as a martyr. Who's a martyr? Saint Sebastian is a martyr. When he got to the shoot, we explained what it was all about—we never told people what they were going to do before they got to a shoot; they would never show up if we did—and there was a little hassle given the fact that Saint Sebastian is a Christian. Ali said, 'I'm a Muslim now.' And so we got Chicago on the line and I spoke to Herbert Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad's son, from the Nation of Islam. I told him this was going to be a cover of Esquire magazine, and Herbert Muhammad said, 'Oh, that's good publicity. I'll tell him that he can do it.' And so Ali did."
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