New Books In Sports

Return of the King: The Rebirth of Muhammad Ali and the Rise of Atlanta (U Nebraska Press, 2025) tells the story of Muhammad Ali’s return to the ring in 1970, after a more than three-year suspension for refusing his draft notice as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. With Ali’s career still in doubt, he found new support in shifting public opinion about the war and in Atlanta, a city still governed by white supremacy, but a white supremacy decidedly different from that of its neighbor cities in the Deep South.  Atlanta had been courting and landing professional sports teams in football, basketball, and baseball since the end of 1968. An influential state politician, Leroy Johnson, Georgia’s first Black state senator since Reconstruction, was determined to help Ali return after his exile. The state had no boxing commission to prevent Ali from fighting there, so Johnson made it his mission for Ali to make a comeback in Georgia. Ali’s opponent would be Jerry Quarry, the top heavyweight contender a