One of Muhammad Ali’s fights took place while I was a student at Columbia Law School.

I went to a movie theatre on the Upper West Side to watch the closed circuit telecast.

Kenneth Clark was seated in the row in front of me.

Not the PBS host but the sociologist who had conducted studies showing the Negro children preferred white dolls to darker skinned dolls.

Clark’s work was included in Thurgood Marshall’s legal brief and cited by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.

I introduced myself to Dr. Clark and asked, “Why are you here?”

“To see Ali,” he replied.

One commentator this weekend said that Ali gave people courage.

Dr. Clark, along with many others, gave the Champ the opportunity do so.