When We Were Kings

Vanancia Hyppolite

AFA 2004

Professor Jaiteh

14 July 2017

        When We Were Kings

        “When we were Kings” is a documentary filmed in Zaire, Africa during the 1970s. The film focuses on the culture of Africa and the events leading up to the “Rumble in the Jungle” fight between famed boxer Muhammad Ali and his opponent George Foreman: This is the fight were Muhammad regained his heavyweight title which he had gotten taken away because he did not wish to fight in the Vietnam War.

        The documentary shows the life of the Zaire people. The village is overcrowded and the people are poor, on top of their economic troubles we saw the political strife the people experienced with the dictator Mobutu. Despite all of this, the African people remained proud of their culture and country. They held a 3-day festival were the women and children were wearing traditional garments and proudly dancing to the beating of drums and music. I recall Spike Lee saying that “there was a time when, if you called a black person African, they’d be ready to fight.”: however, being exposed to raw African culture and seeing how much pride the African people had for their culture, even in the toughest of situations, opened Ali’s eyes and made him acknowledge that Americans and Africans were not that different and he developed a sense of proudness for being a part of that culture.

I felt like the music played a key role in setting the foundation of the film. African American performers such as James Brown and BB King performed in a huge festival leading up to the fight. These were performers who had pride in their African roots and Muhammad Ali commented saying that this festival was “the first assembly of the American black man in Africa in the history of the world.” The music acted as a uniting force between the people and I felt like this was the most beautiful scene in the documentary: it had me thinking about the first module we did in this course and how it focused on What it meant to be black. Although over time, the African culture has become influenced and can be broken down into many different subcultures, seeing the people reunite at this festival gave a sense of reuniting with the Motherland itself.

Muhmmad Ali became a force for the African people in the documentary because he stood for them, in contrast to his opponent George Foreman who showed no interest in the culture.         I felt like this was what gave Ali an advantage over Foreman because he had the support of a nation on his back and he had immersed himself in the culture and came to understand what it meant to be black and the pride of being of African descent. The people even started a chant for Ali saying, “Ali kill him!” Although both men were great fighters who had great confidence in themselves, Ali showed a more personal and sympathetic personality compared to Foreman who was stronger and ruthless.