He did such a job on my reputation in the Negro neighborhood that I practically went into hiding. ANegro just can't be whipped by somebody white and return with his head up to the neighborhood,especially in those days, when sports and, to a lesser extent show business, were the only fields opento Negroes, and when the ring was the only place a Negro could whip a white man and not belynched. When I did show my face again, the Negroes I knew rode me so badly I knew I had to dosomething.

　　But the worst of my humiliations was my younger brother Reginald's attitude: he simply nevermentioned the fight. It was the way he looked at me-and avoided looking at me. So I went back to thegym, and I trained-hard. I beat bags and skipped rope and grunted and sweated all over the place.

　　And finally I signed up to fight Bill Peterson again. This time, the bouts were held in his hometown ofAlma, Michigan.

　　The only thing better about the rematch was that hardly anyone I knew was there to see it; I wasparticularly grateful for Reginald's absence. The moment the bell rang, I saw a fist, then the canvascoming up, and ten seconds later the referee was saying "Ten!" over me. It was probably the shortest"fight" in history. I lay there listening to the full count, but I couldn't move. To tell the truth, I'm notsure I wanted to move.

　　That white boy was the beginning and the end of my fight career. A lot of tunes in these later yearssince I became a Muslim, I've thought back to that fight and reflected that it was Allah's work to stopme: I might have wound up punchy.

　　Not long after this, I came into a classroom with my hat on. I did it deliberately. The teacher, who waswhite, ordered me to keep the hat on, and to walk around and around the room until he told me to stop. "That way," he said, "everyone can see you. Meanwhile, we'll go on with class for those who arehere to learn something."I was still walking around when he got up from his desk and turned to the blackboard to writesomething on it. Everyone in the classroom was looking when, at this moment, I passed behind hisdesk, snatched up a thumbtack and deposited it in his chair. When he turned to sit back down, I wasfar from the scene of the crime, circling around the rear of the room. Then he hit the tack, and I heardhim holler and caught a glimpse of him spraddling up as I disappeared through the door.