Editing The Great White Hope (section)

==Background==
While the play is often described as being thematically about [[racism]], this is not how Sackler viewed his work. Though not denying the racist issues confronted in the play, Sackler once said in an interview, "What interested me was not the topicality but the combination of circumstances, the destiny of a man pitted against society. It's a metaphor of struggle between man and the outside world. Some people spoke of the play as if it were a cliché of white liberalism, but I kept to the line straight through, of showing that it wasn't a case of blacks being good and whites being bad. I was appalled at the first reaction."<ref name=nyt>{{cite news|first=Carol|last=Lawson|title=Howard Sackler, 52, Playwright Who Won Pulitzer Prize, Dead|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=October 15, 1982}}</ref>

In a comment, reflecting on both the racist theme dealt with in the play and Sackler's notion that the play is about a man fighting society, [[Muhammad Ali]], greatly impressed with [[James Earl Jones]]' performance in the play, reportedly commented to the actor, "Hey! This play is about me! Take out the interracial love stuff and Jack Johnson is the original me!"<ref>{{Cite magazine|last=Hamill|first=Pete|date=October 25, 1968|title=Muhammad Ali: 'This is about Me'|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8VMEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22You+just+change+the+time%2C+date+and+the+details+and+it%27s+about+me%21%22%2C&pg=PA68|magazine=Life|pages=68}}</ref> He added, "You just change the time, date and the details and it's about me!"<ref>{{Cite news|last=Canby|first=Vincent|date=October 12, 1970|title='Great White Hope' Brought to Screen|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/12/archives/great-white-hope-brought-to-screen.html|access-date=June 13, 2020|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Ali was fighting being drafted into the Army at the time on grounds of being a [[conscientious objector]].<ref name=pbs>{{cite web|title=Ghost in the House: Jack Johnson's Legacy|url=https://www.pbs.org/unforgivableblackness/ghost|publisher=PBS|date=January 11, 2005|access-date=March 24, 2008}}</ref>