Watch our video, above.

What if LeBron James announced he were going off to fight for Al-Qaeda? That’s how mind-bending it was 50 years ago when, on the morning after Cassius Clay won the heavyweight boxing championship, he announced his allegiance to the Nation of Islam and the changing of his name to Muhammad Ali.
In the video above, Director Carl Cofield talks about One Night in Miami, an acclaimed new play by Kemp Powers that imagines what happened in the real-life meeting that took place in a Miami hotel room immediately after the fight. In the room with Clay were Jim Brown, Sam Cooke and Malcolm X.

Cofield was in Denver on Tuesday, Aug. 12, for pre-production meetings, and to attend a public reception in his honor. To celebrate Black Philanthropy Month, more than 65 members of the Denver African American Philanthropists collaborated with The Links, The Denver Foundation and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts to host a discussion with Cofield moderated by the Theatre Company’s Associate Artistic Director, Bruce Sevy, in one of the Theatre Company’s rehearsal studios.

The shared purpose of the event was to introduce the story to Denver, while The Denver Foundation works to expand philanthropy in communities of color and support the arts.

To see our complete gallery of photos from the event, click here.

One Night in Miami will be staged by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts Theatre Company from March 19-April 20, 2015. For info, call 303-893-4100 or click here.
Video by John Moore and David Lenk. Photos by John Moore