Is Regina King's 'One Night In Miami' Based On A True Story?
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Watchmen star Regina King is making her directorial debut with One Night in Miami, available to stream on Amazon Prime on January 15th.
Based on the 2013 play by Kemp Powers (who co-wrote the new Disney/Pixar movie Soul), One Night in Miami follows four Black icons—boxer Muhammad Ali a.k.a. Cassius Clay, NFL star Jim Brown, musician Sam Cooke, and activist Malcolm X—as they discuss their personal relationships, politics, and race on the night Clay became the greatest heavyweight boxer in the world.
What inspired Regina King to make this movie?
King, who has directed episodes of Scandal, Shameless, This is Us, and Insecure, called Powers after being moved by his Olivier-nominated play. In film, King told the New York Times, "we don’t get the opportunity to see our men, Black men, shown the way we see them so often in our family members and friends."
Powers' play, she believes, is a "love letter" to Black men. “Like every other human being, they’re layered. They are vulnerable, they are strong, they are providers, they are sometimes putting on a mask. They are not unbreakable. They are flawed. They are beautiful. And just Kemp captured all of that in, you know, less than 110 pages," she said.
Did these conversations really happen?
According to the film's website, "the movie reimagines the true story of what happens the night the four men celebrated Clay’s victory before he became known as Muhammad Ali."
The "one night" in question is the night of February 25th, 1964, which is really the night of the boxing match that changed Clay's life. Malcolm X and Sam Cooke were seen ringside at the match, and Jim Brown was providing radio commentary.
According to Jim Brown: Last Man Standing, Brown had wanted to go to the boxing match's after-party at the Fontainebleau hotel, but Clay wanted to go talk at a "little Black hotel" where his friend Malcolm X was staying. Later, the quartet met up at the Hamptons House, a motel where Black celebrities were known to stay while in Miami. In Malcolm X's room there, the group was joined by several Nation of Islam members (Malcolm X was a minister, and weeks later, Cassius Clay would change his name to Muhammad Ali).
So that's one big difference: In real life, it wasn't just the four men in one room. Muhammad Ali's biographer Howard Bingham was also there. His book Ali: A Life says the boxer fell asleep during the talks and went back to his rental around 2 AM.
What happened that night in Miami?
It's not fully known what happened that night, but the events may have changed the course of history.
The next day at a press conference, Ali announced that he was Muslim, and a few weeks later announced his name change.
So, what happened to the men after that?
In December of that same year, Sam Cooke was fatally shot at the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, California by the motel manager (though his family believed there was a conspiracy to murder him).
The following year, on February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was shot while delivering a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York City, just two days after an interview where he accused the Nation of Islam of trying to kill him.
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