John and Yoko's hair traded for Muhammad Ali's boxing shorts - February 4, 1970
From BeatlesWiki
| Event | |
| Date | February 4, 1970 |
| Short description | John and Yoko trade the hair they cut off for a pair of Muhammad Ali's boxing shorts. |
| Location | |
Two weeks earlier, John and Yoko had vut their hair with the intent to raise money for Michael Malik's legal defense. On this date, they traded their hair for a used pair of Muhammad Ali's boxing shorts to auction off. Despite their efforts to raise money is his defense, Malik was convicted of murder and hanged on December 29, 1975 in Trinidad. The press said, "With only slightly less tumult than usually attends a royal birth, John and Yoko Lennon gave their newly shorn hair to a worthy cause. The celebrated hair was presented to Black House, an interracial community center in North London, to be auctioned off to raise funds for the center’s work. Appropriately dressed all in black, with the beginnings of a new beard, John obligingly brandished the two hanks of hair overhead like an Indian for the photographers. Then he and Michael Malik, the light-brown leader of Black House, who styles himself on Malcom X, both held up the hair and a large pair of blood-spotted white boxing trunks supposed to have belonged to Muhammad Ali. Sounding a little chocked up, Michael X said he’d like to ‘keep and cherish’ the Lennons’ hair but reckoned it would be auctioned off along with the boxing trunks. John referred to Ali’s trunks as ‘The undies.’ Michael X said the center needs £120,000. John joked the sale of the hair ought to bring in about £119,000."
