I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong.

Muhammad Ali used this line in the mid-1960s as part of his public refusal to be drafted into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. Having recently embraced the Nation of Islam and adopted the name Muhammad Ali, he framed his objection as both religious and moral: he said he would not fight in a war he believed was unjust and unrelated to the freedom of Black Americans at home. The remark became emblematic of his antiwar stance, contributing to his 1967 draft-evasion conviction (later overturned) and the stripping of his heavyweight title, while also making him a prominent figure in the era’s debates over conscience, race, and patriotism.

The statement compresses Ali’s argument into a blunt contrast between foreign enemies and domestic injustice. By saying he has “no quarrel” with the Viet Cong, he rejects the premise that Vietnamese communists are his personal adversaries or that he owes them violence on behalf of a government that, in his view, denied Black citizens full rights. The colloquial grammar underscores its plainspoken moral force: it is not a technical policy critique but a claim of conscience and solidarity with the oppressed. In quotation culture, it has come to symbolize principled dissent and the idea that patriotism can include refusal.

1) "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong." 2) "No Viet Cong ever called me nigger." 3) "I have no quarrel with the Viet Cong."