As he celebrates his 70th birthday this week Muhammad Ali is still lauded as the 'greatest'.

But it’s not just for the defining moments of boxing history, like the epic contests against George Foreman in the searing cauldron of Kinshasa and the near death experience of the ‘Thrilla’ in Manila’ against ‘Smokin’ Joe Frazier, that he's remembered. It's just as much for his actions out of the ring.

For many he is the sportsman who has done more than anyone else for black advancement, civil rights and equality in the USA.

But this is a myth. A myth promoted by his public relations machine all too eager to erase memories of links with the Nazi Party of America and other extremists in the 1960s.

Commentators will recall his stand against racism and the Vietnam War in the sixties that led to jail and the ignominy of being stripped of his world title and his boxing licence.

Famously quoting 'No Vietcong ever called me a nigga.'

In fact his statement about his draft refusal has absolutely nothing to do with the struggle for black rights and everything to do with the promotion of continued racial segregation.

For Ali as a leading member of the Nation of Islam in the 1960’s was openly opposed to white and black integration. He was scornful of peaceful civil rights protests and bought in to a segregationist ideology to the extent that he even attended and addressed Klu Klux Klan meetings to discuss ways in how the two extremist groups could work together to achieve a truly segregated society. He articulated the doctrine of separation with quotes like: 'Black people should marry their own women,' and 'Blue birds with blue birds, pigeons with pigeons and eagles with eagles. God didn't make no mistake.

He was publicly contemptuous of Martin Luther King and openly dismissed the view that whites and blacks could live together in harmony.

Even into the 1970s, at the height of his fame, his views were hardly tempered. In interviews with Michael Parkinson and David Frost he promoted the idea that: 'We cannot live in harmony because we are different. Whites have a bad nature, they cannot be trusted. We need to have our own land, our own government and our own way of doing things.'

Today such sentiments would be seen as overtly racist and it was as attitudes towards race began to change that Ali's PR people saw the need to reshape his image as an all American, star spangled banner champion.

It is true that Ali deserves plaudits for his public benevolence; he has literally given away tens of millions of dollars to worthy causes and his status as one of the greatest boxers of all time is undisputed.

However, Ali as a vanguard of the Civil Rights movement is a fabrication, but one that has been so cleverly fashioned over the years to now be almost universally accepted as fact.