Old newsreels unearthed in London

More than 3,500 hours of newsreel footage found in tunnels under central London are being made public today. The footage is from the 1960s and 70s. Anchor Lisa Mullins samples some clips.Listen

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS: Sometimes we come across some great sound from the past that we want to share with you. We’ve got a good example of that today. It’s from a collection of old television recordings just discovered in London. It’s more than 35 hundred hours of news footage from the 1960s and 70s were found in a vacant office building. The bit we’re gonna play you comes from 1974. It’s from a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon given by none other, than boxer Muhammed Ali. Here he is, talking first about a recent pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

MUHAMMED ALI: After seeing so many Muslims there of all kind, and after being so accepted by all of them, after being accepted by the mayor of Mecca. King fights himself, prince fights him. And going inside the city with hundreds of thousands of people following me and praising me, this really made me closer and a better Muslim.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Say that you are gonna build a Mosque in Las Vegas, and you said Lad Vegas is the international center for gambling.

MUHAMMED ALI: Well, there’s two sides of Las Vegas. There’s the gambling center, then there’s the center where 90 percent of the poor people live, and this is where we wanna help recruit and organize more Muslims. If the sinful want to come to the Mosque where it’s being taught, then everybody’s welcome. But I will not go into the gambling houses teaching Islam, because I’m sure Allah wouldn’t want a minister in such filth talking his word.

LISA MULLINS: That’s boxer Muhammed Ali speaking in Beirut, Lebanon, back in 1974. That newsreel recording was just one of many recently discovered in an empty office building in London.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.