LOUISVILLE | Actor Will Smith and former boxing world champion Lennox Lewis will serve as pallbearers together with six other people during Muhammad Ali’s funeral Friday, a spokesman said.
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Ali’s cousins John Grady and Jan Wadell, nephew Ibn Ali, former brother-in-law Komawi Ali and family friend John Ramsey are the others.
Legendary Ghanaian boxing hall-of-famer Professor Azumah Nelson has said the passing away of world heavy weight champion Muhammad Ali is welcome news after the boxer suffered Parkinson’s disease for over 30 years.
Born Cassius Clay in a segregated Louisville, Kentucky, Ali angered many Americans when he refused to fight in Vietnam. Gunnell said he wanted his services “to reflect his life and how he lived” with a heart open to people of all colors and creeds.
“Everything that we’re doing here was blessed by Muhammad Ali, and was requested”, Mr Gunnell said.
This service will be the main public celebration of Ali’s life, to be held Friday afternoon at the 22,000-seat KFC Yum!
“The message that we’ll be sending out is not our message, this was really designed and intended by the Champ himself to be his last statement to the people of planet Earth”, Islamic studies scholar Timothy Gianotti told reporters in Louisville.
Known far and wide as the greatest of all time, Ali was famous for his ferocity and determination inside and outside of the ring.
The official cause of Ali’s death was septic shock due to unspecified natural causes. It will travel west on Muhammad Ali Blvd to 34th Street, left on 34th Street to Broadway, including driving through Ali’s old west Louisville neighborhood.
“I met Muhammad Ali in April this year in Phoenix”, he said. “I hit him with everything I had, and all he would say is, ‘That all you got George?'”
“We are sad and laughing at the same time – that’s what dad would want”. Ali, who died Friday at 74, endured public scorn when he joined the Nation of Islam as a young athlete.
“I said a prayer to him in his ear and then I know he heard every word, every bit of everything we were saying to him”, Jamila says.
Former World heavyweight boxing champion US Muhammad Ali delivers a press conference, on 19 November, 1974 in Paris.
On Thursday, there will be a private ceremony for family.
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Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and comedian Billy Crystal were among those previously announced as participating in public events as the world grieves the loss of the boxer, showman and antiwar activist who captivated global attention in the 1960s and 1970s.
