Thousands of people from the worlds of sports, entertainment, politics and Muhammad Ali’s native Louisville bid farewell on Friday to the boxing legend eulogised by Bill Clinton as a “universal soldier for our common humanity”. Ali’s hearse snaked through the city, pausing for a huge crowed outside his boyhood home, en route to a cemetery for a private burial beneath a headstone reading simply “Ali”.
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It was reported Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was expected to attend the memorial, cut short his visit to Louisville amid claims of a rift with the ceremony’s organisers.
Crystal could reprise parts of his routine called “15 Rounds”, a tribute to the three-time heavyweight boxing champion that the comedian first delivered in 1979.
Photos from the sombre event depicted Smith, who portrayed the fighter in 2001 biopic Ali, and retired boxers Tyson and Lewis among the pallbearers loading Ali’s casket, which was covered with a black and gold cloth, into a hearse, as the funeral procession got underway, 90 minutes behind schedule.
Ali’s greatest champion thanked the world for its support since the boxing great’s death.
Many Georgia Muslim leaders are in Louisville for the services there, and at mosques all across Georgia and around the world, there will be funeral prayers on Friday for Muhammad Ali.
The mayor encouraged people to throw flowers and bring “smiles and maybe a tear or two as well”.
Kevin Cosby, pastor of a Louisville church, told the crowd that Ali “dared to affirm the power and capacity of African-Americans” and infused them with a “sense of somebodiness”.
The most magnetic athlete of the 20th century, Ali was admitted in a hospital in Arizona last week after he suffered a respiratory ailment. “And every day you have to focus and concentrate on making sure you’re living your life in a way that it illuminates the things you want illuminated, and the things that were illuminated today were his love, and his heart, and his unconditional appreciation for all people of every race and color”.
Muhammad Ali’s widow spoke eloquently of her husband’s strength of character and the inspiration his life might be to others. “And saying, ‘I told you I was the greatest!’ No one compares to you, Daddy”, she said. Until we meet again.
“The grief that he showed was enormous, he did not know at the time if he could do that emotionally… but apparently yesterday he decided he had to be here”, family spokesman Bob Gunnell said. “We were at the right place at the right time to see the Champ”, said mother Tina Murray. Ali took the idea of “somebody-ness to unheard-of heights”, he said.
“My hero was locked in his body”, said Louisville taxi driver Fred Dillon, referring to Ali’s fight with Parkinson’s.
And, as he moved easily around the world, the rich and powerful were drawn to him, but he was drawn to the poor and the forgotten.
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“There was something about Muhammad Ali that was different”, Lerner said. Muhammad Ali chose the site a decade ago as his final resting place, with a headstone to be inscribed simply “Ali“.
