Ali, the magnificent heavyweight champion whose fast fists and irrepressible personality transcended sports and captivated.
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Gunnell says goodbyes are expected to begin on Thursday with a private ceremony followed by a Friday morning service at an undisclosed funeral home.
He said: “The celebration will reflect his devotion to people of all races, religions and backgrounds”.
Muhammad Ali was a man of many words, but few were more famous than his boast that he would “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” against George Foreman in 1974. There are at least a dozen whose names can be easily mentioned in the same breath as Ali’s as the greatest pound-for-pound fighters.
Barack Obama, America’s first black President, led the tributes to a professional boxer who shook up the ring and the wider world beyond.
Muhammad Ali, the world heavyweight boxing champion known universally as “The Greatest”, died over the weekend at the age of 74.
“Boxing, man, that wasn’t his mission: he’s so much bigger than this”, Sonny Fishback, a song writer and music producer who went to school with Ali, told AFP. He says Ali spent the last hour surrounded by family and is understandably having a hard time coping with his death.
Ali took up boxing as a boy, advised by a policeman to learn how to defend himself after neighborhood bullies stole his bicycle.
Former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali met with President Jimmy Carter at the White House in Washington on Monday, Jan. 8, 1980, to announce his support for Carter’s re-election.
The message of Ali’s importance was also passed on to some of the younger kids who attended.
(AP Photo/David Goldman). A visitor takes a photo of the childhood home of Muhammad Ali, Sunday, June 5, 2016, in Louisville, Ky.
In 2005, former President George W. Bush presented Ali with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest USA civilian honor.
Lieberman thought it was such a kind gesture, but didn’t really believe it would happen with Ali’s battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Ali called her over and said, ‘You’re mom says you’re good, how good are you?’
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Adding, “I think that the whole world is sad”, Laila spoke of her father’s life after death, saying, “I know he’s in a better place now”.
