The church is not far from the little pink house in Louisville’s west end where the Ali brothers grew up.
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But the comparisons to the Republican presidential candidate were made clear Sunday night as they celebrated the boxer’s legacy at the Louisville Islamic Center.
The city is largely giving itself over to the memorial service, offering free bus rides to ticketholders, urging downtown businesses to use common sense when deciding whether to open and imploring residents to offer a heaping slice of Southern hospitality to the throngs of out-of-towners.
An airplane carrying the boxing great’s body landed in his grieving hometown Sunday afternoon.
At his father’s church, the congregation stood in tribute, prayed for the former three-time heavyweight champion and his family and even dug into their pockets, filling a collection plate for Rahaman and his wife as a show of support.
“The Champ was a supernatural figure who crossed all kinds of boundaries, from athletics to arts, to humanitarian activities, from black to white, from Christians to Islam, and he belongs to the world”, Fischer said.
A spokesman for Ali’s family announced his death in Phoenix, Arizona, at the age of 74 on Friday evening local time.
Elliott said his grandmother was once a nanny to Ali’s family.
His father, the Rev. Charles Elliott Jr., knew Ali for decades and remembered his generosity. He recalled Ali’s own words during meetings planning the funeral: “It’s OK”. At the time, the program offered food twice a week, he said. “Now the world is doing more than watching our city – the world is coming to our city”, Fischer said.
“I remember him lighting the Olympic flame in Atlanta, and he struggled and he was there shaking but it was really a sign of courage and a sign of hope not just to people who are struggling with Parkinson’s disease, but other diseases, that you still can have dignity in the face of such enormous challenges”, Walid said. Hana Ali said his heart did not stop beating for 30 minutes after all other internal organs had failed.
The official cause of Ali’s death was septic shock due to unspecified natural causes. He painted a mural of Jesus’ baptism that still hangs behind the pulpit. The story was about Muhammad Ali, and it included a picture of her grandfather, a Louisville police officer who first taught a young Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, how to box. “So do religions have different names, and they all contain truth”. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Muslim, a Christian, or a Jew. “He said, ‘You should be proud of yourself that you are Muslim, ‘ he brought hundreds and thousands of people to Islam”. “I always say, ‘and we’ve got the pictures to prove it'”.
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Ali’s life and career were a series of spectacular achievements and huge controversies. It was in that journey that the boxer left his marks-including welts, cuts and bruises-on American culture. “Every village, every household, certainly every television set and everybody in the Western world – but also the Third World and some places that had nothing – understood what he was and what he stood for; that he was a great boxer, sure, but that he was a great man”.
