Long before his dazzling footwork and punching prowess made him a three-time world heavyweight boxing champion known as Muhammad Ali, a young Cassius Clay honed his skills by sparring with neighborhood friends and running alongside the bus on the way to school. “It’s a fact that white people hate black people”, he rages.
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In his prime Ali spoke out against racism, war and religious intolerance, while projecting a brash confidence and sense of pride that became a model for African-Americans during the 1960s and 1970s.
While he called the fight “the most embarrassing moment” of his life, Foreman said he and Ali became lifelong friends. The officer told him he’d have to learn how to box first. “It would earn him enemies on the left and the right, makes him reviled and almost send him to jail”. But Ali stood his ground. “Get used to me”. He is in a better place. But long before the Parkinson’s set in, the man that floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee was both controversial and influential.
In the 1980s, El-Amin said he and Ali attended numerous same meetings for humanitarian groups and events in Detroit and Chicago, including visits to Ali’s home.
Ali’s stance against the Vietnam War represented the best in what athletes can be, but he also demonstrated some of the worst traits that have become so prevalent among athletes.
By the time Ali returned to fighting in 1970 (his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1971), I was a teenager and began to see him as more than a boxer. It frightened her, she said, expecting the famed boxer would be intimidating. He also took part in the opening of the London games in 2012, looking frail in a wheelchair.
As a crusader against white domination, Ali was without parallel.
He embodied the intimate relationship between sport and politics that so troubles those, like nationalistic politicians, who deny its existence while ruthlessly exploiting it.
He looked increasingly frail at his last public appearances, including on April 9 when he wore sunglasses and was hunched over at the annual Celebrity Fight Night dinner in Phoenix, which raises funds for Parkinson’s treatment.
“The service is going to be in the Muslim tradition but Muhammad loved all people”, Bob Gunnell, the Ali family’s spokesman, said.
Written by Michael Masser and Linda Creed for a movie few remember, the 1977 Ali biopic “The Greatest”, this soaring, self-affirming ballad would conquer the world, first as a hit for George Benson, then as a standard performed by Whitney Houston.
The Rev. Wanda McIntyre, who presided over the early service, said it reminded her that he believed above all in living life with tolerance and an open heart. “There is no limit to what our kids can do if we help them realise their full human potential”. While detractors didn’t always agree with him, many came to respect his principled stands. “He was more of a people’s champion, not just a champion but a people’s champion and that’s how I want to be”. “Joe Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head”, he once said. “It does not promote terrorism or killing people”, he said.
Ali won multiple Golden Gloves titles at home in the United States (US), was an Olympic gold medallist and was the three-time world heavyweight boxing champion.
In the rush to consecrate the memory of perhaps the most singular figure in sporting history, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Ali could say and do some very stupid things. And yet, Muhammad Ali was a hero to even me, an incomparable icon who puts to the shade all the Bradmans and Tendulkars of this world.
Local and world leaders as well as sports greats from across the globe honored the memory of boxing legend Muhammad Ali yesterday. He changed his name after his conversion to Islam.
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Ali’s daughter Laila who followed in his footsteps into the boxing ring, told ABC’s Good Morning America on Monday: “I’m obviously really sad”.
