Andre Watkins shadowboxed Sunday morning outside King Solomon Missionary Baptist Church in Louisville’s west end, not far from the little pink house where Muhammad Ali grew up. The 74-year-old boxer had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for decades. So he floated like a butterfly and he did sting like a bee because his shots were fast, powerful and explosive. Gunnell said Ali had sought medical attention for a cough, but his condition rapidly deteriorated. Six close friends and members of his family will be joined by former undisputed world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis and actor Will Smith, who played Ali in the 2001 film of his life. Those who would question his greatness have no understanding of the technical brilliance he brought into the ring, the courage he displayed outside of it, the voice he gave to the voiceless, or the risk he faced in order to do so.
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“Hopefully that would have some effect on how the government viewed him”, Brown said. “I get a little choked up thinking about it”, he said.
President Obama tweeted, “He shook up the world, and the world’s better for it. Rest in peace, Champ”.
“Most people adjust to oppression. He was just defiant to a system that didn’t make sense”.
“I’m still absorbing it and it’s really hard but Muhammad Ali was an inspiration to every person on Earth”. Heck, Ali may not even have been the greatest heavyweight. Ali called on fellow Muslims to “stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda”.
California imam and scholar Zaid Shakir will preside over the service, family spokesman Bob Gunnell said. “It was so incredible”.
“Before I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, I admired him and I admired his athleticism, his poise, his class, his style, his stoicism, his belief in what he thought was right”, Fox said on Monday, June 6.
“It’s icon status and what he meant to people like myself”. It was selfish for us to think that we could hold on to him forever. Here was a confident, cocky, young black man with swagger who was not afraid to say what was on his mind, and that made people uncomfortable. He tortured opponents before and during fights, and caused a world in upheaval to consider multiple perspectives.
Muhammad Ali died last week at an Arizona hospital in the United States, after suffereing from a respiratory ailment.
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“But we’re also grateful to God for how fortunate we are to have known him, if just for a while; for how fortunate we all are that The Greatest chose to grace our time”.
