Muhammad Ali
The Greatest
of
All Time
Muhammad Ali
Dead at 74
Boxing legend Muhammad Ali - one of the world's greatest sporting figures - has died at the age of 74.[3] His death Friday at age 74 came after a lengthy battle against Parkinson's disease. Ali was diagnosed with the disease in 1984, three years after he retired from a boxing career that began when a skinny 12-year-old Louisville, Kentucky, amateur put on the gloves.[4]
Jon Schuppe
Jun 4 2016
Muhammad Ali, the silver-tongued boxer and civil rights champion who famously proclaimed himself "The Greatest" and then spent a lifetime living up to the billing, is dead.[1]
Ali died Friday at a Phoenix-area hospital, where he had spent the past few days being treated for respiratory complications, a family spokesman confirmed to NBC News. He was 74.[1]
"After a 32-year battle with Parkinson's disease, Muhammad Ali has passed away at the age of 74. The three-time World Heavyweight Champion boxer died this evening," Bob Gunnell, a family spokesman, told NBC News.[1]
Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn't choose it, and I didn't want it," he said. "I am Muhammad Ali, a free name – it means beloved of God – and I insist people use it when speaking to me and of me."[16]
Muhammad Ali
Opposed
The Vietnam War
Muhammad Ali
I’m not going to get killed trying to force myself on people who don’t want me.[16]
Muhammad Ali publicly disagreed at first with Dr Martin Luther King's policy of urging black and white people to live together.
"I’m not going to get killed trying to force myself on people who don’t want me. Integration is wrong. White people don’t want it, the Muslims don’t want it,” said Ali.[16]
| Muhammad Ali Opposed The Vietnam War |
Muhammad Ali
I’m not going to get killed trying to force myself on people who don’t want me.[16]
|
|---|---|
Muhammad Ali publicly disagreed at first with Dr Martin Luther King's policy of urging black and white people to live together.
"I’m not going to get killed trying to force myself on people who don’t want me. Integration is wrong. White people don’t want it, the Muslims don’t want it,” said Ali.[16]
|
|
In 1967, when Dr King spoke out against President Lyndon Johnson’s escalation of the war in Vietnam, the press asked him why he was not simply focusing on the "domestic issue" of civil rights. The great civil rights activist replied: "Like Muhammad Ali puts it, we are all – black and brown and poor – victims of the same system of oppression.”[16]
And by the end of 1967, the two men were on good terms and supportive of each other with Ali sending Dr King, who had been sent to prison, a telegram of support.[16]
Ali also went to South Africa to meet Nelson Mandela upon his release from prison, an encounter the future president apparently found nerve-wracking.[16]
"When I met Ali for the first time in 1990, I was extremely apprehensive. I wanted to say so many things to him," said Mandela in an interview.[16]
"He was an inspiration to me, even in prison, because I thought of his courage and his commitment to his sport. I was overwhelmed by his gentleness and his expressive eyes."[16]
Muhammad Ali's Punchlines |
R.I.P 1942 - 2016
R.I.P 1942 - 2016
Ali with Martin Luther King in 1967. As well as a boxer, Ali is seen as an important figure in the US Civil Rights movement.[14]
Dave Zirin:
Dr. Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali shared a bond in their commitment against war and for social justice. It wasn’t a popular bond and it deserves to be remembered. (January 18, 2015 )[15]
Ali and Dr. King saw their connection become unbreakable in 1967 when King made the courageous decision, against the wishes of his advisers, to take a stand against President Johnson’s escalation of the war in Vietnam. [15]
By this time, Ali had already become the most visible draft resister in the country, standing strong despite the stripping of his heavyweight title and the threat of a five-year prison sentence in Leavenworth. [15]
.
Ali
with
Martin Luther King
in
1967
Courtesy of kaieteurnewsonline.com
Ali had suffered for three decades from Parkinson's, a progressive neurological condition that slowly robbed him of both his verbal grace and his physical dexterity. A funeral service is planned in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. [1]
His daughter Rasheda said early Saturday that the legend was "no longer suffering," describing him as "daddy, my best friend and hero" as well as "the greatest man that ever lived." [1]
Even as his health declined, Ali did not shy from politics or controversy, releasing a statement in December criticizing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States. [1]
"We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda," he said. [1]
In Recent Years
Ali's Health
Began
To Suffer
Dramatically
There was a death scare in 2013, and last year he was rushed to the hospital after being found unresponsive. [1]
He recovered and returned to his new home in Arizona. [1]
Muhammad Ali
Passed Away on June 04, 2016
In 2005, President George W. Bush honored Ali with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and his hometown of Louisville opened the Muhammad Ali Center, chronicling his life but also as a forum for promoting tolerance and respect. [1]
Divorced
Three Times
AND
The Father of Nine Children
— One Of Whom, Laila, Become A Boxer —
Ali Married His Last Wife, Yolanda "Lonnie" Williams, In 1986;
They Lived For A Long Time In Berrien Springs, Michigan, Then Moved To Arizona. [1]
In His Final Years
Ali was barely able to speak
Asked to share his personal philosophy with NPR in 2009, Ali let his wife read his essay:
"I never thought of the possibility of failing, only of the fame and glory I was going to get when I won," Ali wrote. "I could see it. I could almost feel it. When I proclaimed that I was the greatest of all time, I believed in myself, and I still do." [1]
| Muhammad Ali | Passed Away on June 04, 2016 |
|---|---|
In 2005, President George W. Bush honored Ali with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and his hometown of Louisville opened the Muhammad Ali Center, chronicling his life but also as a forum for promoting tolerance and respect. [1]
|
Divorced
Three Times
AND
The Father of Nine Children — One Of Whom, Laila, Become A Boxer — Ali Married His Last Wife, Yolanda "Lonnie" Williams, In 1986; They Lived For A Long Time In Berrien Springs, Michigan, Then Moved To Arizona. [1] |
In His Final Years
Ali was barely able to speak
Asked to share his personal philosophy with NPR in 2009, Ali let his wife read his essay:
"I never thought of the possibility of failing, only of the fame and glory I was going to get when I won," Ali wrote. "I could see it. I could almost feel it. When I proclaimed that I was the greatest of all time, I believed in myself, and I still do." [1]
|
The remark bookended the life of a man who burst into the national consciousness in the early 1960s, when as a young heavyweight champion he converted to Islam and refused to serve in the Vietnam War, and became an emblem of strength, eloquence, conscience and courage.[1]
Ali was an anti-establishment showman who transcended borders and barriers, race and religion. His fights against other men became spectacles, but he embodied much greater battles. [1]
Why is Jesus white? - Muhammad Ali
Ali successfully defended his title six times, including a rematch with Liston. Then, in 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War, Ali was drafted to serve in the U.S. Army. [1]
He'd said previously that the war did not comport with his faith, and that he had "no quarrel" with America's enemy, the Vietcong. He refused to serve. [1]
"محمد علی کلی" به دلیل ذات الریه
در بیمارستان بستری ش
Courtesy of realiran.org
The deceased Ali converted to the Islamic faith in 1963 after becoming world champion, when he also changed his name from Cassius Clay.[17]
Muhammad Ali: “One day, I hope I am able to return to Tehran to stand, greet and be among my Iranian brothers and sisters once again. Perhaps that day will come soon.”[17]
"My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, some poor, hungry people in the mud, for big powerful America, and shoot them for what?" Ali said in an interview. "They never called me nigger. They never lynched me. They didn't put no dogs on me." [1]
Muhammad Ali and daughter Laila
hang with fans in Harlem in 2004
Courtesy of realiran.org
Maureen Callahan, June 4, 2016:In 1966, he was drafted to serve in Vietnam and claimed conscientious objector status. “I ain’t got nothin’ against no Viet Cong,” he famously said. “No Viet Cong never called me n—-r.”[18]
Ali was stripped of his title and his boxing license, and he spent his prime years as a fighter out of the ring. But he kept training and he toured college campuses, speaking to college students about black power, social injustice, the unfairness of the draft and the wrongness of the war.[18]
His stand culminated with an April appearance at an Army recruiting station, where he refused to step forward when his name was called. The reaction was swift and harsh. He was stripped of his boxing title, convicted of draft evasion and sentenced to five years in prison. [1]
Muhammad Ali's Daughters
Reveal Intimate Details
About Their Dad
Released on appeal but unable to fight or leave the country, Ali turned to the lecture circuit, speaking on college campuses, where he engaged in heated debates, pointing out the hypocrisy of denying rights to blacks even as they were ordered to fight the country's battles abroad.[1]
"My enemy is the white people, not Vietcongs or Chinese or Japanese," Ali told one white student who challenged his draft avoidance.[1]
"You my opposer when I want freedom. You my opposer when I want justice. You my opposer when I want equality. You won't even stand up for me in America for my religious beliefs and you want me to go somewhere and fight but you won't even stand up for me here at home." [1]
muhammad ali brother says
he cant talk anymore EsNews
در بیمارستان بستری ش
hang with fans in Harlem in 2004
Reveal Intimate Details
About Their Dad
he cant talk anymore EsNews
Friday, Jun 03, 2016
In Friday night's broadcast: Muhammad Ali's hospitalization brings worry, the frantic search for missing soldiers in Texas, and saluting the graduating class of 2016.[2]
Muhammad Ali
Attacks Anti-White BBC Parkinson
Attacks Anti-White BBC Parkinson
Farewell to the Louisville Lip:
Muhammad Ali's Hometown
Says Goodbye
To Its Favorite Son
After the greatest boxer ever
Dies
Aged 74 Following 32-Year
Battle With Parkinson's
Muhammad Ali died aged 74 at a hospital outside Phoenix, Arizona, overnight after a 32-year battle with Parkinson's Greatest boxer of all time was rushed to hospital on Thursday with breathing difficulties and an 'unshakeable cough'Ali's wife Lonnie and daughters were by his side when he passed, while a candle lit vigil took place outside hospital Today mourners laid flowers and left heartwarming messages at the Ali center in his hometown Louisville, Kentucky.[5]
Ollie Gillman, Chris Spargo,
Regina F. Graham and Lucy Crossley
4 June 2016
Muhammad Ali's hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, today paid its deepest respects to its fallen son - and the most iconic sportsman of all time.[5]
The the self-proclaimed 'Greatest' died aged 74 overnight following a 32-year-long battle with Parkinson's disease.[5]
"What you gonna do when
u retire from Boxing ?"
Muhammed Ali Clay responds
The legendary fighter died with his family at his side on Friday evening, a day after he was rushed to hospital outside Phoenix, Arizona, with difficulty breathing.[5]
'After a 32-year battle with Parkinson's disease, Muhammad Ali has passed away. The three-time World Heavyweight Champion boxer died this evening,' Ali's spokesman said.[5]
u retire from Boxing ?"
Muhammed Ali Clay responds
Tributes pour in
for boxing legend Muhammad Ali
for boxing legend Muhammad Ali
Hundreds of mourners - many visibly shaken by the passing of their hero - visited the Ali center in Louisville today to lay flowers and heartfelt messages to 'The Greatest Of All Time'.[5]
At a ceremony at the city's Metro Hall, Mayor Greg Fischer declared that flags on government buildings would remain at half-staff until Ali has been laid to rest.[5]
'I said a little prayer for the family that they could find peace and know that he is resting in a better place and there is no more pain,' Army instructor and Louisville resident Alvin Mason told ABC News.[5]
He added: 'He leaves his legacy through his children, but also through people he doesn't know like me... He certainly touched my life in a great way. I'm very appreciative of his family for sharing him with us and with the world.'[5]
Another local Shani Jinaki said: 'He represents that greatness came from Louisville... It makes me want to change my life and how I'm living to be more bold.'[5]
And Candice Nelson added: 'One person can impact an entire world and it almost gives me goosebumps to know that through his actions how he gave back... It's pretty powerful being here right now.'[5]
Ali's legion of fans, celebrities and fellow boxers took to social media memorialize their icon but the most heartwarming tributes were paid by his family. His daughter Hana remembered her father as a "Humble Mountain!" with a 'beautiful soul'.[5]
Ali's family said his funeral would be held in Louisville and thanked the public for their outpouring of support. As well as a champion boxer, Ali, who was also a key figure in America's civil rights movement, had been on life support in hospital after he was found 'barely breathing' at his home on Thursday.[5]
He was taken to hospital with an 'unshakeable cough', a separate source said, with his fatal respiratory problems likely to have been complicated by his Parkinson's disease.[5]
The Greatest was surrounded by his family, who rushed to be at his bedside on Thursday and Friday after doctors warned his condition was 'rapidly deteriorating', a source said.[5]
Mohammad Ali Clay
Visits Shaykh Hisham Kabbani
He is survived by his fourth wife Lonnie, whom he married in 1986, and nine children, many of whom were with him when he died. Hana paid tribute to her father on Twitter and Instagram today, writing: 'Our father was a "Humble Mountain!" And now he has gone home to God. [5]
'Pray for the peace of his beautiful soul and for the happiness of his further journey. God bless you daddy. YOU ARE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!'[5]
It was earlier reported that Ali's family had started making funeral arrangements after doctors warned that he was just hours from death.[5]
Muhammad Ali remembered:
Daughter leads tributes
Ali's spokesman Bob Gunnell told MSNBC that the family were 'devastated' by his death. [5]
'Muhammad passed with his family at his side just moments ago,' he said.[5]
'It was a very peaceful passing and they are with him as we speak. You know, we lost a great person in this world tonight.[5]
'We don’t have an official cause of death yet, but it has to be from complications of Parkinson’s.' [5]
Boxing legend Muhammad Ali dies aged 74
Gunnell said on Thursday that the boxer was being treated for a respiratory issue at a hospital, which he confirmed again on Friday morning. [5]
Tributes have flooded in from around the world, with friends and fellow fighters paying Ali, who was voted Sports Personality of the Century, the highest accolades. [5]
Mike Tyson had kind words to say about Ali. He tweeted: 'God came for his champion. So long great one. [5]
He will be remembered for his stunning victories against the likes of Sonny Liston, as well as George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle and Joe Frazier in the Thrilla in Manila. Ali also won gold at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.[5]
Foreman also paid tribute to Ali today, telling the BBC: 'We were like one guy - part of me is gone.'[5]
He said he wanted Ali to be remembered as a 'brave' humanitarian and not just a boxer, adding: 'Muhammad Ali was one of the greatest human beings I have ever met. No doubt he was one of the best people to have lived in this day and age.[5]
MUHAMMAD ALI DIES AGED 74 - R.I.P
- MEMORIAL
Visits Shaykh Hisham Kabbani
Daughter leads tributes
- MEMORIAL
Why Muhammad Ali
Matters to Everyone
The Greatest is gone. We might never see one like him again.[6]
Sean Gregory
Muhammad Ali, the lyrical heavyweight showman who thrilled the globe with his sublime boxing style, unpredictable wit, and gentle generosity – especially later in life – died on Friday. [6]
He was 74. Ali, the former Cassius Clay, was not just an athlete who embodied the times in which he lived. He shaped them. [6]
Muhammad Ali Dead |
Boxer Muhammad Ali Death
| Muhammad Ali dies at 74
Boxer Muhammad Ali Death
| Muhammad Ali dies at 74
His conscientious objection to the Vietnam war, and reasoned rants against a country fighting for freedom on the other side of the globe, while its own black citizens were denied basic rights of their own, energized a generation. [6]
Ali refused to serve in Vietnam, was convicted of draft evasion, and stripped of the heavyweight crown he won from Sonny Liston in 1964.[6]
Imagine, for a moment, a 21st-century athlete who could command an audience with presidents and the pope, the Dalai Lama, Castro, Idi Amin and Saddam Hussein. [6]
Ali might have been the most famous man on earth. Disease robbed Ali of his speech late in life.[6]
But his peacekeeping trips, fundraising efforts for Parkinson’s research, and support for UNICEF and the Special Olympics and many more charitable organizations were more powerful than his poetry.[6]
(And in truth, his jabbering wasn’t as pretty as Ali claimed to be. His characterization of Joe Frazier, for example, as a “gorilla” was sophomoric, even if it did rhyme with “Thrilla” and “Manila.”)[6]
Muhammad Ali was not just Muhammad Ali the greatest, the African-American pugilist; he belonged to everyone,” poet Maya Angelou wrote in the 2001 book Muhammad Ali: Through the Eyes of the World. “That means that his impact recognizes no continent, no language, no color, no ocean.”[6]
ALI FAMILY STATEMENT
ON DEATH MUHAMMAD ALI
DIED AT 74 YEARS OLD
(DEATHIS NOT A CONSPIRACY)
ON DEATH MUHAMMAD ALI
DIED AT 74 YEARS OLD
(DEATHIS NOT A CONSPIRACY)
Ali was also a reminder of what boxing has lost. Ali’s classic fights, like “The Rumble in the Jungle” and the “The Thrilla in Manila” were masterpieces of the form.[6]
Though Ali fought George Foreman in Zaire, the electricity spilled into your living room.[6]
“Bap! Bap! Bap!” Ali told TIME, describing his fight strategy before his first bout with Frazier in 1971, the so-called “Fight of the Century,” which he lost. [6]
“I jab him once, twice, three times. Dance away. I move in again. Bam. Bam. Bam. I hit him five times. He hits me one time. I back away. I’m moving around him. Bim. Bim. Bim.[6]
I get him again. He’s movin’ in, ain’t reaching me because he’s too small to reach me. He’s reachin’ and strainin’ with those hooks, and they’re getting longer and longer. [6]
And now he’s lunging and jumping, and that’s when I started popping and smoking.”[6]
Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., in Louisville, at 6:35 p.m. on Jan. 17, 1942. [6]
His father, Cassius Sr., was a sign painter “with minor artistic talents and a major taste for gin,” according to Sports Illustrated.[6]
His mother, Odesssa, worked as a household domestic. Clay’s ancestors were slaves on the plantation of his namesake, a Kentucky politician who was Lincoln’s minister to Russia. [6]
He had an Irish great-grandfather, named Abe Grady. But no trace of white blood could shield young Cassius from the slights of segregated Louisville.[6]
For example, Clay said that when he was 8 or 9, an old white man harassed him while he played with friends near the railroad tracks, dragging him by his collar and shouting “shut your mouth, little n—-r” as Clay resisted (another man, the story goes, interceded and saved Clay from further harm). [6]
“Why can’t I be rich?” Clay once asked his father. Cassius Sr. touched his son’s hand. “Look here,” he said. “That’s why you can’t be rich.”[6]
Clay came out swinging, and scored his first knockout against his own mother. [6]
“When he was a few months old, he looked like a military boxer,” Odessa said during a 1978 episode of the television program This Is Your Life featuring Ali.[6]
“And when he was 18 months old, he was very strong and had big muscled arms.” His mother said that one day, Clay waved his arms around, as babies do, and punched her tooth out.[6]
Clay would jabber “gee, gee, gee, gee” by the side of his crib, so his family started calling him GG. Later, after he became Golden Gloves champion, Clay said he was trying to say “Golden Gloves.”[6]
Odessa told Ali biographer Thomas Hauser: “By the time he was four, he had all the confidence in the world.”[6]
In October of 1954, when Clay was 12, he and a friend rode their bicycles to a Louisville bazaar and spent the day eating free popcorn and candy. [6]
When it was time to head home, Clay discovered that his red-and-white Schwinn had been stolen.[6]
A white police officer named Joe Martin was downstairs, in a boxing gym, and a crying Clay reported the theft to him. Clay swore that we would beat up whoever took it.[6]
Martin, who also happened to train fighters and produced a local television show, Tomorrow’s Champions, showcasing Louisville’s best boxing talent, responded: “Well, you better learn how to fight before you start challenging people you’re going to whup.” The world’s greatest boxer was born.[6]
Clay started training the next day at Martin’s gym. [6]
Just six-weeks later, the 89-pound nothing-weight won a three-round decision in his ring debut. “He didn’t know a left hook from a kick in the ass,” Martin told Sports Illustrated. [6]
“But he developed quite rapidly.” Clay was a maniacal worker, and would sometimes race the school bus for 20 blocks – and always claim to beat it, of course. [6]
Clay won 100 out of 108 amateur bouts, and two consecutive Amateur Athletic Union Championships, in 1959 and 1960, both as a light heavyweight. “His secret was his unusual eye speed,” Martin said. “It was blinding.[6]
The only other athlete I ever saw who had that kind of eye speed was Ted Williams. When he started fighting, Cassius was so fast with his eyes that you could give a guy a screen door and he wouldn’t hit Cassius 15 times with it in 15 rounds.”[6]
In the classroom, Clay was a lightweight. He was ranked 376th out of 391 students at Louisville’s Central High School. [6]
But the school’s principal, a tall, scholarly man named Atwood Wilson who had a master’s degree from the University of Chicago, excused Clay’s academic failings. [6]
“One day our greatest claim to fame is going to be that we knew Cassius Clay, or taught him,” Wilson told his faculty.[6]
Wilson would introduce Clay as the “next heavyweight champion of the world” at assemblies, and warn misbehaving students: “You act up, I’m going to turn Cassius Clay on you.”[6]
Boxing legend Muhammad Ali
dead at 74
dead at 74
Ali lived to see a black man in the White House, and attended Barack Obama’s inauguration. “Asked why he is so universally beloved, he holds up a shaking hand, fingers spread wide, and says, “’It’s because of this. I’m more human now.[6]
It’s the God in people that connects me to them,” Obama wrote in USA Today in 2009. “This is the Muhammad Ali who inspires us today – the man who believes real success comes when we rise after we fall; who has shown us that through undying faith and steadfast love, each of us can make this world a better place. [6]
He is and always will be the champ.”[6]
Spencer-Wertheimer
Is
Muhammad Ali's Son-In-Law
He Is A Jew
Left to right:
Spencer Wertheimer, Khaliah Ali,
Noella Cousaris, Deborah Cogut,
and Jonny Cogut
