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]

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

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]

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

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

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]

Tributes pour in
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

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

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)

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

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

Courtesy of newyorksocialdiary.com

Mr. Spencer Wertheimer was Chief Counsel of Pennsylvania State Senate Committee investigating the State Correction Bureau’s Administration for the Work Release and Furlough Programs and was called to address the Pennsylvania House State Government Committee on Election Reform. 13]

He was Vice Chairman of the Philadelphia Music Alliance and was a Board Member of the Wilma Theatre, Pennsylvania Ballet and Philadelphia Theatre Company. He was President of Historic Rittenhouse. [13]

Mr. Wertheimer is also a Playwright having written “Your Simone” (Performed in 2004 at 45 Bleeker, New York City).[13]

Muhammad Ali's

Complicated Relationship

With

The Jews

Muhammad Ali’s Children.[8]He leaves behind nine children and a large extended family. Gene Kilroy, Ali’s friend and manager, had called Ali a “prisoner in his own body” in November.[9]

Muhammad Ali, who died on Friday, had a Jewish grandson - and the boxing great even attended his barmitzvah. Muhammad Ali's daughter Khaliah Ali-Wertheimer's husband, attorney Spencer Wertheimer, is Jewish and their son, according to Mrs Khaliah, chose to have a barmitzvah because he “felt a kinship with Judaism and Jewish culture”.[10]

Muhammad Ali's tangled love life leaves troubled legacy. [11] 

Haaretz

Jun 04, 2016

Boxing great and cultural icon Muhammad Ali, who passed away on Friday aged 74, was known for his quick and darting technique in the ring and his ability, as he put it himself, to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. [7]

That gift for stinging characterized Ali both in and outside the ring, where his quick tongue and stinging repartee made headlines no less than his fists - and sometimes with greater effect.[7]

He became a symbol for black liberation during the 1960s by standing up to the U.S. government and refusing to enlist to the army for religious reasons, famously saying: "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger." [7]

His conversion to Islam in 1964 - accompanied by a name change from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali - and his subsequent sympathy for Arab causes made Jews a frequent target of his silver tongue, even as several Jews were among his long-time supporters and admirers. It made for a complex relationship between the boxer and world Jewry.[7]

When Ali made his triumphant comeback to the ring in Atlanta in 1970, after being out of action for 43 months on draft-evasion charges, he commented on the possibility of another bout with long-time rival Joe Frazier by saying: "To those who might want it, the fight will come. All those Jewish promoters – they’ll see that it comes off.”[7]

Though a reporter said Ali was smiling as he said it, boxing insiders criticized him for insulting “the guys who went to bat for him” – specifically. Harry Markson, the boxing director of Madison Square Garden in New York, and Sam Massell, the mayor of Atlanta. [7]

After announcing his retirement from the ring in 1974, Ali lost no time in throwing right hooks at Zionism and embracing the Palestinian cause. Talking to reporters in Beirut, Lebanon, at the start of a tour of the Middle East, Ali said that “the United States is the stronghold of Zionism and imperialism.” [7]

On a subsequent visit to two Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon, the former heavyweight boxing champion was quoted by a news agency as saying: “In my name and the name of all Muslims in America, I declare support for the Palestinian struggle to liberate their homeland and oust the Zionist invaders.”[7]

Ali even visited Israel, coming to "arrange for the freeing of the Muslim brothers imprisoned by Israel" in 1985, when some 700 Lebanese Shi'ites were detained in the Atlit camp, against the background of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.[7]

In 1980, during a visit to India to promote a boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, Ali maintained that Zionists “control” America and the world. [7] Ali wanted to discuss the release of "all 700 brothers" with the "very highest level in the country," but Israeli officials politely declined to enter the ring.[7]

Asked for his thoughts on the Iranian hostage crisis by India Today, Ali denounced the Iranians as "fanatics," but still managed to blame the Jews. [7]

"Religion ain’t bad; it’s people who are bad," he said. "You know the entire power structure is Zionist. They control America; they control the world. They are really against the Islam religion. So whenever a Muslim does something wrong, they blame the religion.” [7]

Despite his frequent jabs at the Jewish community and Israel, Ali couldn't seem to alienate some of his most fervent Jewish admirers, among them Hollywood star Billy Crystal. [7]

Crystal's 1977 impression of the boxing legend deciding to convert to Judaism and change his name to Izzy Yiskowitz became legendary on its own right. Fifteen years later, Ali had the pleasure of having Crystal perform at his 50th birthday party. [7]

Sportscaster Howard Cosell, born Howard Cohen, was perhaps Ali's biggest defender. Unlike many others, Cosell immediately called Ali by his new, Islamic name after he changed it from Cassius Clay, and also stood up for his right to resist the draft.[7]

The Jewish journalist and the Muslim champion had a rapport that was evident in post-fight interviews, where they exchanged barbs and bantered, drawing in enchanted viewers. [7]

Ali mellowed in his autumn years, perhaps partly due to becoming "zaidy" to a Jewish grandson, born to his daughter Khaliah Ali-Wertheimer and her husband Spencer Wertheimer.[7]

Ali was there to witness little Jacob Wertheimer "becoming a man" at Philadelphia’s Congregation Rodeph Shalom in 2012, and, according to his daughter, was nothing but respectful of the bar mitzvah ceremony.[7]

"My father was supportive in every way. He followed everything and looked at the Torah very closely. It meant a lot to Jacob that he was there,” she said. [7]

But Ali expressed tolerance well before that, when in 1996, before lighting the Olympic flame at the Atlanta games, he declared: "My mother was a Baptist. She believed Jesus was the son of God, and I don’t believe that. But even though my mother had a religion different from me, I believe that, on Judgment Day, my mother will be in heaven. [7]

"There are Jewish people who lead good lives. When they die, I believe they’re going to heaven. It doesn’t matter what religion you are, if you’re a good person you’ll receive God’s blessing. Muslims, Christians and Jews all serve the same God. We just serve him in different ways.[7]

How Muhammad Ali Jr
 Who
Lives on food stamps
 In a ghetto

Chris White

June 04, 2016

'My father can't do a thing for me, it's the same as not having one': How Muhammad Ali Jr - who lives on food stamps in a ghetto - stopped speaking to the boxing legend two years ago.[12]



Muhammad Ali hadn’t seen his only natural son for two years.[12]

Ali Jr, 43, had been living on poverty line for last decade in Chicago .[12]

Ali Jr, his wife and two children were living off handouts from charities

He admitted that he ‘doesn’t care’ what happened to his father

And he has been looking after his grandfather who also has Parkinson’s

It appears Ali Jr was at father's bedside but unclear if they made amends

In 2014 interview Ali Jr described his relationship with his father and his father's wife Yolanda 'Lonnie' Williams.[12]

Muhammad Ali was alienated from his only natural son right up until the day he died.[12]

Muhammad Ali Jr had been living on the poverty line for the last decade in one of the toughest neighborhoods on Chicago's notorious South Side.[12]

In his last interview just before his father died two months ago, he admitted that he didn't even care what happened to his father and has been looking after his grandfather from his mother's side, who ironically also has Parkinson's.[12]

Despite it all, it appears Ali Jr was by his father's side, but it's not known if they made amends.[12]

Family spokesman, Bob Gunnell, told WHAS 11: 'They [family] were all there to say their final goodbyes...Every member of his family was there.'[12]

For the past decade, Ali Jr, 43, had been living off handouts from charity to clothe himself, wife, Shaakira, and two children - Ameera, 8, and Shakera, 7 - and rely on charities for food.[12]

Although Ali Jr was in contact with his sisters, he said they never spoke about his dad and he had no one to confide in about how the estrangement really affected him.[12]

Junior, who is the son of Ali's first wife Khalilah Ali, says: I'm trying to live life, and be good. I saw him on his 72nd birthday, then on his 73rd birthday, I sung happy birthday to him, and I heard nothing back, he didn't respond and I know it was the Parkinson's. I knew he was in a pretty bad shape.[12]

'I don't discuss my father to my sisters about anything, I don't have anybody I can confide in, so I don't do that. I don't really care anymore about being cut off from the family.[12]

[1]http://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/
muhammad-ali-greatest-all-time-dead-74-n584776

[2]http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/
nightly-news-full-broadcast-june-3rd-698751555973

[3]http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-16011175

[4]http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/04/world/muhammad-ali-obituary/


[5]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3624910/
Muhammad-Ali-dies-aged-74-Legendary-boxer-passes-away
-family-day-rushed-hospital-difficulty-breathing.html

[6]http://time.com/3646214/muhammad-ali-dead-obituary/

[7]http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.723042


[8]http://heavy.com/sports/2016/06/
muhammad-ali-children-kids-photos-pictures
-laila-rasheda-hana-asaad-maryum-jamillah
-khaliah-miya-kiiursti-how-many/18/

[9]http://heavy.com/sports/2016/06/
muhammad-ali-cause-of-death-died-why-parkinsons
-breathing-respiratory-health-what-happened/

[10]http://www.thejc.com/news/
world-news/158965/muhammad-ali-and-jews-a-tangled-tale

[11]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/04/
muhammad-alis-tangled-love-life-leaves-troubled-legacy/

[12]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/
article-3625132/Muhammad-Ali-s-natural
-son-hadn-t-spoken-father-two-YEARS
-admitted-didn-t-care-happened-him.html

[13]http://spencerwertheimer.com/

[14] http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2016/06/05
/muhammad-ali-dies-at-74-obama-hails-man-who-fought-for-us/
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/

[15]http://www.thenation.com/article/
dr-martin-luther-king-muhammad-ali
-and-what-their-secret-friendship-teaches-us-today/

[16]http://www.thenation.com/article/
dr-martin-luther-king-muhammad-ali
-and-what-their-secret-friendship-teaches-us-today/

[17]http://realiran.org/
rare-pictures-of-muhammad-alis-visit-to-tehran-iran-is-the-greatest/

[18]http://nypost.com/2016/06/04/
muhammad-ali-was-electric-despite-the-controversy/

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