Muhammad Ali born Cassius
Marcellus Clay Jr January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American
professional boxer, activist, and philanthropist. Nicknamed "The
Greatest," he is widely regarded as one of the most significant and
celebrated sports figures of the 20th century and as one of the greatest boxers
of all time.
Ali was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and
began training as an amateur boxer at age 12. At 18, he won a gold medal in
the light heavyweight division
at the 1960 Summer Olympics, and
turned professional later that year. He converted to Islam and
became a Muslim after 1961, and eventually took the name Muhammad
Ali. He won the world heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston in a major upset at
age 22 in 1964. In 1966, Ali refused to be drafted into the military, citing
his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War. He was arrested, found guilty of draft
evasion, and stripped of his boxing titles. He appealed the decision to the
Supreme Court, which overturned his conviction in 1971,
but he had not fought for nearly four years and lost a period of peak
performance as an athlete. His actions as a conscientious objector to
the war made him an icon for the larger counterculture generation, and
he was a high-profile figure of racial pride for African Americans during the civil rights movement. As
a Muslim, Ali was initially affiliated with Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam (NOI). He later disavowed the NOI,
adhering to Sunni Islam, and supporting racial integration like
his former mentor Malcolm X.
Ali was a leading heavyweight boxer of the 20th century,
and he remains the only three-time lineal champion of
that division. His joint records of beating 21 boxers for the world heavyweight
title and winning 14 unified title bouts stood for 35 years. Ali is the
only boxer to be named The Ring magazine Fighter of the Year six times. He has been
ranked the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, and as the greatest
athlete of the 20th century by Sports Illustrated, the Sports
Personality of the Century by the BBC, and the third greatest athlete of the
20th century by ESPN SportsCentury. He was involved in several
historic boxing matches and feuds, most notably his fights with Joe Frazier, such as the Thrilla in Manila, and his fight with George Foreman known as The Rumble in the Jungle which
has been called "arguably the greatest sporting event of the 20th century and
was watched by a record estimated television audience of 1 billion viewers
worldwide, becoming the world's most-watched
live television broadcast at the time. Ali thrived in the
spotlight at a time when many fighters let their managers do the talking, and
he was often provocative and outlandish. He was known for trash-talking,
and often free-styled with rhyme schemes and spoken word poetry, anticipating
elements of hip hop.
Outside the ring, Ali attained success as a musician,
where he received two Grammy nominations. He also featured as an actor and writer, releasing two autobiographies.
Ali retired from boxing in 1981 and focused on religion and charity. In 1984,
he made public his diagnosis of Parkinson's syndrome, which some reports attribute to
boxing-related injuries, though he and his specialist physicians disputed this. He remained
an active public figure globally, but in his later years made increasingly
limited public appearances as his condition worsened, and he was cared for by
his family. Ali died on June 3, 2016.
Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. was born on January 17, 1942 in
Louisville, Kentucky. He had a sister and four brothers. He was named
after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr. (1912–1990), who
himself was named in honor of the 19th-century Republican politician and staunch abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay, also from the state of
Kentucky. Clay's father's paternal grandparents were John Clay and Sallie Anne
Clay Clay's sister Eva claimed that Sallie was a native of Madagascar. He was a
descendant of slaves of the antebellum South,
and was predominantly of African descent,
with smaller amounts of Irish and English family
heritage. Ali's maternal grandfather, Abe Grady, emigrated from Ennis, Co. Clare, Ireland. DNA testing performed
in 2018 showed that, through his paternal grandmother, Ali was a descendant of
the former slave Archer
Alexander, who had been chosen from the building crew as the model
of a freed man for the Emancipation Memorial, and was the subject
of abolitionist William Greenleaf Eliot's book, The Story of
Archer Alexander: From Slavery to Freedom. Like Ali, Alexander fought
for his freedom His father was a sign and billboard painter,[25] and his mother, Odessa O'Grady Clay (1917–1994),
was a domestic helper. Although Cassius Sr. was a Methodist, he allowed Odessa
to bring up both Cassius Jr. and his younger brother, Rudolph "Rudy" Clay (later
renamed Rahman Ali), as Baptists.[37] Cassius Jr. attended Central High School in Louisville. He
was dyslexic, which led
to difficulties in reading and writing, at school and for much of his life.[38] Ali grew up amid racial
segregation. His mother recalled one occasion when he was denied a
drink of water at a store—"They wouldn't give him one because of his color. That really affected him."[5] He was also affected by the 1955 murder
of Emmett Till, which
led to young Clay and a friend taking out their frustration by vandalizing a
local rail yard.[39][40]
Ali was first directed toward boxing by Louisville police
officer and boxing coach Joe E. Martin, who encountered the 12-year-old fuming
over a thief's having taken his bicycle. He told the officer he was going to
"whup" the thief. The officer told Clay he had better learn how to
box first. Initially, Clay did not take up Martin's
offer, but after seeing amateur boxers on a local television boxing program
called Tomorrow's Champions, Clay was interested in the prospect of
fighting.He then began to work with trainer Fred
Stoner, whom he credits with giving him the "real training",
eventually molding "my style, my stamina and my system." For the last
four years of Clay's amateur career he was trained by boxing cutman Chuck Bodak.[44]
Clay made his amateur boxing debut in 1954 against local amateur
boxer Ronnie O'Keefe. He won by split decision.[45] He went on to win six Kentucky Golden Gloves titles,
two national Golden Gloves titles, an Amateur Athletic Union national title, and the Light Heavyweight gold
medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.[46] Clay's amateur record was 100 wins with
five losses. Ali said in his 1975 autobiography that shortly after his return
from the Rome Olympics, he threw his gold medal into the Ohio River after
he and a friend were refused service at a "whites-only" restaurant
and fought with a white gang. The story was later disputed, and several of Ali's
friends, including Bundini
Brown and photographer Howard Bingham,
denied it. Brown told Sports Illustrated writer Mark Kram,
"Honkies sure
bought into that one!" Thomas Hauser's
biography of Ali stated that Ali was refused service at the diner but that he
lost his medal a year after he won it.[47] Ali received a replacement medal at a
basketball intermission during the 1996
Olympics in Atlanta, where he lit the torch to start the games.
