CASSIUS CLAY JR. AKA MUHAMMAD ALI, 'THE GREATEST'

Muhammad Ali

Today, The Grandma has gone to the library to read about Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest boxers of the history.

The Grandma doesn't like boxing, in fact, she doesn't understand anything about this sport, but the figure of Muhammad Ali means much more than a simple athlete because he was an activist against war and a referent in the eternal fight for the civil rights of the minories. She wants to homage Ali, who died on a day like today three years ago.

Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. January 17, 1942-June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer, activist, and philanthropist. He is nicknamed The Greatest and 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 made his amateur boxing debut in 1954 against local amateur boxer Ronnie O'Keefe. He won by split decision. 

Ali was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and began training as an amateur boxer at age 12. 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.

Ali made his professional debut on October 29, 1960, winning a six-round decision over Tunney Hunsaker. From then until the end of 1963, Clay amassed a record of 19–0 with 15 wins by knockout. He defeated boxers including Tony Esperti, Jim Robinson, Donnie Fleeman, Alonzo Johnson, George Logan, Willi Besmanoff, LaMar Clark, Doug Jones and Henry Cooper.

Muhammad Ali

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 was systematically denied a boxing license in every state and stripped of his passport. As a result, he did not fight from March 1967 to October 1970 -from ages 25 to almost 29- as his case worked its way through the appeals process before his conviction was overturned in 1971. 

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.

More information: Muhammad Ali

During this time of inactivity, as opposition to the Vietnam War began to grow and Ali's stance gained sympathy, he spoke at colleges across the nation, criticizing the Vietnam War and advocating African-American pride and racial justice.

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.

Muhammad Ali

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.

More information: BoxRec

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 rap and hip hop music.

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. 

Muhammad Ali

He remained an active public figure globally, but in his latter years made increasingly limited public appearances as his condition worsened, and he was cared for by his family until his death on June 3, 2016.

DNA testing performed in 2018 showed that, through his paternal grandmother, Ali was a descendant of the heroic 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. By the end of his boxing career Ali had absorbed 200,000 hits.

Ali said that he first heard of the Nation of Islam when he was fighting in the Golden Gloves tournament in Chicago in 1959, and attended his first Nation of Islam meeting in 1961. He continued to attend meetings, although keeping his involvement hidden from the public.

More information: CNN

In 1962, Ali met Malcolm X, who soon became his spiritual and political mentor. By the time of the first Liston fight, Nation of Islam members, including Malcolm X, were visible in his entourage.

In a secret operation code-named Minaret, the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted the communications of leading Americans, including Ali, Senators Frank Church and Howard Baker, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., prominent U.S. journalists, and others who criticized the U.S. war in Vietnam. A review by the NSA of the Minaret program concluded that it was disreputable if not outright illegal.

In 1971, his Fight of the Century with Frazier provided cover for an activist group, the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI, to pull off a burglary at an FBI office in Pennsylvania, which exposed the COINTELPRO operations that included illegal spying on activists involved with the civil rights and anti-war movements. One of the COINTELPRO targets was Ali, which included the FBI gaining access to his records as far back as elementary school; one such record mentioned him loving art as a child.

He remained an active public figure globally, but in his latter years made increasingly limited public appearances as his condition worsened, and he was cared for by his family until his death on June 3, 2016.

More information: Time

Service to others is the rent you pay 

for your room here on earth.

Muhammad Ali