Muhammad Ali.
Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016. Was an American professional boxer & activist. Nicknamed, The Greatest, He is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th Century & is often regarded as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. He held the Ring magazine heavyweight title from 1964 to 1970. He was the undisputed champion from 1974 to 1978 & the WBA & Ring heavyweight champion from 1978 to 1979.
In 1999, He was named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated & The Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC.
Born & raised in Louisville, Kentucky, He 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 & turned professional later that year. He converted to Islam after 1961. He won the world heavyweight championship, defeating Sonny Liston in a major upset on February 25, 1964, at age 22. During that year, he denounced his birth name as a, Slave name, & formally changed his name to Muhammad Ali. In 1967, Ali refused to be drafted into the military, owing to his religious beliefs & ethical opposition to the Vietnam War, & was found guilty of draft evasion & stripped of his boxing titles. He stayed out of prison while appealing the decision to the Supreme Court, Where his conviction was overturned in 1971. He did not fight for nearly four years & lost a period of peak performance as an athlete. Ali’s actions as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War made him an icon for the larger counterculture of the 1960s generation, & he was a very high profile figure of racial pride for African Americans during the civil rights movement & throughout his career. As a Muslim, Ali was initially affiliated with Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, NOI. He later disavowed the NOI, adhering to Sunni Islam. He fought in several historic boxing matches, Including his highly publicized fights with Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, Including The Fight of the Century, The biggest boxing event up until then, The Thrilla in Manila, & his fight with George Foreman in The Rumble in the Jungle. Ali thrived in the spotlight at a time when many boxers let their managers do the talking, & he became renowned for his provocative & outlandish persona. He was famous for trash talking, often free styled with rhyme schemes & spoken word poetry, & has been recognized as a pioneer in Hip Hop. He often predicted in which round he would knock out his opponent. As a boxer, Ali was known for his unorthodox movement, fancy footwork, head movement, & Rope A Dope technique, among others.
Outside of boxing, Ali attained success as a spoken word artist, releasing two studio albums. I Am the Greatest. 1963. & The Adventures of Ali & His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay 1976. Both albums received Grammy Award nominations. He also featured as an actor & writer, Releasing two autobiographies. Ali retired from boxing in 1981 & focused on religion, philanthropy, & activism. In 1984, he made public his diagnosis of Parkinson’s syndrome, which some reports attributed to boxing-related injuries, Though he & his specialist physicians disputed this. He remained an active public figure globally, but in his later years made fewer public appearances as his condition worsened, & he was cared for by his family.
Ali’s Early Life. He Was born on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky. He had one brother. He was named after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr. 1912 to1990, who had a sister & four brothers, & who himself was named in honor of the 19th Century Republican politician & staunch abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay, Also from the state of Kentucky. Clay’s father’s paternal grandparents were John Clay & 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, & was predominantly of African descent, with Irish & English family heritage.
His maternal great grandfather, Abe Grady, Emigrated from Ennis, County Clare, Ireland. DNA Testing performed in 2018 showed that, through his paternal grandmother, Clay 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, & was the subject of abolitionist William Greenleaf Eliot’s book, The Story of Archer Alexander. From Slavery to Freedom.
His father was a sign & billboard painter, & his mother, Odessa O’Grady Clay 1917 to 1994, Was a domestic helper. Although Cassius Sr. Was a Methodist, He allowed Odessa to bring up both Cassius Jr. & his younger brother, Rudolph, Rudy, Clay, Later renamed Rahaman Ali, as Baptists. Cassius Jr. attended Central High School in Louisville. He was dyslexic, which led to difficulties in reading & writing, At school & for much of his life.
He 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. He was also strongly affected by the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, Which led to young Clay & a friend taking out their frustration by vandalizing a local rail yard. He once told his daughter Hana, Nothing would ever shake me up (more) than the story of Emmett Till.
