PHOENIX, Arizona, June 3, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) — Muhammad Ali, former heavyweight boxing champion and icon of the American Civil Rights era, died at a Phoenix area hospital Friday.
He was 74.
Ali had been hospitalized Thursday suffering from a severe respiratory infection.
Family members confirmed he passed away Friday night.
Ali first burst upon the world stage as a brash young boxer from Louisville, Kentucky named Cassius Clay. He rose through U.S. amateur boxing ranks and ultimately won the gold medal in the light heavyweight division in the 1960 Rome Summer Olympics.
Four years later, he defeated the heavily favored Sonny Liston to capture the heavyweight championship of the world.
Known for his lightning-fast reflexes and a notorious left jab, the young heavyweight champion captured the world’s imagination, often bragging about his good looks and boxing ability in verse.
He was at the the height of his popularity in 1964 when he announced he had become a member of the Nation of Islam, and a follower of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X.
He renounced the name of Cassius Clay, telling the world he would be known from that moment forward as Muhammad Ali.
“Cassius Clay is a slave name,” Ali said at the time. “I didn’t choose it, and I didn’t want it. 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.”
Ali’s conversion to Islam sent shock waves through the boxing world, causing his popularity to plummet among mainstream white Americans.
His problems were compounded in 1967 when he refused induction into the U.S. military, saying his religious beliefs prevented him from going to war in Vietnam. Ali was found guilty of draft evasion and stripped of his title.
He fought the decision all the way to the United States Supreme Court, where his conviction was overturned cementing his reputation as a civil rights hero.
Ali’s boxing license was reinstated, and after winning a series of tune-up bouts, the then undefeated heavyweight attempted to recapture the title from crown holder Joe Frazier.
Frazier, himself a former Olympic gold medalist, was considered the establishment’s champion, a journeyman fighter and former slaughterhouse worker known for his granite chin and devastating left hook.
The build up to the fight proved to be a public relations extravaganza, often fueled by the antics of ABC sportscaster and commentator Howard Cosell.
The so-called “Fight of the Century” took place before a packed house in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971.
After 15 grueling rounds, Frazier prevailed, sending Ali to the canvas with a trademark left hook. Ali managed to finish the fight, but the knock down clinched the victory for “Smokin’ Joe,” who won by unanimous decision.
After his first defeat, Ali continued to box, while calling for a rematch with Frazier.
Frazier, in the meantime, lost his title to heavyweight slugger George Foreman.
Ali and Frazier would fight again. The first rematch, a non-championship fight, was at Madison Square Garden, where once again the fight went the distance, only this time Ali came out on top.
Ali would go on to regain the crown, winning against Foreman in a fight Ali dubbed the “Rumble in the Jungle,” due to its location in Kinshasa, Zaire.
The fight would set up a third Ali-Frazier contest — this one a title bout — which was held in the Philippines. The “Thrilla in Manilla,” as Ali called it, is considered one of the most intense matches in heavyweight history, a seesaw battle in a boiling-hot arena where temperatures in the ring were in excess of 110 degrees.
The slugfest lasted until the 14th round, when a battered and bleeding Frazier was unable to answer the bell for the 15th and final round.
It was the last time the two would fight, but the bout greatly impacted both men. Ali later said he felt he was close to dying that day; and was seconds away from throwing in the towel when Frazier called it quits.
While he went on to lose and regain the championship a historic third time, Ali was never the same.
He fought a handful of fights before briefly retiring, only to return to the ring against Ernie Holmes in October, 1980 where he was pummeled by the powerful heavyweight. In the 11th round the referee stopped the fight, the only time Ali lost on a technical knockout in his career.
Shortly after the bout with Holmes, Ali began to experience difficulty speaking. He also developed hand and body tremors. In 1984, he was officially diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.
While he remained in the public arena, Ali largely faded from view, until the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. In a dramatic ceremony witnessed by billions worldwide, Ali lit the torch for opening ceremonies. The sight of the former champ struggling to light the torch reignited a worldwide love affair with the once-controversial champion, who was largely heralded as the most famous man on Earth.
In the years that followed, Ali remained as active as his condition would allow. He continued traveling as a peace ambassador, while raising millions for the philanthropic Muhammad Ali Center in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.
In 1999, Ali turned up in Salt Lake City, where he filmed an episode of the CBS hit show “Touched By An Angel.”
In 2005, Ali received the Presidential Freedom Medal by U.S. President George Bush.
While he was robbed of his voice 30 years ago, his message of peace and conciliation remained clear.
In 2015, Ali condemned terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. He also took exception to a call by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump to ban all Muslims from entering the United States.
“We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda,” Ali said in a statement released to media worldwide.
“They have alienated many from learning about Islam. True Muslims know or should know that it goes against our religion to try and force Islam on anybody.
“Speaking as someone who has never been accused of political correctness, I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam, and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people’s views on what Islam really is.”
U.S. President Barack Obama released a statement Saturday mourning Ali’s passing.
Saturday, U..S Muhammad Ali was The Greatest. Period. If you just asked him, he’d tell you. He’d tell you he was the double greatest; that he’d “handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder into jail.”
But what made The Champ the greatest – what truly separated him from everyone else – is that everyone else would tell you pretty much the same thing.
Like everyone else on the planet, Michelle and I mourn his passing. But we’re also grateful to God for how fortunate we are to have known him, if just for a while; for how fortunate we all are that The Greatest chose to grace our time.
In my private study, just off the Oval Office, I keep a pair of his gloves on display, just under that iconic photograph of him – the young champ, just 22 years old, roaring like a lion over a fallen Sonny Liston. I was too young when it was taken to understand who he was – still Cassius Clay, already an Olympic Gold Medal winner, yet to set out on a spiritual journey that would lead him to his Muslim faith, exile him at the peak of his power, and set the stage for his return to greatness with a name as familiar to the downtrodden in the slums of Southeast Asia and the villages of Africa as it was to cheering crowds in Madison Square Garden.
“I am America,” he once declared. “I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me – black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own. Get used to me.”
That’s the Ali I came to know as I came of age – not just as skilled a poet on the mic as he was a fighter in the ring, but a man who fought for what was right. A man who fought for us. He stood with King and Mandela; stood up when it was hard; spoke out when others wouldn’t. His fight outside the ring would cost him his title and his public standing. It would earn him enemies on the left and the right, make him reviled, and nearly send him to jail. But Ali stood his ground. And his victory helped us get used to the America we recognize today.
He wasn’t perfect, of course. For all his magic in the ring, he could be careless with his words, and full of contradictions as his faith evolved. But his wonderful, infectious, even innocent spirit ultimately won him more fans than foes – maybe because in him, we hoped to see something of ourselves. Later, as his physical powers ebbed, he became an even more powerful force for peace and reconciliation around the world. We saw a man who said he was so mean he’d make medicine sick reveal a soft spot, visiting children with illness and disability around the world, telling them they, too, could become the greatest. We watched a hero light a torch, and fight his greatest fight of all on the world stage once again; a battle against the disease that ravaged his body, but couldn’t take the spark from his eyes.
Muhammad Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it. We are all better for it. Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to his family, and we pray that the greatest fighter of them all finally rests in peace.
