Muhammad Ali

, Muhammad Ali

 

 

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”

Muhammad Ali (1942 – 2016)

 

Seems like so many of our pop cultural touchstones having been dying of late… and over the weekend we lost another.

Muhammad Ali, one of the world’s greatest sporting figures and certainly history’s most iconic boxer, died at a hospital in Phoenix on Friday, after having been admitted for respiratory complications, a condition only complicated by his long struggle Parkinson’s disease.

, Muhammad AliLike David Bowie, and Prince (in his own way), Muhammad Ali was an enormous presence in the world. But unlike Bowie, who spoke through his music but hid behind many personas, or Prince, who lived and died for the stage, but otherwise lived in cloistered privacy, Ali seemed to thrive in the national spotlight.

Muhammad Ali was a brave, outspoken and sometimes polarizing individual – and a force to be reckoned with, both inside, and outside the ring. 

He was born Cassius Clay in 1942 – but the world will remember him as Ali…

At 22, he won the world heavyweight championship when he took down Sonny Liston in an upset in 1964. No one gave him a chance, he shocked the sporting world, and never looked back.

He soon converted to Islam, changed his “slave” name to Ali. He became an active symbol for racial pride and resistance to white domination and a follower of Malcom X and the Nation of Islam and no doubt attracted the attention of Hoover’s FBI.

 This was “in your face” activism like America had never seen – this was “taking it to the man” on the world’s stage.

, Muhammad AliIn March 1966, at the height of the Vietnam War, Ali was drafted, but refused to be inducted into the armed forces, stating that he had “no quarrel with them Vietcong.” And as a result he was systematically denied a boxing license in every state and stripped of his passport.

Ali was unable to box for the next three years while his case worked its way through the appeals process and 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction in a resoundingly unanimous 8-0 ruling.

And Ali’s post-boxing years were just as amazing and tumultuous as his years in the ring…

In 1981, while in Los Angeles, Ali riveted the nation’s attention when he talked a man down from jumping off a ninth-floor ledge.

In 1984, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s syndrome, a disease that sometimes results from head trauma from activities such as boxing, but he refused to slow down.

Later that year, he shocked many when he announced his support of Ronald Reagan’s re-election, stating that “He’s keeping God in schools and that’s enough.”

In 1991, Ali traveled to Iraq during the Gulf War, and met with Saddam Hussein in an attempt to negotiate the release of American hostages.

In 2002 he travelled to Afghanistan as the “UN Messenger of Peace,” and in 2012, he held the Olympic Flag at the opening ceremonies in London…

Muhammad Ali was a force of nature, both as a boxer and as a man…He lived a life “that mattered” and he will be missed.

 

 

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