Muhammad Ali

Before the world knew him as “the Greatest,” Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. was a boy in Louisville, Kentucky, angry about a stolen bicycle. At 12, he told police officer and boxing coach Joe E. Martin that he wanted to “whup” the thief. Martin told him he had better learn how to box first. Clay soon did, beginning the training that would make Muhammad Ali one of the most famous athletes and public figures of the 20th century.

Ali was born on January 17, 1942, to Odessa Grady Clay and Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr. His father painted signs and billboards, and his mother worked as a domestic helper. He attended Central High School in Louisville and was dyslexic, which made reading and writing difficult. He also grew up under racial segregation. His mother recalled that he was once denied a drink of water at a store because of his race, an incident that deeply affected him. The 1955 murder of Emmett Till also shook him, and Ali later told his daughter Hana that nothing had affected him more than that story.

Boxing gave Clay a language of speed, rhythm, and defiance. After training with Fred Stoner, whom he credited with shaping his style, stamina, and system, and later with Chuck Bodak, he built an amateur record of 100–8. He won six Kentucky Golden Gloves titles, two Chicago Golden Gloves, two national Golden Gloves titles, two Amateur Athletic Union national titles, the U.S. Olympic Trials, and a light heavyweight gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. He turned professional later that year, and by the end of 1963 had a 19–0 record with 15 knockouts.

On February 25, 1964, at age 22, he defeated Sonny Liston in a major upset to win the world heavyweight championship. That same year, he rejected his birth name as a “slave name” and formally became Muhammad Ali. He held the Ring magazine heavyweight title from 1964 to 1970, was undisputed champion from 1974 to 1978, and later held the WBA and Ring heavyweight titles from 1978 to 1979. His most publicized fights included bouts with Liston, Joe Frazier, including the Fight of the Century and the Thrilla in Manila, and George Foreman in The Rumble in the Jungle.

Ali’s fame was never confined to the ring. In the early 1960s he joined the Nation of Islam, later transitioning to Sunni Islam in the mid-1970s after the death of Elijah Muhammad. In 1967, he refused military draft service because of his religious beliefs and ethical opposition to the Vietnam War. He was found guilty of draft evasion, stripped of his boxing titles, and did not fight for nearly four years while his case moved through appeal. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1971. His stand made him a symbol of the 1960s counterculture and a high-profile figure of racial pride for African Americans during the civil rights movement and throughout his career.

Ali retired from boxing in 1981 and turned more of his attention to religion, philanthropy, and activism. He had also been a spoken word artist, actor, and writer, releasing two Grammy-nominated albums and two autobiographies. In 1984, he made public his diagnosis of Parkinson’s syndrome, and in later years he appeared less often as his condition worsened. He died in 2016, after a life spent taking risks in public. That is why a line like “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life” still sounds like Ali: bold, plainspoken, and backed by the way he lived.