LOS ANGELES—He called himself “The Greatest,” and few disagreed.
Muhammad Ali— who died on Friday in Arizona at age 74—was one of the iconic sporting heroes of the 20th century, the three-time heavyweight champion of the world who said he could “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”
Ali, who came of age amid the turmoil of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, dazzled the boxing world as a youngster with his speed, never before seen in his weight class.
He also rattled the established order with an equally quick wit and colorful personality that lifted him into the realm of super-stardom and ushered in the age of globally televised multi-million-dollar fights.
The legendary fighter spent his last years ravaged by Parkinson’s disease but never retreated from public view.
Instead he added a crusade against the illness to the list of battles of his extraordinary life.
Rocky road to stardom
The rise of Ali—born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr in Louisville, Kentucky on Jan. 17, 1942—to the status of sports icon was not a smooth one.
His conversion to Islam in 1964, announced when he was fresh from victory over Sonny Liston for his first heavyweight world title, deeply disturbed white America.
His decision to change his name from what he called his “slave name” of Cassius Clay was derided.
But that was nothing compared to the outrage that greeted his refusal to join the armed forces in 1967 on the grounds that he was a Muslim minister.
Only 25 years old, he was convicted of draft dodging, stripped of his title and banished from boxing.
He was allowed to resume his career in 1970, but feelings were slow to heal. An unidentified man interviewed on camera in 1971 spoke for many when he called Ali’s impending title fight with Joe Frazier “a disgrace.”
“I have no interest in this fight at all,” the man said. “In fact, the reason is this fellow they call Clay, or Muhammad Ali, or whatever he wants to call himself, is a disgrace to the nation.”
Ali suffered his first professional defeat in that fight, on March 8, 1971 at Madison Square Garden.
On the same day, the US military was ordering investigations into charges that American soldiers had murdered Vietnamese civilians at My Lai.
A few months later, on June 28 of that year, the Supreme Court voted 8-0 to overturn Ali’s draft dodging conviction.
