Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali (17 January 1942 – 3 June 2016) was an American boxer and activist, born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville, Kentucky, who died in Scottsdale, Arizona. Known as "the Greatest", he is widely regarded as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time and one of the most celebrated cultural figures of the twentieth century. ¹

He won the world heavyweight championship three times, in 1964, 1974 and 1978 — the first boxer to regain the lineal title three times — and finished his professional career with 56 wins, 37 of them by knockout, against five losses in 61 fights. In 1999 he was named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated and Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC. ^{1 2}

He converted to Islam in the early 1960s, joining the Nation of Islam, and later moved to Sunni Islam in the mid-1970s. In 1967 he refused the draft for the Vietnam War on religious and ethical grounds, was convicted and stripped of his titles, and lost nearly four years at his athletic peak before the US Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1971. ¹

He was born to Odessa Grady Clay and Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr., a sign and billboard painter, while his mother worked as a domestic helper. His father was a Methodist, but his mother brought up Muhammad and his younger brother Rudolph — later known as Rahaman Ali — as Baptists. ¹

He attended Central High School in Louisville and was dyslexic, which made reading and writing difficult. He grew up under racial segregation; his mother recalled that being refused a drink of water at a store because of his race affected him deeply, as did the 1955 murder of Emmett Till. ¹

He came to boxing by chance at the age of twelve: after his bicycle was stolen, Louisville police officer and boxing coach Joe E. Martin told the furious boy he had better learn to box first, and he went on to train under Fred Stoner, whom he credited with moulding his style, stamina and system. ^{1 2}

Before he turned eighteen he had won six Kentucky Golden Gloves titles, two national Golden Gloves titles and two Amateur Athletic Union national titles, and he took the light-heavyweight gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics, ending his amateur career with a record of 100 wins and eight losses. ^{1 2}

He turned professional in October 1960, winning his debut on 29 October against Tunney Hunsaker, and by the end of 1963 he stood at 19 wins without a loss, 15 of them by knockout; from 1960 his trainer was Angelo Dundee. ¹

On 25 February 1964, an 8-to-1 underdog, he defeated the champion Sonny Liston in a major upset and became world heavyweight champion at twenty-two. That year he denounced his birth name as a "slave name" and formally took the name Muhammad Ali; in the 1965 rematch he knocked Liston out in the first round with the famous "phantom punch". ^{1 2}

In 1967 Ali refused to be drafted into the military, citing his religious beliefs and ethical opposition to the Vietnam War. He was found guilty of draft evasion and stripped of his boxing titles and licence, but stayed out of prison while he appealed, until the Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1971. He did not fight for nearly four years and lost a period of peak performance. His stance made him an icon of the 1960s counterculture and a high-profile figure of racial pride for African Americans during the civil rights movement. ¹

Returning to the ring, he lost the "Fight of the Century" to Joe Frazier in March 1971 — then the biggest boxing event ever staged, and his first defeat. In 1974 he regained the world title by defeating George Foreman in "The Rumble in the Jungle", held the undisputed championship from 1974 to 1978, and met Frazier a third time in the "Thrilla in Manila". ¹

In September 1976 he beat Ken Norton by a controversial decision at Yankee Stadium and announced his retirement to practise his faith, having converted to Sunni Islam the previous year after falling out with the Nation of Islam. In 1978 he lost the title to Leon Spinks and regained it from him later the same year, becoming the first man to win the heavyweight championship three times. Comebacks in 1980 and 1981 ended in defeat, and he retired for good in 1981, aged thirty-nine. ^{1 2}

Ali joined Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam in the early 1960s; in that period Malcolm X was among his closest influences before the two parted. After Elijah Muhammad's death in 1975, his son Warith Deen Muhammad led the movement's followers into Sunni Islam, and in his later autobiography Ali attributed his own conversion to mainstream Sunni Islam to Warith Deen's leadership. IslamiCity likewise records that he left the Nation of Islam in 1975 and became part of Sunni Islam, and that he performed the Hajj in 1989. ^{1 3}

In later life he developed an interest in Sufism, referenced in his autobiography The Soul of a Butterfly, co-authored with his daughter Hana Yasmeen Ali, who said he was attracted to Sufism after reading the books of Inayat Khan. ¹

His younger brother Rudolph Clay, known as Rahaman Ali, was himself a boxer and a constant companion. As a young professional he was trained by the veteran Archie Moore, whom he then defeated in a 1962 bout after Angelo Dundee had become his trainer. His association with Malcolm X and the civil rights movement were among his defining public relationships of the 1960s. The museum does not yet hold separate records for all of these people, so they are named here in the text without links. ¹

This section sets out different positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum.

Ali was a controversial and polarising figure in his early career: he was arrested and publicly vilified for refusing conscription, and supporters saw him as a symbol of conscience and dignity while critics held that he had failed a civic duty. Over time he became a globally respected cultural icon. ¹

One of his best-known stories is also disputed: in his 1975 autobiography he recalled throwing his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio River after being refused service at a whites-only restaurant, but several of his friends denied the story, and his biographer Thomas Hauser concluded that he lost the medal a year after winning it. He received a replacement medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, where he lit the flame to open the Games. ¹

He performed as a spoken-word artist and released two studio albums, I Am the Greatest! (1963) and The Adventures of Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay (1976), both Grammy-nominated, and he published two autobiographies, among them The Soul of a Butterfly, and worked as an actor and writer. ¹

Ali was married four times and had nine children, among them the boxer Laila Ali. This museum does not publish family details beyond what is needed to understand his work. ¹

He travelled widely as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, and was inducted into boxing halls of fame; the Muhammad Ali Center, Muhammad Ali Boulevard and Louisville's Muhammad Ali International Airport bear his name. ¹

In 1984 Ali made public his diagnosis of Parkinson's syndrome, which some reports attributed to boxing injuries, though he and his physicians disputed the link. He was hospitalised in Scottsdale, Arizona, on 2 June 2016 with a respiratory illness; his condition worsened and he died the following day, aged seventy-four, of septic shock. He was buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville. ^{1 2}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.