Richmond Free Press
A6 June 9-11, 2016
June 9-11, 2016 A7
Muhammad Ali • The Greatest
Farewell to the champ Continued from A1
A shaken and angry 12-year-old Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., wanting to report the crime, was introduced to Joe Martin, a police officer who doubled as a boxing coach at a local gym.. The officer advised the youth to learn to box first before seeking revenge, and young Cassius, who would later change his name to Muhammad Ali and his religion to Islam, found his future at Martin’s Gym. Mr. Ali would rise to become a repeat heavyweight champion and much more. Bold, charismatic and outspoken, the defiant one dubbed the “Louisville Lip” also would became a symbol of black liberation as he successfully stood up to the U.S. government by refusing to go into the Army as a violation of his adopted Muslim faith, adding his name to the roll call of black activists like baseball great Jackie Robinson, football and singing great Paul Robeson and tennis star and Richmond’s own Arthur Ashe. Later, Mr. Ali would travel the world, raising money for charity and relief efforts, despite battling Parkinson’s disease that made him shake uncontrollably, becoming one of the most recognizable figures across the globe on par with Nelson Mandela. Always a devout Muslim after his conversion, he would at one point use his celebrity to secure the release of 15 American hostages from Iraq, when it was still under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Tributes to Mr. Ali’s stature, courage, generosity and character have poured in following his death at 9:10 p.m. Friday, June 3. He died in a hospital in his adopted home of Scottsdale, Ariz., of “septic shock,” a complication of the Parkinson’s he had fought for three decades. As the world mourns, his family plans to carry out his funeral wishes in his hometown of Louisville this Friday, June 10. Following a private funeral the day before, his body will travel in a motorcade along the avenue that bears his name. The procession will wind through his boyhood neighborhood and down Broadway, the same avenue where a parade 56 years ago celebrated the brash young man who had won a gold boxing medal at the 1960 Olympics, opening the way to his professional career. The procession is to be followed by a memorial service open to the public that will be held at Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center in downtown. Eulogists will include former President Bill Clinton, comedian Billy Crystal and sports television host Bryant Gumbel. The ceremony will be led by an imam in the Muslim tradition but include representatives of other faiths. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, for example will represent Mormons. “Muhammad Ali was clearly the people’s champion,” family spokesman Bob Gunnell said, “and the celebration will reflect his devotion to people of all races, religions and nationalities.” As one of the best-known figures of the 20th century, Mr. Ali did not believe in modesty and proclaimed himself not only “the greatest” but “the double greatest” during his heyday. In 1978, DC Comics even featured Mr. Ali and Superman as partners in a comic book. Americans had never seen an athlete like him, a man with lightning-fast feet, a quick knockout punch and unrepentant words. He was heavyweight champ a record three times between 1964 and 1978, taking part in some of the sport’s most epic bouts, dethroning and eclipsing champions like Sonny Liston and George Foreman and winning boxing immortality with his battles with former champion Joe Frazier. In his heyday, Mr. Ali was cocky and rebellious and psyched himself up by taunting opponents and reciting original poems that predicted the round in which he would knock them out. The audacity caused many to despise Mr. Ali but endeared him to millions who adored him for his ability “to float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” “He talked, he was handsome, he did wonderful things,” said George Foreman, a prominent rival, who lost the heavyweight title to Mr. Ali in the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire “If you were 16 years old and wanted to copy somebody, it had to be him.” Mr. Ali’s emergence coincided with the American civil rights
in Vietnam. He was convicted of draft evasion, banned from boxing and stripped of his heavyweight title. When asked about his stance on the North Vietnamese, Mr. Ali famously said, ‘’They never called me nigger. They never Muhammad Ali holds the lynched me. They didn’t put no dogs on me. They didn’t rob me Olympic torch as he prepares of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father.’’ to light the flame and open the His decision to stay out of the war later won a major deci1996 games in Atlanta. sion from the U.S. Supreme Court upholding his position and wiping out his conviction, and with that, Mr. Ali had defeated what many saw as a racist system. It would have been easier and more lucrative for Mr. Ali to keep quiet and go along with what many in white society wanted from him, said his longtime friend and sports commentator Howard Cosell. They wanted ‘’a white man’s black man,’’ Mr. Cosell once said. Mr. Ali didn’t do deference. “I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize,” Mr. Ali said. “But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.” He “made people accept him as a man, as an equal, and he was not afraid to represent himself in that way,’’ said Jim Brown, a football great who in 1967 was a among a group of black athletes who came together in the “Ali Summit” to support the boxer’s anti-war stance. President Obama, the nation’s first black president, keeps a set of Mr. Ali’s boxing gloves on display in his study at the White House. “He stood with King and Mandela, stood up when it was hard, spoke out when others wouldn’t,’’ the president stated after learning of Mr. Ali’s death. “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,” stated President Obama, who is not planning to attend the service. “But Ali stood his ground. And his victory helped us get used to the America we recognize today.’’ Reuters The Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime friend, said Mr. Ali “went movement and his persona of a rebel offered youths something from one of the most despised figures in the world to one of the they did not get from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and most other most popular men in the world because people respected that he leaders of the era. believed and sacrificed for what he believed in.’’ The day after conquering then-champion Sonny Liston and Mr. Ali, a one-time Baptist, could be considered the most famous winning his first world heavyweight championship in 1964, Mr. convert to Islam in American history, though he later rejected MalAli announced he had joined the Nation of Islam under the guid- colm X during a power struggle within the Nation of Islam. ance of Malcolm X and had shed his ‘’slave’’ name of Cassius His battle with the government began after Mr. Ali was twice Clay, shocking the country. rejected for service because the draft board rated him retarded Three years later, he propelled the anti-war movement to new with an IQ of 78. However, under revised standards, he was heights by refusing to be drafted into the U.S. military to fight declared fit for service. When he refused induction in April 1967 and was convicted of draft evasion, the World Boxing Association stripped him of his title. He did not get his title back after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld his “conscientious objector” status and was forced to start over, his boxing career having been at a standstill for nearly four years while he appealed the conviction because state boxing officials would not grant him licenses to fight. But he put the gloves back on and would win the title back after knocking out Mr. Foreman, lose it later and briefly regain it in 1978 before losing it to Larry Holmes in 1980 at the close of his career. He retired with a record of 56 wins, including 37 knockouts, and five losses. After Mr. Ali’s boxing career ended, he became an even more “powerful force Associated Press Sports stars take part in the 1967 “Ali Summit” in Cleveland to show support for for peace and reconciliation around the the boxing champ’s refusal to be drafted. Mr. Ali, seated second from left, was world,” President Obama stated, recalling joined by, seated from left, Bill Russell, Boston Celtics; Jim Brown, Cleveland that Mr. Ali visited sick children and those Browns, and then college star Lew Alcindor Jr., later L.A. Lakers great Kareem with disabilities and told them that they, Abdul-Jabbar. Standing from left: Ohio Congressman Carl Stokes; Walter Beach, too, could become the greatest. Cleveland Browns; Bobby Mitchell, Washington NFL team; Sid Williams, Cleveland Mr. Ali’s death held special meaning Browns; Curtis McClinton, Kansas City Chiefs; Willie Davis, Green Bay Packers; Jim in Louisville, where he was the city’s Shorter, former Cleveland Browns player and John Wooten, Cleveland Browns. favorite son.
Area residents tell their brush with ‘The Greatest’ Stories by Bonnie V. Winston
‘A far greater human being than I ever thought’ Jesse Vaughan, the Richmond native and creative genius behind Virginia State University’s recent “Building a Better World” campaign, has won 27 Emmy Awards during the course of his career. But Vaughan says the highlight of his nearly 40 years as a director and producer for television and film in Richmond, Washington and Los Angeles was directing “The Last Punch,” a feature film about Muhammad Ali’s last fight. Filmed in Atlanta in 2013-2014 but not yet released, the movie tells the story about “The Drama in the Bahamas,’ the Dec. 11, 1981, fight in Nassau, Bahamas, against Canadian Trevor Berbick that capped Mr. Ali’s extraordinary 21-year professional boxing career. Mr. Ali was about five weeks shy of his 40th Petersburg resident Jesse Vaughan displays poster art from “The Last Punch,” the feature film he directed about Muhammad Ali’s final fight.
birthday and already suffering with trembling hands and vocal stutters. Just a year earlier, Mr. Ali had attempted to regain the heavyweight title for an unprecedented fourth time and went into the ring against Larry Holmes. Mr. Ali lost miserably. “He didn’t want to end his career on a sour note,” Mr. Vaughan explained. “But no one would grant him a license to fight again.” James Cornelius, a street hustler and Ali groupie (who has since become a member of the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Ali Muhammad), took up the challenge of getting a license, finding investors and promoting the fight. The film, which is based on Mr. Cornelius’ book by the same name, details the struggles. Mr. Ali, who went 10 rounds with Mr. Berbick, lost the match by unanimous decision, ending his career with a 56 wins and five losses. Mr. Vaughan took a six-month leave of absence from his job as director of Advance Creative Services Group at Virginia State University to work on the film. Post-production work was completed in both Richmond and Los Angeles. The film, starring Tony Grant and Keith David, was screened Jan. 3, 2015, in Atlanta by the Ali Sports Foundation and premiered earlier this year at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles. Additionally, it was shown Feb. 20 at the Nation of Islam’s Saviours’ Day weekend in Detroit. “I was told Mr. Ali saw the film and liked it,” Mr. Vaughan said. “He was proud of (Mr. Cornelius) because he, like Mr. Ali, accomplished something no one thought he could.” Mr. Vaughan said researching Mr. Ali’s life and career for the film “made me realize he was a far greater human being than I ever thought. It rekindled my love and admiration for him.”
A gift from Ali: A ring to Gov. Wilder Former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder has a cherished memento from “The Greatest” — Muhammad Ali’s third championship ring. The gift from Mr. Ali, a large onyx and gold ring commemorat-
Muhammad Ali taunts Sonny Liston after knocking him out in the first round of their May 1965 rematch, three months after Mr. Ali first defeated Mr. Liston to win the heavyweight title.
Associated Press
Malcolm X and newly crowned heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali are together in New York City in March 1964.
John Rooney/Associated Press
Associated Press
Mr. Ali and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak out against the military draft in March 1967 in Louisville, Ky.
Below left, the boxing champ hugs former President Bill Clinton at a gala to open the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville in November 2005. Below, President George W. Bush awards the Medal of Freedom to Mr. Ali at a White House ceremony in November 2005. Right, Mr. Ali proudly stands with daughter, boxing champion Laila Ali, after she won the Super Middleweight title in June 2005 at a match in Washington.
Ed Reinke/Associated Press
Cars lined the street outside his childhood home, a bright pink single-story house that was recently renovated and turned into a museum. Visitors piled flowers and boxing gloves around the marker designating it a historical site. They were young and old, black and white, friends and fans. Another memorial grew outside the Muhammad Ali Center downtown, a museum built in tribute to Mr. Ali’s core values: Respect, confidence, conviction, dedication, charity, spirituality. He chose his hometown as the place for the center. “He was a really sweet, kind, loving, giving, affectionate, wonderful person,” said his younger brother, Rahaman Ali. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer summed up Ali’s deep ties to the city. ‘’Muhammad Ali belongs to the world, but he only has one hometown,’’ he said. ‘’The ‘Louisville Lip’ spoke to everyone, but we heard him in a way no one else could.’’ Mr. Ali did not have to be in a boxing ring to command the world stage. In 1990, a few months after Iraq invaded Kuwait, Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein held dozens of foreigners hostages in hopes of averting an invasion of his country. Mr. Ali flew to Baghdad, met Saddam and left with 15 American hostages.
Evan Vucci/Associated Press
A nation that once questioned his patriotism cheered loudly in 1996 when he made a surprise appearance at the Olympic games in Atlanta, stilling the Parkinson’s tremors in his hands enough to light the Olympic flame. He also took part in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012, looking frail in a wheelchair. In November 2002, he went to Afghanistan on a goodwill visit after being appointed a U.N. “messenger of peace.” Mr. Ali was married four times, most recently to the former Lonnie Williams, who knew him when she was a child in Louisville. He had nine children, including daughter Laila, who became a boxer. The diagnosis of Parkinson’s, which has been linked to head trauma, came about three years after Mr. Ali retired from boxing in 1981. He helped establish the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center at a hospital in Phoenix. Those who knew and admired him still see him as the young man who stood up for principle. “At a time when blacks who spoke up about injustice were labeled uppity and often arrested under one pretext or another,” basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote of him, “Muhammad willingly sacrificed the best years of his career to stand tall
Susan Walsh/Associated Press
and fight for what he believed was right. “In doing so, he made all Americans, black and white, stand taller. I may be 7’2” but I never felt taller than when standing in his shadow.”
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
Mr. Ali, accompanied by his wife Lonnie, accepts the President’s Award at the 40th Annual NAACP Image Awards in February 2009. Photos by Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press
nothing to do with it.” “He laughed, and said, ‘I like you.’ “I told him, ‘I like you, too.’ ” The two would joke when they saw one another, Gov. Wilder said. “He would tell me, ‘I’m prettier than you are.’ ” When Mr. Ali wowed the crowds at Gov. Wilder’s inaugural ball in January 1990, people followed him around the Richmond Coliseum, the bold asking for autographs. “You would have thought the inaugural was his,” Gov. Wilder laughed. Mr. Ali was among a rare group of people, like Nelson Mandela, leaders with worldwide impact, Gov. Wilder said. “Unfortunately today, we have a diminishing of that spirit,” he said. “That’s why youngsters need to know who he was, what he was and how he was.” Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder holds the championship ring that Muhammad Ali gave him when he became the nation’s first elected African-American governor in 1989.
ing Mr. Ali’s world championship rematch against Sonny Liston in May 1965, arrived the day after the Richmond native’s historic November 1989 win as the nation’s first elected African-American governor. Inside, the ring is inscribed with the words “To Doug Wilder with respect.” “I don’t wear it often,” Gov. Wilder told the Free Press Monday, adding that he was surprised when the gift arrived. He recalled their first meeting in March 1986, when Gov. Wilder was presiding over the Virginia Senate as lieutenant governor. Gov. Wilder invited Mr. Ali to the Capitol to speak to the Senate. “He said, ‘Are you sure it’s alright with them?’ he recalled Mr. Ali asking. Gov. Wilder, who was in charge, told Mr. Ali, “They have
Richmond couple touched by ‘The Greatest’ For Dr. Jill Bussey and her husband, Dr. Monroe Harris, their memories of former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali are literally quite tangible. When Dr. Bussey was 2, a young Cassius M. Clay Jr., then a recent Olympic gold medalist and friend of Dr. Bussey’s older sister, gave her a stuffed rabbit autographed with his name at the time. Then 13 years ago, Dr. Harris purchased a pair of boxing gloves autographed by Mr. Ali during a fundraiser at the Atlanta home of fighter Evander Holyfield. While the toy bunny is long gone, the gloves are prominently displayed in a shadow box in the couple’s Richmond home. Dr. Bussey, 56, and Dr. Harris, 57, both grew up in the same neighborhood in Louisville’s West End as Mr. Ali. But what’s even more valuable than their Ali memorabilia, they said, is the legacy the renowned athlete left their hometown, the AfricanAmerican community and the world. “He was inspirational,” Dr. Harris said. “Even after he was infirmed, he continued to inspire people with his public appearances. That took a lot of courage.”
Dr. Bussey has hazy recollections of a young Mr. Ali, who knowledged. would come to the backyard parties thrown by her sister, Connie A check this week of SportsMemorabilia.com has single Bussey Cosby, who is 16 years older. gloves autographed by Mr. Ali listed for sale between $3,000 What stands out the most is how big he was, she said. and $9,000. One glove authenticated with Mr. Ali’s signature, “He wouldn’t drink anything more than water, milk or juice. a drawing and inscription, is listed at $45,464. It shows how disciplined he was While Mr. Ali never wore these even then.” gloves, Dr. Harris said the MuhamWhile Mr. Ali attended Central mad Ali Center, a museum a cultural High School, the longtime Loucenter in Downtown Louisville, has isville high school for Africanon display gloves that the fighter American students, Connie and wore during several bouts. Dr. Harris’ cousin, Monroe Phelps, “I remember when he fought were among the first students to (Joe) Frazier” in 1971, Dr. Harris integrate Male High School, which recalled. “I was sitting with my had been all white. father listening to it on the radio. On one occasion when Mr. Ali “I was devastated when he lost. came by the house, he gave her the It was the first professional fight Ali stuffed rabbit that he’d autographed. lost. He was my hero, and when he She kept it for years. got knocked down, I felt like the “I didn’t think about it being air was gone from me. He was just valuable one day,” Dr. Bussey said. that popular and that great. “I’m so disappointed my parents “For us in Louisville, he defididn’t put it away.” nitely had a special place in our Fast forward to 2003. Dr. Bussey hearts.” and Dr. Harris, now married with Dr. Bussey is packing up her children, have successful dental 96-year-old father, George Bussey, and oral and maxillofacial surgery for the drive to Louisville to atpractices in Richmond. Dr. Harris tend Mr. Ali’s memorial service goes to Atlanta with a group of Friday at the KFC Yum! Center friends for the NBA All-Star Game in dowtown. and ends up at Mr. Holyfield’s house “Her father knew Ali’s dad Dr. Monroe Harris and his wife, Dr. Jill Bussey, for a fundraiser. and guys in Ali’s entourage,” Dr. show boxing gloves autographed by the champ, “I don’t remember now what who grew up in the same neighborhood with them Harris said. the fundraiser was for,” Dr. Harris in Louisville, Ky. Their nephew, Dr. Kevin W. said. “But they had an auction — a Cosby, pastor of St. Stephen Baptist live auction and a silent auction. And Ali’s autographed gloves Church in Louisville, will be among the speakers at the service. were in the silent auction. The motorcade of family and mourners that will wind through “By being from Louisville and Ali being my idol, I bid on the streets of Louisville is scheduled to pass the house in the them. And I was lucky enough to get them.” West End neighborhood where Dr. Harris grew up. The winning bid: Around $600. “I know the streets will be packed,” Dr. Harris said. “We’ll “It was a steal to get those gloves at a low price,” he ac- always look at him as ‘The Greatest.’”