Muhammad Ali

Background

Muhammad Ali was a global force within and outside the ring. His resilience, determination, and hard work helped him attain unattainable feats, and even in death, his legacy still lives on. Ali was born Cassius Clay Jr. on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky. His parents, Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr. and Odessa Grady Clay, were descendants of enslaved South antebellum people. Therefore, Ali was of African and Irish descent but was predominantly African. Ali was a Capricorn and had dyslexia when he was growing up. In the Central High School, Louisville, where he attended, Ali had problems reading and writing for a significant part of his life. However, this didn’t deter his boxing dreams.

When Ali turned 12, he started training as an amateur boxer. His boxing career debuted in 1954 with a match against Ronnie O’Keefe, which he won. By 1960, when he was 18, Ali won a gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics Light Heavyweight division. That same year, he joined Islam and became a Muslim. Four years later, on February 25, 1964, Ali took the World Heavyweight Championship title from Sonny Liston. He married his first wife, Sonji Roi, the same year and later renounced his birth name ‘Cassius,’ adopting ‘Muhammad Ali’ instead.

Being an African-American in the 1960s was difficult for Ali. He refused to be drafted in the Vietnam War and was stripped of his boxing titles, but the Supreme Court later overturned this in 1971. However, Ali was an African-American first. While exiled, he partook in the Civil Rights Movement by protesting on the streets, speaking in colleges, and becoming a spoken word artist. He received Grammy nominations for his two studio albums, “I Am the Greatest!” released in 1963, and “The Adventures of Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay,” released in 1976.