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| Muhammad Ali: There is no other sportsman you can mention along with religious freedom and racial justice in one sentence (videos below). |
June 4, 2016, NewsCrunch
The end of Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest ever sports icon ever, is here.
Born Cassius Clay, he won the world heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston in a stunning upset at the age of 22. He never faded from the public eye after that.
Ali is the only three-time lineal world heavyweight champion - winning the title in 1964, 1974, and 1978.
He refused to be conscripted into the US military opposing American involvement in the Vietnam War.
He was eventually arrested and found guilty on draft evasion charges and stripped of his 1967 boxing title. He fought it out and in 1971 the US Supreme Court overturned his conviction and decrated him a conscientious objector to the war.
That made him an icon for the counterculture generation. In a powerful protest against racism, Ali converted to Sunni Islam in 1975, and was drawn to Sufism much later in life.