To fully appreciate the monumental life of Muhammad Ali, one must consider the location of his birth. Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay on January 17, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky. During America's Antebellum period, Kentucky was a Northern-border slave state.
Louisville itself was home to a major U.S. slave market. From Louisville, first upon the Ohio River, then down the Mississippi River, human captives were shipped southward to be sold or delivered to the highest bidder. After the American Civil War, Kentucky remained home to heinous acts of racial intimidation. Whippings, shootings, and lynching accompanied the rise of numerous Ku Klux Klan chapters across the state.
Ironically, a city and state once known for the interstate trade of humanity in bonds and for denying Black people their human dignity ultimately produced the freest Black man to walk, better still, to soar upon these shores. Ali's life proved a study in defiance to systems and structures designed to clip his wings and to cause him to remain earth bound. He freely and openly declared to the nation and to the world truths that he and his people had long been denied.
American racism is no less than a physical war on Black bodies and a psychological war on Black souls. Racism's greatest cruelty is that after several generations, it begins to destroy from within. Malcolm X, once a friend, teacher, and confidant to Ali, addressed the cruelty of self-hate during a funeral for Ronald Stokes, who was killed by the Los Angeles Police Department in 1962 at a mosque known for monitoring police activity. X inquired of the mourners:
Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin...Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind...You should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you.
In thrilling, earth-shattering defiance, Ali dared to love himself, and he fearlessly boasted in his God-given truth. To systems that declared that Black people were unattractive and undesirable, Ali declared, "I'm pretty!" To systems that reduced Black masculinity to that of a child wherein grown men were called boys, Ali not only declared that he was a man, but he told the world, "I'm a 'bad' man!" To systems that sought to reduce him to a status of inferiority, Ali declared, "I'm the greatest!" And to a world cruel to Africa and to the African Diaspora, a world that sought to trample both underfoot, Ali declared, "I shook up the world!"
Ali was beautiful. Ali was strong. Ali was free. And Ali knew it from the depths of his soul.
Ali was so free and he dared to live so freely that he fearlessly defied the United States government. He surrendered his titles, and, at the time, his reputation by refusing to be drafted into what history now records as an unwise war. Ali famously stated, "I ain't got nothing against no Viet Cong; no Viet Cong never called me nigger." He was a champion of his race and of his faith, a global ambassador of goodwill.
Even as his body was ailing, Ali continued to defy systems and structures and assert his God-given truth and the beauty of his people. In the face of the Islamophobic rhetoric sweeping across America and dominating headlines during the current presidential campaign, Ali stated:
We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda...I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people's views on what Islam really is.
Throughout his monumental life, Ali fully embodied his chosen name, Muhammad, meaning "one worthy of praise." He was so great and beyond definition that ultimately Ali had to define himself. As he sought to give rightful testimony to his unmatched brilliance in the boxing ring, he looked not to entities formed by human hands, but upon things molded by the hand of God. As he danced gracefully across the ring, he was as one floating like a butterfly. As he unfurled punishing blows against his opponents, he was as one stinging like a bee.
Butterflies are best known for the process of metamorphosis that they endure. At once a caterpillar bound to the earth, the butterfly emerges from its chrysalis with wings and takes flight upon the air. Bees are best known as agents of pollination. It takes flight from flower to flower, bearing upon itself a life-giving substance. It ensures that new flowers bloom, new life breaks forth in a new generation.
Indeed, Ali was both butterfly and bee. He was a metamorphosing presence who spread love in the face of racial hatred, and who instilled love of self to a people maliciously programmed to self-hate. He was a life-giving presence who spread peace and justice everywhere he landed.
Nothing in Ali's monumental life was given to him. He earned it all. He earned his titles. He earned our respect. Now, like butterflies and bees that have soared in the heat of the day, he has earned his rest.
Rest in peace, Champ.