Former world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, whose record-setting boxing career, unprecedented flair for showmanship, and controversial stands made him one of the best-known figures of the 20th century, died on Friday aged 74. Ali's death was confirmed in a statement issued by family spokesman Bob Gunnell late Friday evening, a day after he was admitted to a Phoenix-area hospital with a respiratory ailment.
While we all loved Ali, he meant something even more special to black people growing up in a predominatly White America. In 2010, current US President Barack Obama writing for USA Today, to commemorate 50 years of Ali wrote what the late boxer meant to him.
Writing that he admitted Ali’s ‘extraordinary comeback’, he wrote: “It was this quality of Ali’s that I have always admired the most: his unique ability to summon extraordinary strength and courage in the face of adversity, to navigate the storm and never lose his way. This is the quality I’m reminded of when I look at the iconic photo I’ve had hanging on my wall of the young fighter standing over Sonny Liston. And in the end, it was this quality that would come to define not just Ali the boxer but Ali the man — the Ali I know who made his most lasting contribution as his physical powers ebbed, becoming a force for reconciliation and peace around the world.”
He also thanked Ali for using his celebrity for good, for meeting Mandela after his release in South Africa and for his ability to ‘forge a deep and meaningful connection with people of all ages’.
He had ended the article writing: “This is the Muhammad Ali who inspires us today — the man who believes real success comes when we rise after we fall; who has shown us that through undying faith and steadfast love, each of us can make this world a better place. He is, and always will be, the champ.”
