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Ali, Muhammad (Cassius Clay)
5 articles on Ali, Muhammad (Cassius Clay)
Ali, Muhammad
Source: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century
Word Count: 2391 Includes: Early Career. | Conversion to Islam. | Notable Fights. | Parkinson's Syndrome. | Bibliography(b. 17 January 1942), boxer, civil rights activist. Perhaps one of the most recognized people in the world, Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. to Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr. and Odessa (Grady) Clay in Louisville, Kentucky. He was named in honor of his father and the white Kentucky abolitionist Cassius M. Clay. Clay attended the all-black Central High School in Louisville, Kentucky, graduating 376th out of a senior class of 391. Ali has been married four times: to Sonji Roi, Kalilah Tolona (formerly Belinda Boyd), Veronica Porsche, and Yolanda Ali. He has been married to Yolanda since 1986, and has seven daughters and two sons, including Laila Ali, a boxer in her own right.Clay was the most dominant heavyweight boxer of the 1960s and 1970s, successfully defending the heavyweight title nineteen times. ...
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Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition
Word Count: 2047 Includes: The Louisville Years | Professional Boxing Career | Performer and Cultural Hero | Triumphs and Tribulations | Bibliography1942–
African American heavyweight prizefighter, antiwar protester, and international ambassador of goodwill. As the dominant heavyweight boxer of the 1960s and 1970s, Muhammad Ali won an Olympic gold medal, captured the professional world heavyweight championship on three separate occasions, and successfully defended his title nineteen times. Ali's extroverted, colorful style, both in and out of the ring, heralded a new mode of media-conscious athletic celebrity. Through his bold assertions of black pride, his conversion to the Muslim faith, and his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War, Ali became a highly controversial figure during the turbulent 1960s. At the height of his fame, Ali was described as “the most recognizable human being on earth.” Ali's 1981retirement from boxing did not ...
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Source: African American National Biography
Word Count: 3142 Includes: Further Reading(17 Jan. 1942– ), world champion boxer and political activist, was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville, Kentucky, the eldest of two sons raised by Cassius Clay Sr., a sign painter and something of a frustrated artist, and Odessa Grady, a domestic. Young Clay began to take boxing lessons at the age of twelve because someone had stolen his bicycle and he was determined to exact revenge against the perpetrators. He never discovered who stole his bike, but he did blossom as a young fighter, taking instruction from the Louisville policeman Joe Martin. His brother, Rudolph Arnette Clay (Rudolph Valentino Clay in some sources and later Rahaman Ali), also took up boxing, but, lacking his brother's talent, never became a significant presence in the sport.Clay became a gym rat, feeling that ...
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Source: The Oxford Companion to United States History
Word Count: 361(1942–), boxer and three-time heavyweight champion. Born as Cassius Clay in Louisville, Kentucky, Muhammad Ali first gained international attention when he won the gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Rome Olympics. In 1964 he captured the heavyweight championship for the first time in a surprising sixth-round technical knockout of Sonny Liston. Shortly after that fight, Ali announced that he had joined the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims), the black separatist religious group led by Elijah Muhammad. Ali's religious conversion provoked much controversy in America, especially among whites who abhorred his membership in a group that spoke of “white devils” and the superiority of the black race. He further infuriated many Americans when he refused induction into the armed forces in ...
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Source: The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature
Word Count: 525(b. 1942), prizefighter. Despite the considerable achievements of such important African American athletes as Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Wilma Rudolph, Jim Brown, and Jackie Robinson, the young brash prizefighter from Louisville, Kentucky, may very well have eclipsed their significance. He surely eclipsed their fame as, at the height of his career in the early and middle 1970s, Muhammad Ali was, without question, the most famous African American in history and among the five most recognized faces on the planet.Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., in 1942 (named after both his father and the famous Kentucky abolitionist), the gregarious, handsome, and extraordinarily gifted boxer garnered world attention by winning a gold medal in the 1960Olympics. He further stunned the sports world by beating the heavily ...
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