Ali

by Jonathan Eig

The apology seemed genuine, as if Ali were thinking about the Tallying Angel. Along with apologizing to Frazier, he aided countless charitable and humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, the National Parkinson Foundation, and the Make-a-Wish Foundation. He and Lonnie helped launch the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center and Movement Disorder Clinic at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. “God will be the judge of the deeds we do, how we treat people, how we help charities,” he said. “I can’t cure nobody, so all I can do is help people raise money.”

  On September 11, 2001, Arab terrorists hijacked four commercial planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York; the Pentagon in Washington, DC; and a field in Pennsylvania, killing about three thousand people and injuring thousands more. After the attack, anti-Muslim backlash flared in America. Innocent Muslims were detained. Graffiti was sprayed on mosques and the doors of Arab-owned businesses. A statement from Ali was released: “I am a Muslim,” it said. “I am an American . . . Whoever performed, or is behind, the terrorist attacks in the United States of America does not represent Islam. God is not behind assassins.”

  On September 20, Ali traveled to New York.

  “Tell me what happened again?” he asked during the flight.

  When it was explained to him again about the terrorist assault, he turned to his wife and said, “They’re not mad at me, are they?”

  The day was gray and misty. Ali greeted firefighters who had been at the scene of the attack. He curled his hands into fists and pretended to launch punches as he posed for pictures with them. For the most part, the firefighters wanted to tell Ali where they had been when he’d fought Joe Frazier the first time, or what they remembered best about the Rumble in the Jungle. But Ali, wearing a Fire Department of New York baseball cap, used the occasion to discuss religion. “Islam is not a killing religion,” he said. “Islam means peace. I couldn’t just sit at home and watch people label Muslims as being the reason for this problem.”

  After the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush sent American troops into battle in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the goal of routing Islamic terrorists and overthrowing Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Newspapers at the time reported that Ali had agreed to appear in a Hollywood-produced ad campaign that would explain to audiences in the Middle East that America respected Muslims and intended to treat them with respect, even as American troops targeted terrorists. The Final Call, the newspaper published by the Nation of Islam under the leadership of Louis Farrakhan, urged Ali to reject the government’s propaganda campaign. Instead, the Final Call said, Ali ought use his power to call attention to problems affecting black Americans in the twenty-first century, such as the AIDS epidemic and the rapidly growing black prison population.

  Ali didn’t address those issues anymore, leaving observers to wonder: Did he have any quarrel with Afghanis or Iraqis? Did he have any quarrel with President Bush in his rush to war?

  “I dodge those questions,” he told the English television interviewer David Frost. “I have people who love me. I’ve opened up businesses across the country, selling products, and I don’t want to say nothing and be wrong, not knowing what I’m doing, not qualified, say the wrong thing and hurt my businesses and things I’m doing, hurt my image.”

  When Frost asked specifically about the American invasion of Iraq, Ali answered, “That’s one of those questions that can get me in trouble. I’ll dodge that.” He put his hand over his mouth for emphasis.

  The rough edges that had made Ali controversial and important were slowly being rubbed down. In 2001, Will Smith starred in Ali, a big-budget movie that covered ten years of the boxer’s life, from 1964 to 1974, from Liston to Foreman, and from Sonji to Veronica, from Malcolm X to the last years of Elijah Muhammad.

  In 2005, Ali received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. In presenting the award, President Bush called Ali “a fierce fighter and a man of peace” but made no mention of the former champion’s decision in 1967 to refuse to serve in the U.S. Army. Ali, in turn, made no mention of Bush’s decision to send troops to Afghanistan and Iraq. But Ali still had a little bit of the troublemaker in him. When the president turned and raised his fists, as if he were preparing to fight, Ali declined to play along. Instead of raising his fists, Ali lifted a finger to his head and twirled it in a gesture suggesting Bush was crazy. The room filled with laughter.

  In the same year, a museum dedicated to the champ opened on the banks of the Ohio River in downtown Louisville. Lonnie and Muhammad led the drive to create the $80-million, 93,000-square-foot Muhammad Ali Center, with backing from General Electric, Ford Motor Company, and Yum! Brands. The city also renamed Walnut Street, one of its main thoroughfares, Muhammad Ali Boulevard.

  With the help of Lonnie and lawyer Ron DiNicola, Ali finally severed his ties with Herbert Muhammad. In 2006, Lonnie and Muhammad struck a deal with the entertainment marketing company CKX, selling 80 percent of the marketing rights to the boxer’s name and image for $50 million. Lonnie agreed to work with the firm in setting the strategy to build her husband’s brand.

  As the years passed under the CKX deal, Ali became a commodity. He endorsed companies and products that once would have had nothing to do with him — IBM, Porsche, Gillette, and Louis Vuitton, to name but a few. Some of his old fans and some of the journalists who had covered him in the 1960s complained that the new Ali stood for everything — for peace, love, unity, equality, justice, and high-end leather goods — and in standing for everything risked standing for nothing. At one point, he earned $750 per autograph and signed more than seven thousand items a year. He made many appearances for charities at no charge, but for other public events he earned six-figure fees. When he wasn’t traveling or signing autographs, he spent hours a day on the phone, talking to his children and grandchildren and joking with old friends. When his son Asaad played on the baseball team at the University of Louisville, Muhammad and Lonnie often attended his games. “He was a man that never complained,” Asaad said. “You never could tell what days were bad with Parkinson’s, what days were good. Because he’s that kind of person. He’s tough, he’s strong.”

  In 2009, he attended the inauguration of America’s first black president, Barack Obama. In 2016, when presidential candidate Donald J. Trump proposed a ban on Muslim immigration to the United States, a statement issued on behalf of Ali reminded fans of the boxer’s combative style but fell short of the vigor of earlier days. It read, in part: “Speaking as someone who has never been accused of political correctness, I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam.”

  Year by year, he grew weaker, quieter.

  His children married and had children. His friends and loved ones died: Howard Cosell in 1995, Archie Moore in 1998, Sonji Roi in 2005, Floyd Patterson in 2006, Herbert Muhammad in 2008, Joe Frazier in 2011, Angelo Dundee in 2012, Ken Norton in 2013. Ali’s visitors in those years found that his condition varied depending on the time of day they saw him and how well he’d been sleeping. Sometimes he smiled and laughed and reminisced in a clear voice, and sometimes the effort was too great and he sat quietly.

  Muhammad and Lonnie spent less time in Michigan and more time in Paradise Valley, Arizona, in a single-story house in a gated community. Lonnie’s sister Marilyn shared the home and helped with Ali’s care. Numerous portraits of Ali, including a large series of Andy Warhol paintings, decorated the living room. Ali liked to sit near the kitchen, in a leather reclining chair that had a built-in vibrator to massage his back and legs. From there he could watch TV or look at videos on the Internet. He still watched Westerns and horror movies, but what he loved to watch most of all was himself — old fights, old interviews, old TV news clips. Sometimes guests would sit by his side as Ali gazed at his younger self in action, watching the most beautiful heavyweight of all time as he floated around the ring, dodging punches, sticking jabs, laughing, shouting, rejoicing, taunting.
That was the real Ali. That was how he was supposed to be. That was the natural order of things. He was so elegant, so defiant, so strong, so completely in control, so free. Who wouldn’t want to watch that?

  In an interview with AARP Bulletin, the magazine published by the group formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, Lonnie talked about the challenges faced by a spouse who becomes a caregiver. “The relationship changes over time with the illness,” she said. “Physically, [patients] are not as mobile; they are not able to do things with you like they used to. The medications might affect their cognitive ability. They may not speak as well.” But Lonnie said she was fortunate because her husband maintained a winning attitude, never complaining, never getting depressed. Muhammad and Lonnie appeared on the cover of the magazine, he with his eyes closed and head tilted down, she with lips pressed to her husband’s temple and a hand cradling his chin. “Everything now is about protecting him and making sure he is healthy,” she said.

  Lonnie became gatekeeper as well as caregiver, which led to complaints from some of Ali’s children and friends, who said they didn’t get to see Ali as often as they would have liked and couldn’t reach him on the phone. Newspapers reported that Muhammad Jr. — Ali’s son from his marriage to Belinda — lived in poverty on the South Side of Chicago and relied on charity to feed and clothe his family. Khalilah, Ali’s second wife, lived in government-subsidized, low-income housing in Deerfield Beach, Florida. In her dimly lit, one-bedroom apartment, there remained only one visible reminder of her former life: a Muhammad Ali refrigerator magnet.

  On October 1, 2015 — the fortieth anniversary of Ali’s brutal fight against Frazier in Manila — Lonnie and Muhammad appeared at the Ali Center in Louisville for a private event sponsored by Sports Illustrated and Under Armour, the sports apparel company. George Foreman and Larry Holmes were there, talking to reporters, extolling the greatness of Ali, explaining that they had no hard feelings — even though they couldn’t resist taking a few pokes at their former rival, shots that served as a useful reminder that these men were warriors who had constructed their identities from strength and pride.

  All his life, Ali had fought to prove his superiority. He’d battled his father, he’d battled the boxing press, battled the government, battled Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, George Foreman, and Larry Holmes. He’d kept it up long after he should have — just as Foreman and Holmes were keeping it up even now, still looking to unload a few jabs. Foreman, at least in private, continued to insist that he’d been drugged before stepping into the ring with Ali in Zaire. Holmes, in an interview before the banquet, admitted he got tired of people behaving as if Ali were the Dalai Lama, tired of people carrying on as if Ali were a superhero and all other heavyweight champions were mere mortals. Ali was a good man and a great fighter, Holmes said, but he’d been a fool to take so many punches. “He wasn’t no hero,” Holmes said.

  Ali’s brother, Rahaman, was there, too. Ali had once promised Rahaman that he didn’t have to box, that his older brother would always see to it that he lived comfortably. But now Rahaman and his wife struggled to pay bills. They lived in public housing, in an apartment decorated to look like their own low-budget Muhammad Ali Museum. Newspaper clippings were taped to the wall. A portrait of Odessa Clay that had been painted by her husband Cash hung over the sofa. Rahaman, who inherited some of his father’s artistic talent, had painted a few portraits of his brother. Those paintings sat on the floor, leaning against a wall. Years earlier, Rahaman had had a falling out with Lonnie. As a result, he hadn’t seen his brother in months. And while certain VIPs were invited to pose for pictures with the champ prior to the start of the ceremony at the Ali Center, Rahaman did not make the cut.

  When the doors to the ballroom opened and guests were invited to find their seats, all eyes turned to Ali. He was seated at the head table, wearing a black suit, a white shirt, and a red tie, with Lonnie on his right and Lonnie’s sister Marilyn on his left.

  The ballroom filled quickly with invited guests, many of them making a beeline for Ali’s table. Vic Bender got there first. He and Ali had been classmates at Central High. Earlier that afternoon, Bender had taken a writer on a tour of Ali’s Louisville, starting with the Clay family home on Grand Avenue and proceeding along the route that Cassius and Rudy had run on their way to school, keeping pace with the city bus, stopping every time the bus stopped, just as interested in entertaining their friends as they had been in exercise. Now it was Bender running — running as best he could for a big man in his seventies — to get to Ali’s side before anyone else. He said hello to Lonnie and then leaned over to hug Ali.

  Ali didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He didn’t look up. His body appeared small and frail, but his face was smooth and unlined. His hair was thinning but without a trace of gray. Still pretty.

  As the ceremony began, videos flashed on big screens and long speeches were made. The highlights of his career were recounted, but Ali, wearing dark sunglasses, never reacted. When a Sports Illustrated executive presented the former boxer with a silver plate as his award, cameras flashed and guests stood to applaud, but Ali still didn’t move, didn’t smile, didn’t reach out to accept the prize. He might as well have been sleeping. When the ceremony ended, he was sped from the room in a wheelchair.

  As the ballroom emptied and busboys cleared the dishes, Rahaman and his wife, Caroline, stayed behind. They walked from table to table, taking the small photographs of Ali that had been used as decorations and stuffing them in a shopping bag.

  “Wasn’t it a beautiful night?” Rahaman asked.

  Less than eight months later, Ali was hospitalized in Phoenix for a respiratory infection. He had been hospitalized before with infections, and he had always bounced back. But this time, after a few days of treatment, his condition worsened. Lonnie phoned the children and told them to come right away. They did. At 8:30 p.m. on June 3, with his family surrounding him in Room 263 of the Scottsdale Osborn Medical Center, Ali was disconnected from the ventilator keeping him alive. He fought to breathe.

  An imam named Zaid Shakir stood by Ali’s bed and watched as the pulse in Ali’s neck began to slowly fade. Shakir leaned over until his mouth was next to Ali’s right ear and began to sing the call to prayer, a song usually sung to newborns as they are ushered into the world. “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger,” he sang in a loud, beautiful voice. One of Ali’s grandsons offered a string of prayer beads. Shakir pressed the beads into Ali’s hand. Shakir spoke to Ali: “Muhammad Ali, this is what it means. God is one; say it, repeat it, you’ve inspired so many, paradise is waiting.”

  When the imam finished the prayer, Ali was gone.

  At 9:10 p.m., Muhammad Ali, seventy-four years old, was pronounced dead of septic shock.

  Ali’s body was flown to Louisville for the funeral. For years, Muhammad and Lonnie had talked about what the ceremony would look like, who would serve as pallbearers, and who would deliver eulogies. They had filled a black binder with elaborate plans. Ali had envisioned a magnificent sendoff.

  He was remembered in print, on television, and on the Internet as a man of courage and principle. He was hailed as one of the great figures of the twentieth century. In the New York Times, his obituary ran for more than two full pages, followed less than a week later with a sixteen-page special section. From the White House, President Obama issued a statement that read, in part: “ ‘I am America,’ he once declared. ‘I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me — black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own. Get used to me.’ That’s the Ali I came to know as I came of age — not just as skilled a poet on the mic as he was a fighter in the ring, but a man who fought for what was right. A man who fought for us. He stood with King and Mandela; stood up when it was hard; spoke out when others wouldn’t. His fight outside the ring would cost him his title and his public standing. It would earn him enemies on the left and the right, make him rev
iled, and nearly send him to jail. But Ali stood his ground. And his victory helped us get used to the America we recognize today . . . Muhammad Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it. We are all better for it.”

  Some writers said that Ali had “transcended” race. It was an attempt to whitewash his legacy, and it was dead wrong. Race was the theme of Ali’s life. He insisted that America come to grips with a black man who wasn’t afraid to speak out, who refused to be what others expected him to be. He didn’t overcome race. He didn’t overcome racism. He called it out. He faced it down. He refuted it. He insisted that racism shaped our notions of race, that it was never the other way around.

  Born in the age of Jim Crow, Ali lived to see a black man elected president. Just as remarkable was the arc of his own life: the son of an poorly educated sign painter became the most famous man in the world; the greatest professional fighter of his time became his country’s most important draft resister. Although he had always been ambitious and always yearned for wealth, he had somehow remained warm and genuine, a man of sincere feeling and wit. Bitterness and cynicism never touched him — perhaps because he recognized this lesson of his own life: that American society, for all its flaws, produced remarkable men from unremarkable origins. He himself, indubitably, was one.

  Ali’s funeral procession began on a hot Friday morning, June 10. Thousands upon thousands of people lined the streets of Louisville. People who had never met Ali took time off work and traveled hundreds of miles to be there. Standing beneath a scorching sun, they craned to catch a glimpse of Ali’s hearse. People wore T-shirts reading “I AM ALI” and “I AM THE GREATEST” and held signs that said “THANK YOU” and “WE LOVE YOU.” Little boys and grown men threw punches at the air, shadowboxing, when they saw Ali’s car. Women tossed flowers. “Ali! Ali!” the crowds chanted, as they always had.

  Ali’s hearse was a Cadillac, of course, part of a seventeen-Cadillac procession.