Muhammad Ali: Rumble in heaven as you did on Earth

Ali embodied Black Power before the Black Lives Matter Movement, providing a blueprint for today's activists protesting for racial justice, writes Beydoun

He is the most famous Muslim American ever, and indeed, a black man whose commitment to anti-racism led him to Islam.

 

Muhammad Ali knew he was the greatest before he hoisted his first championship belt. The heavyweight icon from Louisville, Kentucky, born Cassius Clay, rose to prominence at a transformative impasse in the United States history.

And in the early morning of June 4, 2016, passed away at an impasse just as critical. Ali's 74 years of life is far more than a narrative about boxing's greatest champion. But an unparalleled American life that reveals the nation's turbulence and tides, domestic struggles and foreign strife.
 
While raising his fists in the ring against his sport's most formidable adversaries, Ali never relented to raise his voice against racial segregation and anti-blackness, war and fear of Islam outside of it. That was at a time when all four were at a boiling point in the US.

The only three-time lineal heavyweight champion in boxing's history, Ali's 56 wins and three loss tally is only outshined by his record outside of the ring.