World to bid Ali farewell on Friday in hometown
Boxing legend Muhammad Ali to be laid to rest in hometown Louisville in Kentucky
Louisville, June 5: Muhammad Ali crafted the plan for his final tribute years ago, long before he died. On Friday, his family will honour him just like he planned, with a global celebration in his hometown.
A procession will carry his body down an avenue in Louisville that bears his name, through his boyhood neighbourhood and down Broadway, the scene of the parade that honoured the brash young man — then known as Cassius Clay — for his gold medal at the 1960 Olympics.
A day after Ali died at age 74 from complications of Parkinson’s disease, a family spokesman outlined plans for Ali’s funeral as people from Manila to Louisville to his adopted home of Arizona mourned the boxing great’s passing.
Louisville ( Kentucky, USA), June 5: In a funeral he planned years ago, Muhammad Ali will be coming home as a “citizen of the world” when he is buried on Friday in Louisville.
A procession will carry his body down an avenue that bears his name, through his boyhood neighborhood and down Broadway, the scene of the parade that honoured the brash young man — then known as Cassius Clay — for his gold medal at the 1960 Olympics.
The family “certainly believes that Muhammad was a citizen of the world... And they know that the world grieves with him,” family spokesman Bob Gunnell said.
Family members will accompany Ali’s remains to Louisville within the next two days. A private funeral ceremony will be held Thursday.
The list of eulogists was not complete, but will include former President Bill Clinton, comedian Billy Crystal, who famously has done a masterful impression of Ali, and sports television host Bryant Gumbel.
The ceremony will be led by an imam in the Muslim tradition but will include representatives of other faiths.
In Louisville, not even pouring rain on Saturday could stop the flood of tributes for “The Greatest.”
In the three- time heavyweight champion’s old neighborhood, brother Rahaman Ali stood in a small house on Grand Avenue and dabbed his eyes as he shook hand after hand. The visitors had come from as far away as Georgia.