Muhammad Ali laid to rest .
Muhammad Ali planned his funeral in detail – and it all went the way he’d have wanted it, as stars and ordinary folk bid their hero goodbye
THERE were plenty of famous faces among the mourners: Will Smith, David Beckham, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis, Arnold Schwarzenegger – the list goes on and on. One by one they filed into the KFC Yum! Centre in Louisville, Kentucky, to pay their final respects and hear people wax lyrical about the man whose words were as famous as his fists. But the day really belonged to the tens of thousands of people who
lined the streets of Louisville. “Ali! Ali! Ali!” they chanted as the 17-car funeral procession snaked its way through the streets of his hometown.
Outside the tiny pink wooden house where The Greatest was born people gathered in droves, some dressed in dark suits despite the searing heat, to say their last farewells to the town’s most famous citizen.
It was all just the way Muhammad Ali would have wanted it.
For more than a decade he had meticulously planned his funeral in what he referred to as “The Book” – it outlined where it should be held, who the pallbearers would be and who would deliver the orations.
His friend and Islamic studies scholar Timothy Gianotti, who helped him with the preparations, says it was important to the boxing champ – who changed his name from Cassius Clay after converting to Islam in 1964 – that his final send-off be inclusive of all religions and that nobody should feel left out.
Even though his body was ravaged by a battle of more than three decades with Parkinson’s disease, Ali (74) was determined that everything should go like clockwork.
“He was never downcast when talking about his death,” says Bob Gunnell, a family spokesman.
Bob recalls that Ali went out of his way to stop his staff from getting depressed during the rigorous planning sessions.
“It’s okay. We’re here to do the job the way I want it. It’s fine,” were his words to them. Touchingly, the final revisions to The Book were made days before Ali died in a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona.
Within 24 hours, his body was washed, anointed and wrapped in three pieces of cloth, as dictated by his Muslim faith.
The two-day public send-off began with a Muslim prayer service which saw singer Yusuf Islam – the British singer formerly known as Cat Stevens – as one of the pallbearers carrying Ali’s casket on his shoulders into Louisville’s Freedom Hall.
A day later more than 18 000 gathered at KFC Yum! Centre for the memorial in which former US president Bill Clinton, actor Billy Crystal and Ali’s fourth wife, Lonnie, delivered emotional eulogies. Of the mourners in attendance about 300 were celebrities, but the majority were locals who’d been given free tickets in accordance with Ali’s wishes.
Yet despite his best-laid plans the service started more than an hour behind schedule.
It took longer than expected to lay his body to rest. That’s because Lonnie instructed his funeral cortege to drive slowly as his coffin was taken on one final lap of the town.
Finally it arrived at Cave Hill Cemetery. Actor Will Smith, who portrayed the icon in the 2001 movie Ali, and ex-boxer Lennox Lewis were among the pallbearers but there was a strict media blockout to ensure that his surviving wife and two ex-wives, nine children and grandchildren could observe the committal in privacy.
Meanwhile, across town, thousands were waiting patiently at KFC Yum! Centre to say their final farewells. Even in death Ali still had the power to draw the crowds . . .