THE GREATEST IS LAID TO REST
Mighty Ali draws the huge crowds even in death:
Thus might The Bard have consecrated the remains of The Greatest, in words beyond we mortals. On this epochal, sun-scorched day of smouldering passions reheated, conflicting emotions and presidential eulogy, better to let a paraphrasing of shakespeare canonise his fellow poet.
A black brother from a distant land, a different culture, another history. Yet a companion of the quill, just the same.
The Greatest in his other art form — that brutal nobility of the squared ring — transcended boxing, transcended sport, transcended all the oceans of this planet.
hence the family invited the world to his funeral. And the world came. Came in their thousands to cram a suitably sporting arena for the public rites.
Came in their political power and celluloid celebrity to pay homage to this phenomenal being who won not only the world heavyweight championship three times but, more vitally for humanity, the fight for freedom in this fallen bastion of southern slavery.
Came in their multitudes to throng the streets as that dark cavalcade carried him on this final lap of honour around his hometown.
The gladiator who left Louisville as Cassius Marcellus Clay, a teenager in quest of Olympic gold, has made his last homecoming as Muhammad Ali, the giant who survived Parkinson’s for 32 years before his dignified retirement last Friday from the fray of life at the age of 74.
Former us president Bill Clinton was waiting amid the clamour of the arena to bid farewell to ‘my friend’. Barack Obama sent a dignified message. Billy Crystal, an uncanny Ali impersonator, was primed to bring a lighter yet still gentle touch.
Clinton would deliver the last of a compendium of eulogies begun by Ali’s widow Lonnie, whose unstinting devotion shielded his wealth from the predators and reassured him there was no shame in wearing his trembling affliction in the public gaze he relished.
Two of his nine children nerved themselves against the trauma of their loss to speak. A nine-year-old niece read a sweet poem.
The prayers were led by an imam of the Islamic faith to which Ali had converted from his Baptist upbringing. But the voices of Catholic and Mormon priests and a Jewish rabbi were heard, too.
Ali had outraged America when he first linked arms with the Black Muslim leaders of the Nation of Islam in the civil rights struggle and then denounced the notion of the newly liberated black man integrating with his old white oppressors.
To this day he has his critics for that alliance and for his refusal of induction into the us Army in protest against the Vietnam War.
Yet he crossed his Rubicon many years ago — from the wrong side of public opinion to the right side of history — and it was he who ordained this inter-faith communion. The boy whose resentment of segregation had been stoked when he was refused service in a whites-only diner even as he returned from Rome with his Olympic medal, evolved into a unifying figure for all people.
Obama had recalled Ali’s upset slaying of the Liston bear to win his first world championship, saying: ‘Muhammad Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it.’
Yet it was fitting that rather than America’s first black president, it was a former white occupant of the Oval Office who spoke of Ali’s importance to the world.
In that choice, as in every detail, Ali had choreographed his own memorial. his family remained faithful to his wish to reach out to as wide and varied a population as possible, one last time.
In the neglectful absence of a delegate from the Palace of Westminster or so much as a message of sympathy from Windsor Castle, Lennox Lewis stood tall for Britain and strong to help Mike Tyson, Will smith and Ali’s family and friends carry the coffin from the end of the procession to the grave in Cave hill Cemetery.
At dinner the night before, when we all told our stories, Lewis remembered: ‘One day Muhammad whispered in my ear, “I used to be the champ, but you’re the champ now”, and I told him, “You will always be The Greatest”.’
George Foreman, sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas hearns, Larry holmes and lifelong rival promoters Don King and Bob Arum were among ring royalty in attendance.
It was King who had the vision to take Ali and Foreman to Zaire for their Rumble in the Jungle. As Muhammad prepared to land the most outrageous knockout of all time, the African people flocked to him, chanting: ‘Ali, bomaye.’ It sounded lyrical but it translates as ‘Ali, kill him.’
Both combatants lived to become the greatest friends.
There were some 300 of the rich and famous here. There were Ali admirers from almost every corner of Earth. Yet, rightly so, the worshipful majority of the 15,500 congregation in the arena and the vast assembly in the streets were citizens of the bluegrass state of Kentucky.
The single largest constituency were from the gun-plagued West End neighbourhood, where the cortege paused briefly among ecstatic residents outside the small, pink, clapboard house in which Ali grew up and which has just been refurbished as one of his museums. Just in time.
Grand Avenue is the incongruous name of that street which symbolised the divide between the white haves and the black have-nots. It is reached by crossing an old railway line.
Ali came from the wrong side of those tracks. his roots for ever remain there, as does the community which watched with pride as he left to box for his fame and to fight for their freedom from the tyranny
of racial prejudice. They lined that pot-holed thoroughfare to bid their hero farewell.
Some wept openly and unashamedly. This iconic figure was the spirit of Louisville and the losing of him leaves so many voids here. As it does in countless lives around the world to whom his legacy belongs.
Others, many children among them, waved their flags, flew their balloons, hoisted their pictures of him and their placards writ large with loving tributes. They strewed the path of his hearse with rose petals and smothered it with flowers, ran alongside it, reached to touch its windows. Bitter-sweet.
‘Ali, Ali, Ali,’ they chorused. Members of the family rolled down the windows of their limousines to wave and smile their appreciation.
Grief and thanksgiving. AP
Many men, young and old, wore suits and ties of respect despite the sweltering heat. Some ladies donned their Sunday best, the kaleidoscopic colours of their dresses made all the more dazzling by the 90-degree sun in which Ali’s rite of passage basked.
The procession started an hour late and on the motorway section of the route the drivers accelerated to make up time. Lonnie instructed them to slow. What was the hurry as her husband completed a fateful trilogy? Where were you when John F Kennedy died? Where were you when Princess Diana died? Where were you when Muhammad Ali died?
Security was as tight as the steel doors to the vaults in Fort Knox slammed shut.
Television network helicopters were instructed to observe a no-fly zone over the cemetery so that Ali’s three surviving wives, his seven daughters and two sons and collection of grandchildren could observe the poignancy of the committal in privacy.
In the extended wait before the memorial service, the Secret Service conducted bomb sweeps. When the doors of the KFC Yum! Center opened — Louisville is the home of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Colonel Sanders is buried near Ali — no backpacks, no electronic equipment, no bags were allowed.
Random searches were conducted in the squares where locals as well as out-of-towners arriving too late to acquire tickets gathered in large numbers to watch it all on giant screens.
Such is the world Ali departs. Yet in death, Ali was still drawing the crowds. Once, as he made his way to a world championship ring through especially fervent fans, he felt a tug on his white robe. He glanced back and enquired: ‘Who touched the hem of my garment?’
Perhaps, this Sunday morning, they should roll back the rock at the entrance to his cave on that hill and check inside. Just in case.
Lennox Lewis helped lay his idol to rest.
To rest in peace? Not so sure. Listen closely and one day soon we may hear the Louisville Lip proclaiming: ‘I shook up the Heavens.’
Meanwhile, no matter which celestial power you worship, commend unto it this brilliant soul.
Hail Cassius. Allah be merciful. Ali bomaye. God bless The Greatest.
The path was strewn with rose petals