by Muhammad Ali
I have witnessed the humanity and compassion of this man whose innocence of heart has gone untouched by time, a man with the soul of a butterfly. It has been a gift and an honor working with my father to help share his thoughts, beliefs, and motivations with the world. If we all have parts to play in life, this is the story of the man who played the part of love.
Daddy, you are my constant truth, my strength, my heaven on earth. Thank you for being there for me, thank you for believing in me, thank you for holding my hand in the dark and always standing by me. You have been more than just my father; you have been my teacher of love, my friend, and my guardian angel. I cherish you and adore you more than you could ever know. God bless you, Daddy. You are my inspiration.
with love,
hana yasmeen ali
Ali
You will never truly know
the depth of my father’s soul,
how deep his dignity flows.
To love and give is all he’s known,
And his honor is a virtue of its own.
Words are not enough to tell his story.
Colors aren’t lovely enough to depict his face.
Legend is not sturdy enough to uphold his name.
His spirit has surpassed our descriptive plane.
A billion stars could never replace,
The space his heart has filled.
A universe of doubt could never erase,
The faith his heart has embraced.
No picture has ever sufficiently captured
The smile in his angelic eyes,
And no book will ever fully explain
the beauty that Ali has defined.
HANA YASMEEN ALI
With my third wife, Veronica, and our daughters, Hana and Laila.
With my brother, Rahaman, and my parents, Mama Bird and Papa Cash, soon after I became an Olympic champion.
I CAN REMEMBER, when I was just a kid in Louisville, Kentucky, my mother would wake my brother and me early every Sunday morning. She would come into our room, kiss us on the forehead, and say in a gentle whisper, “Wake up, tinky baby, wake up, Rudy, we’re going to thank the Lord!”
My mother would sometimes call me “GG,” too, because those were the first syllables I had spoken. After I won the Gold Gloves, I told her that from the very beginning I was trying to say “Golden Gloves.” I thought my mother had a tiny little bird nose. I don’t know why I thought that, because birds don’t have noses, but from the moment I said it we all started calling her Mama Bird. After waking me and Rudy, Bird would cook us a nice breakfast. While we ate, she would iron our best clothes and lay them out on the bed. Then she would call us for a bath. After getting dressed, Rudy and I would go outside to sit on the front porch and shoot marbles before we headed off for Sunday school.
I can remember trying hard not to get dirty. I knew I looked handsome in my freshly ironed shirt and bow tie. When Bird walked out beside my father, Cassius Clay, or Cash, I remember looking up at them with pride, thinking how pretty she looked and how handsome he was with his thick black mustache. Cash would often say to me, “Most men envy me because they can’t grow a mustache as long and thick as mine.”
What he said has always stuck with me. I think that to him, his mustache was a source of pride. To this day, every so often, I let my own grow.
I had a strong foundation growing up; my parents were loving, affectionate people. Ever since I can remember, my father was always hugging and kissing us. He would say “give me those jaws” (his term for kissing our cheeks). Then he kissed us until our cheeks turned red. Cash always made me feel important. Although, at times my father had a quick temper, and my parents had disagreements, I had a happy home life and I knew that I was loved. My parents made me feel special. When it wasn’t my father’s affection, it was my mother’s stories. Mama Bird was always telling me about the time I was born. She said that I was such a pretty baby, everyone thought I was a girl, and that from the moment they brought me home, Cash was “biting my jaws.” My parents weren’t perfect, but they each had a loving nature. My father was a painter. He made his living painting murals and signs. Almost every Baptist church around Louisville has his work in them. My father was very talented; I have one of his paintings hanging on my office wall, right above my desk. Cash used to tell people that he wasn’t just a painter; he was an artist. Sometimes he would take me and Rudy to work with him. Cash would teach us how to mix the paint and lay out a sign. I could draw a little, but nothing special. It was Rudy that took after Cash. He is an artist, too. Cash used to say that if it weren’t for the way things were then, a lot more people would have known what he could do. My father raised us well. He made sure we were surrounded by good people, taught us to always confront the things we feared, and to try to be the best at whatever we did. After delivering his advice, Cash would say, “These are the things my father said to me, and you don’t learn them by accident, they have to be taught.”
Cash was one of a kind; he was full of life and energy. He loved hugging, kissing, talking, and debating. He was my father and my friend. He was at my side when he could be and we had a lot more good times together than bad.
Sometimes, after school, when we finished our homework, Rudy and I would play outside with some of the other kids in the neighborhood. I used to ask Rudy to throw rocks at me to see if he could hit me. He thought that I was crazy, but no matter how many he threw, he could never hit me. I was too fast. I was running left, and right, ducking, dodging, and jumping out of the way. My brother and I had a lot of fun together, we never really got into fights. My mother used to tell me that when I was about four, whenever she would try to discipline Rudy, I would step in and say, “Don’t you spank my baby.” Rudy and I have always been close. He’s my younger brother and I love him.
I wasn’t much trouble as a child, but when I did cut up, Mama Bird just sat me in a corner and put an old bear head rug in the middle of the floor. I was so scared of it, I didn’t move an inch. I thought the rug might jump up and bite me. My mother was a gentle lady. She always spoke in a tender voice and I never heard her say a bad thing about anyone. She didn’t gossip or meddle in other people’s business. She taught us that prejudice was wrong, and to always treat people with love and respect. My mother loved to cook, eat, make clothes, and be with her family. I loved her very much; there’s never been anyone better to me in my whole life.
I learned a lot from my parents while I was growing up. I noticed how they remained dignified in the face of injustice. I saw how they responded to the people around them; I witnessed how my mother would forgive, not hate. And how Cash always held his head high and he worked hard. Growing up, we were poor in terms of money, but we were rich to have had so much love and pride in our household. We were raised with strong values and learned the importance of integrity and compassion. More important than the words, I learned by their example.
My mother was a Baptist and my father was a Methodist, but we always went to my mother’s church. She taught us everything she believed was true about God. Cash used to say that he let Mama Bird raise us her way, because she was a good Baptist, and that a woman is better than a man, so we should follow our mother.
When I was in junior high school I applied for a job cleaning the blackboards and desks and doing odd jobs at Spalding College in Louisville. Sister James Ella gave me the job. I made a few dollars a week, working under the direction of Sister Ann. Sister James Ella was a sweet lady. She showed me how to clean shelves and sweep the floor. She passed away a few years ago, but I will always remember her. I had a good childhood. There were obstacles, and hardships, but I remained on the straight path. I kept my values in mind, and my faith remained strong. Although my religion would change later in my life, God was always in my heart.
My mother once told me that my confidence in myself made her believe in me. I thought that was funny, because it was her confidence in me that strengthened my belief in myself. I didn’t realize it then, but from the very
beginning, my parents were helping me build the foundation for my life.
Think well of all, be patient with all, and try to find the good in all.
the
INNOCENCE
of youth
WHEN MY YOUNGEST child, Asaad, was about four years old, he said something that brought tears to my eyes. My daughters Hana and Laila walked into the hotel room where my wife, Lonnie, and I were staying in Los Angeles; Asaad was playing with his mother on the bed. It was summer, and Asaad had been swimming all week, so his skin had gotten darker. When Laila walked into the room and saw him, she picked him up and gave him a big hug and kiss. She then innocently said, “Wow, Asaad, you sure got black today!”
Asaad replied, “I’m not black, I’m clean!”
What he said made me think about when I was his age, and how different the world was then. Asaad was still new to the world. He hadn’t yet learned about the concept of color. His mind and heart were still innocent. And I thought to myself how wonderful it would be if we could all hold on to the innocence of youth.
* * *
Holding onto my innocence as I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s was difficult. I began to recognize the injustice of segregation around me. There were restaurants with signs that read, “Whites Only” and “No Coloreds Allowed.” Blacks could only drink from water fountains and use restrooms that were labeled “Colored.” My brother and I didn’t run into any real trouble with the white kids, but there were times when we were called “nigger” and asked to leave certain neighborhoods. We didn’t experience the same violence that many blacks did in other parts of the South, but Louisville was segregated. It was strange going out into a world that looked at blacks as second-class citizens while being raised with pride and self-awareness at home. Although my parents tried their best to shield us from the cruelties of the world, some problems were inevitable.
One of my first encounters with prejudice happened when I was too young to remember, but I’ve heard my mother tell the story. She and I were standing at a bus stop. It was a hot day and I was thirsty, so we walked up the block to a small diner, where she asked if she could have a cup of water for her son. The man said he could not help us and closed the door in our faces. I can only imagine the pain my mother felt when she tried to find the words to explain why the man would not give me a glass of water. Even during these times my mother would say, “Hating is wrong, no matter who does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.”
When I was a little older, I saw a newspaper with a front-page story about a boy named Emmett Till. He was a black boy about the same age as me, who was brutalized and lynched while on vacation in Mississippi, supposedly for whistling at a white woman. A picture of him in his coffin was in the newspapers, with a gruesome description of what had been done to him. It made me sick, and it scared me. I was full of sadness and confusion. I didn’t realize how hateful some people could be until that day.
Although I didn’t know Emmett Till personally, from that day on I could see him in every black boy and girl. I imagined him playing and laughing. As I looked at his picture in the paper, I realized that this could just as easily have been a story about me or my brother. They caught the people that did it and put them on trial, but an all-white jury found the defendants not guilty—even though there had been eyewitness testimony that the defendants had been the ones who had kidnapped the boy. Emmett’s mother said, “When something like that happened to the Negroes in the south, I said, ‘That’s their business, not mine.’ Now I know how wrong I was. The murder of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us anywhere in the world had better be the business of us all.” I believe that this is true.
I knew that my heart could harden in a world with so much pain, confusion, and injustice. Somehow, I knew that if I were going to survive, I could not become bitter. I would have to love even those who could not give it in return. I would have to learn to forgive even those who would not—or my soul would wither away.
BLACK
is
Beautiful
WHEN I LOOKED in the mirror I was proud of what I saw, but there were many Black people who didn’t want to be Black anymore. Little Black boys and girls had no public role models. We didn’t have any heroes who looked like us. There was no one for us to identify with, and we didn’t know where we fit in. Even pictures of Jesus Christ were always White. I was taught that Jesus was the son of God, and I wondered if God looked like Jesus, too. Jesus was always depicted with long blond hair and blue eyes. Then I noticed how all of the angels in pictures were White. There were never any pictures of Black angels. And everyone at the Last Supper was White. So, one day, I asked my mother, “What happens to us when we die? Do we go to heaven?”
“Naturally, we go to heaven,” she said.
And I said, “Then, what happened to all the Black angels when they took the pictures? Oh, I know. If the White folks go to heaven, the Black angels would be in the kitchen preparing the milk and honey.”
That was okay because I didn’t like milk and honey anyway. I just wanted some answers. I wanted to know why everything good was always shown as White.
One Halloween, a little Black girl was trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, dressed up in a superhero costume, but her face was painted white. When I asked her why, she said that her sister told her that there was no such thing as a Black superhero. She was right. When I turned on the television, everyone was always White. Superman was White, Santa Claus was White. They even made Tarzan, king of the jungle in Africa, a White man. I noticed that Miss America was always White, and the president living in the White House was White, too. Nothing good reflected our image. At that early age, I could see that something was very wrong. I didn’t understand it. I thought that my skin was beautiful, I was proud of the color of my complexion. But everything black was considered bad, and undesirable. Like black cats bring bad luck. Devils’ food cake was the dark cake, and angel food cake was the white cake. These may have been subtle messages, but the affects were profound. Every day these messages shaped the images that I and other nonwhite children had of ourselves. I didn’t know how, but I knew that I was going to help my people. Somehow, I was going to make a difference in the world. The more injustice that I saw, the stronger my feelings grew. It made me feel that I was here for a reason.
EVERYTHING THAT GOD created has a purpose. The sun has a purpose. The clouds have a purpose. Rain has a purpose. Trees have a purpose. Animals have a purpose; even the smallest insects, and fish in the sea have a purpose.
Regardless of how large or small, we were all born to accomplish a certain task. It is the knowledge of that purpose that enables every soul to fulfill itself. One person with knowledge of his life’s purpose is more powerful than ten thousand working without that knowledge.
It is important for each of us to figure out why we were put here on earth by God. The importance of life is to accomplish the task we were given. Without working on this task, life is meaningless. Human beings have a basic need and desire to accomplish something before they die—to make a difference. When working toward this goal, man has hope and energy. Therefore, it is essential that each of us learn what we were meant to do as early as possible in order to have a satisfying and productive life.
Your purpose may be bigger than mine or another person’s, but that doesn’t make mine any less important. God would not place a burden on a man’s shoulders knowing he could not carry it, nor would he give a person a purpose without significance.
Everyone has his or her own lessons to learn and obstacles to overcome. The experiences should not be weighed against each other because they are all equally important in the end. Each time I thought I had achieved my life’s purpose, I discovered it was only another step in my journey. I thought boxing would help me be that public Black role model who was missing while I was growing up. I thought my purpose was to be that hero who showed children that Black is beautiful. I thought my purpose was to be that champion who showed White
people they couldn’t treat Blacks like second-class citizens. I learned that all of these accomplishments were important, but even more important, I gained a platform that allowed me to carry out my real mission, which has been to encourage all people to respect each other and to live in peace. I am still discovering God’s purpose for me.
AWARENESS
I HAVE ALWAYS had a curious mind. Even as a young child I would think and wonder about things that most kids my age paid no attention to. From the very beginning I was different; I even had chicken pox and measles at the same time. My mother would say that my mind was like the March wind, blowing every which way. I would look into the heavens and wonder about the Creator of all these things. As I grew older, I began to think more about the relationship between man and God. Some of my questions about this relationship were answered, but some of the answers only produced more questions.
I felt I was here to do great things. I felt I had a special place in the world. Something in my heart made me believe it. As the years passed, the feeling grew stronger. When I was about nine years old, I would wake up in the middle of the night and go outside to wait for an angel or a revelation from God. I would sit on the front porch, look up at the stars and wait for a message. I never heard anything, but I never lost faith, because the feeling was so strong in my heart. I didn’t know it then, but in the years to come something would happen to put me on the path to discovering my life’s purpose. It would take me forward in my journey.
birth of a
DREAM
I discovered my way at the age of twelve.
Lance Armstrong, a champion himself,
recently wrote a book called