This story was originally published in the July 1, 2016, issue ofRolling Stone.
PEOPLE SCORNED HIM, even reviled him.
He was an implicit threat.
Muhammad Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, smiles for the camera after knocking out Archie Moore in the fourth round in Los Angeles on Nov. 15, 1962.Stanley Weston/Getty Images
Some millions, for that matter watched him just to see him knocked down, razed.
I am the part you wont recognize.
Get used to me.
He shed light on it all, making his own sins and incurring irrevocable losses along the years.
I conquered the world, Ali once said, and it didnt bring me true happiness.
Still, he knew he had justified his time here.
For better and worse, Ali allowed only himself to set his bounds or to undo them.
He found something to fight for, said Foreman, other than money and championship belts.
And when that person finds something like that, you cant hardly beat them.
Odessa was light-skinned she had some white lineage in both her parents families.
She was a genial woman who worked as a cook and house cleaner for wealthy white families.
She tried to impress dignity on her children, and some believe Ali inherited his good humor from her.
Cassius Clay Sr. had a different temperament.
He was named after a white 19th-century plantation owner who became an ardent abolitionist and freed his slaves.
He had wanted to be an artist; instead, he was a sign painter.
The images of Tills mutilated corpse stayed in young Alis mind.
In one, he said in his autobiography,The Greatest,he was laughing and happy.
In the other, he was swollen and bashed in, his eyes bulging out of their sockets.
It can also leave him wanting to build shelter in some other part of his life.
He won his first bout and informed his family that he would be champion.
Whatever his anomalies, Clay knew how to get a jab in and how to make it sting.
He called it snake-licking.
Clay himself, though, did not like being hit in the face.
Your face and teeth is all your life, he toldThe New York Times Robert Lipsyte.
Clays manner became hard for other fighters to cope with.
Come on, whats the matter?
Johansson told Dundee, Get him the fuck away from here.
I cant touch him.
Nobody is going to touch the guy!
Instead, he goaded and bewildered them.
It dont matter if he wins or loses.
After Johnson, no African-American was allowed to compete for the title until Joe Louis won it in 1937.
But Louis had to abide by a code of humility.
Now, in the early 1960s, Clay ridiculed rivals and trumpeted his abilities before an increasingly skeptical press.
To beat me, he declared, you have to be greater than great.
Louis cautioned him, Boy!
You better not believe half the things you say about yourself.
That didnt deter Clay.
By the end of 1963, he said, I will be the youngest champion in history.
At the same time, his braggadocio stirred an excitement that hadnt been seen for any boxer in years.
Everybody thought that this is our guy, Pacheco later said.
This guys going to be the guy.
Liston, as Joe Flaherty put it inThe Village Voice,was a blatant mother in a fuckers game.
Clay pursued Liston hard for a title shot, sometimes in foolhardy ways.
On one occasion, he followed Liston into a Las Vegas casino where the champion was losing at dice.
Promoter Harold Conrad, who was present, said Clay kept making fun of Listons bad luck.
Liston pulled his car over and said, Ill punch you in the mouth!
Get your last look, Clay told the crowd outside Listons gym.
Im the real champ.
Behind his bravado, though, Clay harbored doubts.
[Liston] can hit a guy in the elbows and just about break his arm, he said.
But the challenger also had a secret source of inspiration.
In fact, Cassius Clay had a hidden life that was about to become notorious.
BY EARLY 1964, Cassius Clay had developed strong views on the dilemma of race in America.
Im a fighter, he told theNew York Posts Pete Hamill.
You kill my dog, you better hide your cat.
Malcolm hadnt heard of Clay when they first met, in 1962.
The Nation viewed boxing as a practice that exploited black men.
It was Malcolm X, more than anybody, who addressed Clays uncertainty.
This fight is the truth, Malcolm told him in Miami Beach before the match.
Clay had started to signify something unsettling, even threatening, in the American moment.
I understood perfectly, he said, that Id never see Cassius Clay again.
But that night, when the fighters met at ring center, perceptions changed.
This is the first time we had really seen them together, said Lipsyte.
There was a collective gasp: Cassius Clay was much bigger.
Liston threw hard but desperate swings, sometimes off-target by a foot or more.
In the third round, Clay caught Liston with a sharp blow to the left cheekbone, drawing blood.
Between the third and fourth rounds, Liston reportedly took a dishonorable course.
It worked: Clay left the fourth round blinking wildly, his eyes hurting intensely.
He wanted to stop the fight He was telling us to cut the gloves off, said Pacheco.
Dundee had to hold Ali back from complaining to the referee about Listons dirty fighting.
The trainer instead washed out the young challengers eyes and stood him up for the next round.
The fight was over: Clay was the new heavyweight champion.
He pushed through the crowd that swarmed him to the ringside where reporters sat, looking shocked.
Eat your words, he told them.
I told you and you and you.
Im king of the world.
You must all bow to me!
Moments later he asserted, I shook up the world!
In defeating Sonny Liston, Cassius Clay had in the words of baseballs Jackie Robinson outsmarted a scary man.
Cannon had one thing right: Major changes were underway.
Several days later, while visiting Miami, Conrad arranged for the band to visit Clays gymnasium.
One reporter asked, Are you a card-carrying member of the Black Muslims?
Clay responded, Card-carrying what does that mean?…
Im free to be what I want.
It was a pivotal statement.
I never heard a black man say anything like that, least of all an athlete.
I will be known as Cassius X.
He is more than Jackie Robinson was, because Robinson is the white mans hero.
I remember the day I became aware of the Champ, author Walter Mosley later wrote of Ali.
My mother was driving me to school after he won the heavyweight title from Sonny Liston.
Cassius Clays declaration had become his own.
The Black Pride movement was on.
In Malcolm X, Cassius had discovered a comrade and role model.
But it proved to be the most troubling relationship of his life.
On March 11th, 1964, Malcolm X spoke publicly of his separation from the Nation of Islam.
Malcolm told Ali, Brother, I still love you, and you are still the greatest.
Ali replied, You left the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
That was the wrong thing to do, Brother Malcolm.
Then Ali turned his back and walked away.
Within minutes speculation spread that the Nation of Islam had been involved in, or sanctioned, the killing.
That same night, Alis apartment on the South Side of Chicago caught fire.
Some thought the event was an immediate strike against Ali for his rejection of Malcolm.
At the time, Ali expressed no sympathy for Malcolm Xs death.
I wish Id been able to tell Malcolm I was sorry.
Liston crumpled to the canvas, where he stayed for several seconds, sprawling, rolling, groping.
It happened so fast that many thought it had never happened at all.
Confusion overtook the moment.
Referee Jersey Joe Walcott tried to shove Ali to a corner to begin a 10-second count on Liston.
Ali, though, was as shocked as everybody else.
He towered over Liston, a gloved fist cocked, yelling, Get up and fight, sucker!
Liston finally rose, but he doubled over in fright when Ali resumed his assault.
A moment later Walcott stopped the match.
Ali had won his first defense of his heavyweight title in less than two minutes.
The audience broke out in another chorus of boos.
Liston, they thought, had thrown the match.
Ali himself had doubts.
When asked what he would say to Liston, Ali replied, Man, you scared me.
ALIS RETENTION OF the heavyweight title continued to rankle critics, including some in powerful positions.
But the classification had just been changed to 1-A: Ali was now eligible for the draft.
Why are they gunning for me?
I aint got no quarrel with them Viet Cong, he told a reporter.
They never called me nigger.
The Selective Service department ruled against any exemption, determining that Alis religion was racist and political.
On April 28th, 1967, Ali refused induction into the U.S. military.
You could hear people talking about it on street corners.
It was on everyones lips.
People who had never thought about the war black and white began to think it through because of Ali.
The ripples were enormous.
On the day he was stripped of the title, Ali was already anticipating the long banishment ahead.
There is another alternative, and that alternative is justice.
JUSTICE PROVED SLOW in coming for Ali and it could never really undo some injuries.
It was something of a hollow achievement.
Joe Frazier is the champion of nothing, said sportscaster Howard Cosell.
The heavyweight champion of the world was, and still is, a man called Muhammad Ali.
In 1969, Cosell asked if he would consider a return to boxing.
Ali said, Why not?
If they come up with enough money.
In July 1970, a Georgia state senator, Leroy Johnson, took on a bold project.
Georgia had no state boxing commission, which meant that Atlanta could grant a license of its own accord.
But he was hindered by Gov.
Lester Maddox, who had come to office on an anti-integrationist stance.
Atlanta gave permission for Ali to fight Jerry Quarry, on October 26th, 1970.
Maddox tried to stop the fight but found he had no legal grounds.
The event at Atlantas Municipal Auditorium proved a triumphant return.
Ali was fleet and dominant, and in the third round, he rendered Quarry too bloodied to continue.
It would be a true struggle.
Joe Frazier was no less formidable than Ali.
Like Ali, he was an Olympic gold-medal winner, in Tokyo in 1964.
In 1970, when Frazier won the heavyweight title, Ali claimed he didnt begrudge him.
He wasnt given this, he said.
After Alis title had been taken, Frazier told him, Its unfair.
In 1969, Frazier visited Washington, D.C., where he spoke to President Richard Nixon on Alis behalf.
I was more than decent, said Frazier.
They talked about their inevitable appointment in the ring.
After I whip your ass, Frazier told Ali, Ill buy you some ice cream.
Ali was dumbfounded that anybody imagined beating him.
After that car ride, said Ali, we never looked eye to eye.
There would be good reason for that rift.
Instead, Ali transmuted black fighters into stand-ins for white America.
He worked this tactic with particular vehemence on Frazier, impugning his authenticity and purposes as a black man.
Hes the wrong kind of Negro, said Ali in a TV interview.
Hes not like me, cause hes the Uncle Tom….
He works for the enemy.
Ali meant some of this talk as promotion, but Frazier took it all literally.
It hurt, and it felt like a betrayal.
I just wanted to bury him, Frazier said.
I represent the truth, Ali toldRolling Stonein 1971.
The world is full of oppressed people, poverty people.
They not for the system.
By contrast, Frazier took on the role of outmoded power, compliant duty.
Nothing, though, could discourage Ali.
The momentum edged back and forth throughout the hour.
Then, in the 15th and last round, Frazier cracked the nights mystery.
He surprised me, Frazier said.
Ali looked matter-of-fact, as if the instance had been a slight snag.
I want him to crawl to my feet!
He promised, promised me!
Doctors monitored him constantly, fearful he might enter a coma.
It was Muhammad Ali, instead, who accomplished an unforeseen transcendence that night.
In April 1971, the court heard the arguments and decided that Ali should go to jail.
He was now free.
In effect, Malcolm Xs words had saved him.
In turn, Ali emboldened others.
Alis scruples evolved when he returned from exile.
He could still be cruel as in his treatment of Frazier but some of the physical ruthlessness was gone.
In the 1960s, between his Liston victory and his banishment, he had sometimes displayed a shocking vindictiveness.
Im out to be cruel.
Thats what the boxing game is about.
This became less true after his return to the ring.
I knew I was winning…, Ali told Hauser, so I backed off.
I lost all my fighting instinct and hoped the referee would stop it.
He told reporters afterward, Im not going to kill a man.
Nevertheless, he still fought to win.
Almost everything was working against him.
To persevere, much less to thrive again, Ali would have to develop different defensive strategies.
He was still ahead of the pack, said Lyle, but thats when they started reaching him.
Before that they wasnt laying a glove on him.
Alis goal had been to beat Frazier in a dramatic rematch because he beat me.
When Ali and Frazier met for their second contest, each was battling to win a shot at Foreman.
Ali prevailed over Frazier after 12 rounds in a unanimous decision.
But to take on Foreman at 25, seven years younger than Ali seemed reckless.
In 1968, he won a gold medal at the Olympics in Mexico City.
After that, Foreman was seen as absolutely terrifying, the hardest-hitting heavyweight champion ever.
Foreman thought so as well.
People telling me, Theres never been a puncher like you, George.
All those compliments, I started eating them.
Im gonna fight Muhammad Ali hes the least of all these guys.
Im not fighting for me, he said.
Im fighting for the black people who have no future.
In Alis dressing room, Pacheco remembered, a mood of palpable dread prevailed.
The question, he said, was how much damage would George Foreman do?
The only one who seemed unconcerned was Ali.
I see Sonny Liston glaring at me 10 years ago at Miami Beach, he said.
I was praying, said Moore, and in great sincerity, that George wouldnt kill Ali.
I really felt that was a possibility.
Ali, it developed, proved right.
Foreman could hit incredibly hard, but that was part of his problem: Too often he hit air.
We all yelled at him to get off the ropes, Pacheco said.
Ali later said, George didnt do nothin but attack thats the only thing he knows.
Ali later called the strategy rope-a-dope: The tactic depleted Foreman, while allowing Ali to rest.
By the end of the seventh round, Foreman had largely exhausted his own considerable bulk.
It was getting close to dawn.
Im getting tired, Ali said to trainer Dundee.
Maybe Ill just knock him out.
Dundee replied, Why dont you go ahead and do that?
It might help the situation out.
Foreman tumbled downward in a dizzy, slow-motion-like crash, full-weight, a helpless giant, insensible.
It was the most splendid finish in Alis career.
Immediately after, Ali said, I told you today, Im still the greatest of all time.
Never again defeat me.
Never again say that Im going to be defeated.
Never again make me the underdog until Im about 50 years old.
Then you might get me.
Years later, inFacing Ali,Foreman said, Probably the best punch of the night was never landed.
He got ready to throw the right hand, and he didnt do it.
Thats what made him, in my mind, the greatest fighter I ever fought.
MUHAMMAD ALI WAS once again world champion, seven years after hed been divested of his rightful title.
The Foreman fight sealed his vindication with an exhilarated reception throughout the world.
People like to see miracles, Ali said.
People like to see underdogs that do it.
When a reporter asked, What about Joe Frazier?
Ali grew bright at the prospect.
I want him bad.
But the personal drama between them was incontestable.
The bout took place on October 1st, 1975, in the Philippines, outside Manila.
Inside the Araneta Coliseum, temperatures hovered around 100 degrees.
Ali told columnist Jerry Izenberg that the ordeal was the closest thing to death.
Ali had often shown amazing recuperative ability in a fights late stage.
After the 14th, Fraziers trainer, Eddie Futch, told Frazier they were quitting.
He did not want to see his fighter hurt for life or be killed.
No, cmon, Ed, Frazier protested.
Dont you stop the motherfucking fight.
Futch had halted the fight.
Ali, hearing hed won, looked astounded and numb.
He stood up, raised his right arm in victory, and collapsed.
Frazier quit just before I did, he said years later.
Ali would make further overtures of reconciliation, but Frazier never forgave him.
Instead, he claimed restitution from the infirmity that Ali lived with for years.
Ali had 10 more fights after Manila, a few of them legendary, many of them heartbreaking.
In February 1978, he lost his title to Leon Spinks, a novice professional.
Gotta get my title back!
He regained it from Spinks six months later the only man to win the world heavyweight championship three times.
They say I slur, but Im just talking black, he said.
He never had a dominant moment in the fight, but he wouldnt drop.
Holmes just kept hitting a man who had the will to die on his feet.
(Ali was Holmes hero; the younger fighter cried after the fight.)
Ali fought one more match, with Trevor Berbick, on December 11th, 1981.
He lost by decision.
After 21 years as a professional boxer, he never again entered the ring.
He would not have been allowed to; his impairment was now too evident.
Ali was eventually diagnosed with Parkinsons disease an outcome that could not be repaired.
Yet it was likely those body blows, Pacheco observed, that helped ruin his nervous system.
All along, they were also working against him.
In 1990, he met with Iraqs Saddam Hussein and secured the release of 15 American hostages.
The couple also founded the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix.
Ali and Lonnie had married in 1986; the two had known each other since 1963 in Louisville.
In total, Ali would have nine children, including two daughters from extramarital relationships.
There were tensions between Lonnie and some of Alis children from earlier relationships.
Time had turned him into a symbol of endurance, reconciliation, struggle and triumph.
I think the people should know the real truth about Islam, he said, despite tremors.
People recognize me for being a boxer, a man of truth.
And I wouldnt be here representing Islam if it was really like the terrorists made it look.
In December of last year, he spoke up again.
There is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino or anywhere else in the world.
True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so-called Islamic jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion.
The day after the fighters death, Trump dismissed the censure.
Who knows who released it?
I have a feeling he wouldnt say that to me, Trump said on Fox News.
Cassius Clay, the greatest of them all, says one man.
In between those two segments, which represent the span of perhaps a day, history changed.
Ali demanded respect and warranted it; he wouldnt be refused.
And I honestly believe that for many black Americans, that came from watching Muhammad Ali.
He simply refused to be afraid.
But Ali was nonetheless reflective about his disorder.
I know why this happened, Ali told David Remnick.
Gods showing me that Im just a man like everyone else.
Showing you, too.
you might learn from me that way.
Nothing, though, would ever undermine all that he had done.
It couldnt last forever, but to see that it could be done, that was something else.
That was hope made flesh, and for longer than anybody expected, it could not be stopped.
