The Latest from The Greatest

Story By Scott Gummer    
Photography By Howard L. Bingham

The Louisville Lip. Mighty Mouth. Cassius Clay. Champ. Muhammad Ali has been called a lot of names in his life, but the nickname that suits him best may simply be The Greatest.

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. on January 17, 1942, he grew up in the black middle class of Louisville, Kentucky, son of a sign painter with a flair for murals and a homemaker who filled in as a domestic. Had it not been for a stolen bicycle, the world may have never heard of—or from—Muhammad Ali.

It was an autumn day in 1954. A shiny, new, red-and-white, sixty-dollar Schwinn parked outside Louisville’s Columbia Auditorium could hardly escape notice. Swiped in broad daylight, its incensed 12-year-old owner filed a heated complaint with the first police officer he could find, an off-duty cop named Joe Martin who ran a boxing gym in the auditorium’s basement. Young Cassius Clay vowed to find and pummel the thief. Officer Martin suggested the vociferous boy learn to back up his words by coming around the gym and learning to fight first. Six weeks later, Clay stepped into the ring against his first opponent. Six years after that, he won an Olympic gold medal.

No one knew quite what to make of a brash, bragging, fancy-dancing, poetry-rhyming, 22-year-old tornado—least of all the Heavyweight Champion of the World, Sonny Liston. When Clay finally got a title shot in February 1964, Liston was so heavily favored that the pressing question was not whether Liston would win, rather would Clay survive. After what seemed like six rounds in a blender, Liston quit. Clay was King.

He declared he would be the people’s champion, however the people were confused when he aligned with the Nation of Islam and its firebrand Minister Malcolm X. Two years before the protests against the Vietnam War reached their zenith, Ali angered many by refusing induction into the United States Army citing his religious beliefs.

Ali received the maximum sentence, five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. On appeal, the Supreme Court voted unanimously in his favor, still the saga cost Ali three-and-a-half years at the peak of his incomparable talents. He would return to regale fans around the world (The Rumble in the Jungle, The Thrilla’ in Manila) and regain the heavyweight title an unprecedented three times.