Muhammad Ali America’s Champion Activist, symbol, and champion are three words people often think of in connections with Muhammad Ali. Many know that Muhammad Ali was a great boxing champion, but he was much more than that. Muhammad Ali changed the world as a beloved boxing champion and a civil rights activist/speaker. He showed America that you can achieve anything you want no matter your skin color. He left a legacy as America’s Champion. 1960’s America, full of flashy clothes, music, news trends, and new inventions, but America in the 1960s also was full of racism, discrimination, and segregation. Muhammad Ali experienced some of this first hand when growing up in segregated south. There was certain limitations for Ali’s family when growing up in louisville Kentucky, such as how his dad, a talented painter, couldn’t get a better job and pay because of the fact that he was black. He also witnessed certain hate crimes that happened around where he lived, such as the Emmett Till murder that influenced him heavily.Muhammad Ali was born in a segregated black only section of louisville Kentucky and was taught by his mother at an early age to not discriminate anyone and treat everybody equal. His grew up in an average family, neither rich, neither poor, but his father couldn’t get a better job than a …show more content…
Ali was the symbol of boxing, he broke the world record of the youngest heavyweight champion at the time, he won gold in the olympics, and he was almost unbeatable. He was a great athlete, but an even better civil rights activist and speaker. Ali was one of the first to protest the unpopular Vietnam war and showed that it was unfair to draft someone into the military if it went against their religious belief. Ali also fought for equality with blacks and other minorities, inspiring young Americans to rise up against