Muhammad Ali Research Paper

Silence spread across households in the United States on September 15, 1955. On that day, Jet magazine published a photo of fourteen year old Emmett Till’s mutilated body. Stripped of everything that made a human a person, his story made headlines and lighted the flame for the Civil Rights Movement. Emmett Till was abducted and brutally murdered by two white men; later on, they were acquitted from their crimes and walked out as free men. At the time of Emmett Till’s murder, Muhammad Ali was thirteen, one year younger than Till. Living in the same era and being of the same race, Muhammad Ali could relate his early life to Emmett Till. Faced with racial prejudice and discrimination, Muhammad Ali turned to boxing, growing and developing until

Growing up in the very segregated South, he experienced the terrors of racial prejudice and discrimination. He learned to ignore what people said and showed everyone that he was afraid of it. His mother was was a cook and a house cleaner, while his father was a sign painter and church muralist. He filled his children's’ minds with the teachings of black separatist Marcus Garvey; one of Garvey’s lines would later become Muhammad Ali’s famous line, “I am the greatest.” In school, Cassius did not thrive; he only earned passing grades in gym and art, and was never taught how to read properly. The one place where Cassius had a willingness to work hard was in the gym;

He dedicated the rest of his life to philanthropy, the desire to promote the welfare of others. He supported the Special Olympics and the Make-A-Wish Foundation, along with many other organizations. In 1984, Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, possibly due to the severe and continuous head trauma during his boxing career. His speech and motor skills started to deteriorate, almost to the point where you couldn’t understand him. However, he continued to travel to numerous countries and help those in need. He lighted the torch for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. He helps the hostages in Iraq by negotiating a release with leader Saddam Hussein in 1990, and in 2002 he traveled to Afghanistan as a United Nations Messenger of Peace. Ali was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and opened the Muhammad Ali Center, a nonprofit museum and cultural center, in 2005. He was inducted to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in