Muhammad Ali changed his name publicly when he was 22. He was 92.Ī racially mixed crowd attended his funeral. Some historians say he killed more men in duels than anyone else in American history.Īgainst all odds, he died peacefully in his bed in 1903. He became friends with Congressman Abraham Lincoln and helped him become POTUS in 1860.īy the time he was an old man, Clay’s face and body were covered in scars. The bullet bounced off the tip of his strapped bowie knife, which Clay proceeded to use to disarm his opponent and cut off his nose and ears. He kept a cannon at his printing office to ward off mobs.ĭuring one political debate, an assassin shot an unarmed Clay in the chest. He freed his family’s enslaved workers and started The True American, an emancipationist newspaper published in Lexington. He went to law school at Yale and returned an abolitionist. Nicknamed, “The Lion of White Hall”, Cassius was born to a rich slave-holding Kentucky family in 1810. Which partly explains why Muhammad Ali felt compelled to change his name.īut sometimes the Universe winks at us, and it turns out the original Cassius Clay was a fighter too. A rich white Lexington politician from a family that enslaved Africans. … who was named after another Kentuckian born in 1810.
Named after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr. You probably know the rest of that story.īut before Muhammad Ali was The Greatest, he was a poor, black, dyslexic kid named Cassius.
The officer told the kid he ought to learn how to box before starting any fights. And Ali told the officer he was going to “whup” the thief when he found him. When Muhammad Ali was 12, a neighborhood kid stole his bike.Ī Louisville police officer encountered Ali later that day, still fuming.
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