Muhammad Ali died five years ago today. From black pride to laying the groundwork for rap, read how “The Greatest of All Time” left an impact on our nation.
Expressing himself with force and forthrightness — not to mention no small amount of charm and charisma — Ali became a magnetic symbol of dignity and self-determination to several generations of African-Americans, a titan worthy of the honorific “the People’s Champ.” Here are four ways his legacy helped shape modern America:Four years before James Brown recorded “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud” in 1968, and two years before Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
Ali left the NOI for the more mainstream Sunni Islam in 1975, devoting much of his later life to charitable work. After 9/11, he spoke out against the terrorist attacks: “That really hurt me, because Islam is peace and is not violent,” he said. “The few that do these things make the religion as a whole look bad.
But Ali’s principled stand essentially jumpstarted the Sixities antiwar movement, and helped encourage Martin Luther King to come out against the conflict in Vietnam in April 1967. He became a popular speaker on college campuses during his exile from the ring, and in 1971, his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court in a unanimous vote.
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