Religious and political leaders of many stripes joined the sports world and tens of thousands of ordinary mourners yesterday to bid farewell to Muhammad Ali, the boxing champion who jolted America with his showmanship and won worldwide admiration as a man of principle.
Ali, a convert to Islam who lost three prime years of his boxing career for refusing US military service during the Vietnam War, died a week ago at age 74 as one of the most respected men in the United States.
Fans chanting “Ali!” and throwing flowers lined the streets of Louisville, Kentucky, for a funeral procession.
Ali’s hearse snaked through the city, pausing for a huge crowed outside his boyhood home, en route to a cemetery for a private burial beneath a headstone reading simply “Ali.”
City officials estimated 100,000 people came out to honour Ali, many travelling from across the country and across the world.
Some tossed flowers atop the hearse carrying his casket as part of an 18-car procession over 37km in a memorial unlike any other in recent US history.
After Ali’s body was put to rest, former president Bill Clinton and celebrities such as Billy Crystal, Will Smith and Mike Tyson were among those gathered at a 20,000-seat sports arena for an interfaith memorial service that began with Muslim prayers.
The Reverend Kevin W Cosby, a pastor at a Louisville church, likened Ali to other ground-breaking black athletes who advanced civil rights such as baseball player Jackie Robinson, boxer Joe Louis and track star Jessie Owens.
Earlier on a hot day, some 1,500 people gathered outside Ali’s boyhood home in a traditionally African-American section of town.
As the hearse arrived, police standing shoulder-to-shoulder cleared a path, much like a fighter’s entourage clears his way to the ring.
The hearse stopped at the pink house as the people, many of whom waited in the sun for more than three hours, chanted his name.“It was important for me to be here,” said Matt Alexander, 63, who travelled from Florida.”I cried like a baby when I heard he’d died.
I just didn’t want to believe it because I wanted him to live forever.”
Some foreign dignitaries attended but Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who went to a Muslim funeral for Ali on Thursday, cut short his visit to Louisville and did not take part in yesterday’s event as planned.