People inside and outside boxing declare ‘Muhammad Ali really was The Greatest’

On the earth, in the world, there can be at any given time just one person who is the most recognizable, the most well known, the most famous.

Only one can be “The Greatest.”

Muhammad Ali.

A black man born into segregation. A black man who became a Muslim. A black man who refused to fight in Vietnam because he believed that war was wrong and lost the championship of the world and his ability to make a living because of it.

A black man who became the most famous athlete, most famous person, most famous inspiration, to a world of white, brown, yellow and black.

Especially those who are black.

Ali died Friday at age 74 but it is his life that matters.

“He called himself the greatest, people called him the greatest, because he was the greatest,” said Willie McCleod, of Rock Hill, a guy of the exact same age, who gave a part of his life for others, too. “For him to stand up, and lose so much. What courage. He gave it all up because he believed in what was right.”

McCleod, in 1961, went to jail fighting segregation as part of the Friendship Nine civil rights protesters in Rock Hill. He gave 30 days of his life to prison to fight segregation and inequality. He knows what it means to give for others.

So does David “Scoop” Williamson Jr., another of the Friendship Nine.

“Muhammad Ali, we were born the same year, we grew up in the same South, we went through the same things,” Williamson said. “He inspired people, millions - more. You can’t count the people in the world who knew his name and what he stood for.”

Ali stood for equality. He stood for what is right.

Ali, for black people and many others who had the courage to know that this was a transformative figure in the history of the world, was not just an athlete. He was the greatest.

He was brash and loud and he proclaimed “I shook up the world!” when he beat Sonny Liston to become champ and he did more than shake the world.

Muhammad Ali became the black face of humanity. He became a Muslim and defiantly was proud of being a black man in America. He refused the draft to go to Vietnam and white America vilified him.

He changed his name and white America just about went berserk. Almost no black man, certainly no famous athlete, had ever made such a statement

He did not flinch.

He lost four years of his boxing and earning life to his convictions that the Vietnam war was immoral and unjust. It wasn’t jail, but it was chains.

He finally won his battle to fight again and traveled the world to fight and box and the black and the brown and the white filled streets and stadiums to see him.

Anybody old enough will never forget watching Ali and Joe Frazier, Ali and George Foreman, on TV.

I remember being 8 years old and watching hundreds of thousands of Africans in Zaire dancing in the streets chanting Ali’s name. Ali banging on these drums in Africa, a hero in a place where all faces are black. Huge smiles of wonder and joy, while in America, black kids were called names.

In America, in 1974, who knew that the world was filled with such joy when even as a little kid you see here that blacks were treated as second class?

Ali showed the world that equality must happen for blacks in America and everywhere.

You did not have to be black to know that before you was The Greatest.

There is no dispute. He was The Greatest.

“Ali showed the world,” said Williamson, the protester who also showed the world.

“Ali gave up his life, lost it all to do what was right, for the rest of us,” said McCleod, the protester who also gave up part of his life to do what was right

Then age and disease took it all away.

Marge Hammond, a Carolinas Boxing Hall of Famer from Rock Hill, who along with her late husband spent four decades judging fights and training fighters, gasped when she heard Ali was dead.

“Oh no, The Greatest they called him,” Hammond said.

Hammond met Ali several times.

“He was a decent and good man,” Hammond said.

A courageous man, Hammond said.

And like Williamson and McCleod and so many others, Ali did not ever give in to the hatred of blacks and hate back.

Ali did not stand up for blacks only. His courage made everybody better. His style brought a smile and laughter into a world that needed one.

He was showman as long as he was able, his wit and charm and intellect and grace unmatched in sports then or now.

Williamson, who knows greatness, put it the best:

“Muhammad Ali really was The Greatest.”

This story was originally published June 4, 2016 at 7:40 PM with the headline "People inside and outside boxing declare ‘Muhammad Ali really was The Greatest’."