Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. was born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 14th, 1942. Grandson of a slave, the Clay name was passed down from former U.S. Senator Henry Clay. Ali grew up in Louisville with his father, who worked as a painter, and mother who was a housemaid. Introduced to boxing at the age of 12, Clay received his training from police officer and local trainer Joe Martin. Clay began working with Martin regularly, winning his first amateur fight in 1954, at the age of twelve. In 1956, Clay won the prestigious Golden Gloves tournament in the light heavyweight class, and by 1959 won the National Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions.

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Clay’s success came quick, and so did his confidence. Commonly referring to himself as “The Greatest”, many doubted Clay because of the level of his early opponents. Clay would often go against boxers who were past their prime, or boxers who were never more than mediocre. Many doubted Ali for his non-traditional technique. Naysayers were proven wrong, however, in 1960 when Clay won gold in the 1960 Rome Summer Olympics. Clay’s career as a professional boxer had officially begun. In 1964, Clay beat Sonny Liston to claim the title of heavyweight boxing champion. This was also the year that Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. changed his name to Muhammad Ali. Two years earlier, Ali had attended his first Nation of Islam meeting, and subsequently converted religions from his Baptist upbringing to Islam. 

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Amid the success that the early 1960s had brought him, Ali faced trouble on the domestic front. On April 18, 1960, Ali had registered with the Selective Services. Ali had been classified as ineligible for the draft in 1964, due to low scores on the mental acuity tests. However, in 1966, the military lowered their draft eligibility standards and Ali was now deemed eligible. On February 28, 1966, Muhammad Ali filed a conscientious objector form. To prove himself fit for the category, Ali would have to prove three things: his opposition was sincere, and based on religion, and he was in fact conscientiously opposed to “war in any form”. Ali’s request was rejected, and on April 28, 1967, Ali was supposed to be inducted into the U.S. Army, a request which he refused.

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One by one, states began revoking his license to fight, until he was stripped of his heavyweight title. On June 20, 1967, Ali was convicted of draft evasion. His sentence was five years in prison, $10,000, and a ban from boxing for three years. Ali never faced time in jail for his conviction, though. He fought the conviction all the way up to the Supreme Court, and in 1971, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down the lower court’s  decision. Eight out of nine Justices participated, with Thurgood Marshall deciding not to participate. The Court’s final decision was based on the Justice Department’s inaccurate statements about a point of law in a letter to the Kentucky Appeal Board.

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Despite this legal win, 1971 saw Muhammad Ali’s first loss of his professional boxing career. Ali lost the heavyweight champion title to Joe Frazier. Ali would beat Frazier in a rematch in 1974, and reclaim the heavyweight champion that same year in a win against George Forman. The title was lost, again, in 1978 to Joe Frazier. And Ali reclaimed the title back for the very last time on September 15, 1979.

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Ali would retire from boxing in 1979, as the only fighter to be a heavyweight champion three different times. In 1984 it was revealed that Ali had Parkinson’s disease. Ali died on June 3rd, 2016 at the age of 74.