Free Republic

Muhammad Ali, one of the most famous athletes in American history and a convert to Islam in the 1960s, returned to the public spotlight Wednesday night to say that political leaders had a responsibility to foster understanding about his religion. His comments came after Donald J. Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, stoked anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States by, among other things, suggesting that foreign Muslims be barred from traveling to the country. Trump has also questioned President Obama's affirmation that Muslim Americans are some of the nation's sports heroes. ...

It’s hard to determine which is more surprising: the British aching to send troops and materiel to aid the Confederacy during the Civil War or that the first “Special Relationship” was between the U.S. and Russia against the British. Both of these facts are true and for the latter negating the former, we can thank one Cassius Marcellus Clay. Clay was more than just a namesake for the greatest boxer of all time. He was also a politician, representative, officer in the Mexican War and Civil War, abolitionist, and ambassador with a pedigree in badassery. This man once frightened an...

Fifty years ago today, Muhammad Ali “shocked the world” and beat one of the most fearsome fighters ever to put on a pair of boxing gloves, heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. But what if that storied fight was not what it seemed? It happened Feb. 25, 1964, at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The film clip and sound bite have now become part of the American story — Liston quitting his stool before the eighth round, a young Cassius Clay, as Ali was known then, bouncing around the ring, waving his hands, yelling to the reporters at ringside who thought he...

World famous German photographer Thomas Hoepker, sharing his memoirs on famous boxer Muhammad Ali with the Turkish audience, states he took 'legendary' photos of Ali. World famous German photographer Thomas Hoepker, sharing his memoirs on famous boxer Muhammad Ali with the Turkish audience, stated he took 'legendary' photos of him. Being in Turkey's Bursa city as a guest of "Third International Photography Festival in Bursa" Hoepker told his photography memories with famous boxer Muhammad Ali and said he had the opportunity to take each scene of him during a boxing match. "It was an incredible thing to approach him that...

Two weeks before Muhammad Ali beat Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship, the boxer’s trainer met secretly with FBI agents and identified members of the Nation of Islam who were associates of Ali, according to bureau records. In a "confidential" February 1964 memo to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a supervisor in the bureau’s Miami office reported on a meeting with “trainer-manager” Angelo Dundee and Dundee’s brother Chris, who was promoting the fight between Liston and Ali (who was then still known as Cassius Clay).

Former President George W. Bush was happily stunned when legendary former heavyweight boxing champ Muhammad Ali stood facing him. Bush was at a Barnes & Noble Booksellers store in Phoenix today signing his book, Decision Points when the Greatest entered (with the Secret Service) to shake hands. With his famous comic humor, Ali sat next to Bush and held the book up as press and public snapped photos.

Muhammad Ali, who floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee inside the boxing ring and became a political and humanitarian force outside of it, will receive an honorary doctorate from Muhlenberg College. The former three-time heavyweight champion and Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the 20th Century will be honored at the college's 161st commencement May 17 with two others -- Galway Kinnell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, and Kathleen A. McGinty, former state environmental secretary for Gov. Ed Rendell. First known as Cassius Clay, he won the boxing Olympic gold medal in 1960 and became heavyweight champion in 1964. The...

"Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay in Louisville, Ky., on Jan. 17, 1942, grandson of a slave, began boxing at the age of 12, and, by 18, had fought 108 amateur bouts." In the very first sentence on Ali's life in her essay, "The Cruelest Sport," noted author Joyce Carol Oates shares with the reader one observation beyond the superficial: Ali was born the "grandson of a slave." Oates apparently sees this as the defining fact of Ali's existence. More influential than Oates or anyone else in interpreting Ali to the world was sportscaster Howard Cosell. In his 1973 book,...

George W. Bush honored the boxer, Muhammad Ali, and 13 others with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, called "the nation's highest civilian award," on November 9 at the White House. The president praised Ali for his sports accomplishments and called him "The Greatest of All Time."Fine, but he then proceeded to laud Ali's character: "The real mystery, I guess, is how he stayed so pretty. It probably had to do with his beautiful soul. He was a fierce fighter and he's a man of peace. … Across the world, billions of people know Muhammad Ali as a brave, compassionate, and...

<p>GLASGOW, Ky. — After a trip home that retraced the steps of his life and a final ringing endorsement of his style and service, former Gov. Louie Nunn was remembered yesterday as the last of Kentucky's great personal politicians — and one of its more willful.</p>