Are Obama speaks about the greatest boxer Ali

Like everyone else on the planet, Michelle and I
mourn his passing. But we’re also grateful to
God for how fortunate we are to have known
him, if just for a while; for how fortunate we all
are that The Greatest chose to grace our time.
In my private study, just off the Oval Office, I
keep a pair of his gloves on display, just under
that iconic photograph of him – the young
champ, just 22 years old, roaring like a lion over
a fallen Sonny Liston.
I was too young when it was taken to understand
who he was – still Cassius Clay, already an
Olympic Gold Medal winner, yet to set out on a
spiritual journey that would lead him to his
Muslim faith, exile him at the peak of his power,
and set the stage for his return to greatness with
a name as familiar to the downtrodden in the
slums of Southeast Asia and the villages of
Africa as it was to cheering crowds in Madison
Square Garden.
“I am America,” he once declared. “I am the part
you won’t recognize. But get used to me – black,
confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my
religion, not yours; my goals, my own. Get used
to me.”
That’s the Ali I came to know as I came of age
– not just as skilled a poet on the mic as he was
a fighter in the ring, but a man who fought for
what was right. A man who fought for us. He
stood with King and Mandela; stood up when it
was hard; spoke out when others wouldn’t.
We watched a hero light a torch, and fight his
greatest fight of all on the world stage once
again; a battle against the disease that ravaged
his body, but couldn’t take the spark from his
eyes.
His fight outside the ring would cost him his title
and his public standing. It would earn him
enemies on the left and the right, make him
reviled, and nearly send him to jail. But Ali stood
his ground. And his victory helped us get used to
the America we recognize today.
He wasn’t perfect, of course. For all his magic in
the ring, he could be careless with his words,
and full of contradictions as his faith evolved.
But his wonderful, infectious, even innocent spirit
ultimately won him more fans than foes – maybe
because in him, we hoped to see something of
ourselves.
Later, as his physical powers ebbed, he became
an even more powerful force for peace and
reconciliation around the world. We saw a man
who said he was so mean he’d make medicine
sick reveal a soft spot, visiting children with
illness and disability around the world, telling
them they, too, could become the greatest.
We watched a hero light a torch, and fight his
greatest fight of all on the world stage once
again; a battle against the disease that ravaged
his body, but couldn’t take the spark from his
eyes.
Muhammad Ali shook up the world. And the
world is better for it. We are all better for it.
Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to
his family, and we pray that the greatest fighter
of them all finally rests in peace.

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