Louisville opening museum in tribute to boxing great Ali

LOUISVILLE, Ky — The relationship between this city and native son Muhammad Ali always comes back to a story — of the brash Olympic boxing champ then known as Cassius Clay tossing his 1960 gold medal into the Ohio River in disgust over entrenched racism.

The story may be apocryphal — Ali later told friends he simply had misplaced the medal — and as the years passed, Louisville and Ali eventually came to appreciate each other.

Now, Ali’s hometown is ready to unveil its most lasting tribute, a museum celebrating the life of one of the 20th century’s most recognizable figures.

The Muhammad Ali Center opens Nov. 21 to chronicle the life of “The Greatest” inside and outside the ring, emphasizing Ali’s peaceful values and vision of global tolerance and setting the record straight about that infamous gold medal.

“People will be surprised when they visit the Ali Center,” says museum spokeswoman Jeanie Kahnke. “Many people only know of Ali as a boxer and a three-time heavyweight champion of the world. What they may not know about him is how he has been a charitable individual for most of his life. That has only grown since he has retired from the ring.”

Ali, 63 and suffering from Parkinson’s disease, is expected to attend a star-studded opening gala Nov. 19 along with celebrities Will Smith, Angelina Jolie, Jamie Foxx, Jim Carrey, James Taylor and B.B. King. The event is attracting guests all the way from England, New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan, South Africa, Jamaica and Barbados.

“There are very few in the world who affect people the way Ali does,” Miss Kahnke says. “We’ve heard from people who are suffering from diseases and young kids who were born 15 years after Ali’s last fight. Ali gives them the strength to achieve their own goals and fight for their own beliefs.”

Ali the boxer retired in 1981 with a 56-5 record, 37 knockouts and an Olympic gold medal. By then, his legendary fighting career was only part of his story.

He became the world’s best-known Muslim, took a peaceful stand against the Vietnam War that cost him his heavyweight title and has worked in his later years as a United Nations peace ambassador, helping raise awareness and money for the world’s poorest nations.

Organizers broke ground on the $75 million, 93,000-square-foot project in 2002. Experts on the Vietnam War, Islam, civil rights and other areas helped create a center related intimately to Ali’s life. Some of the exhibits were reviewed by longtime Ali coach Angelo Dundee and biographers Robert Lipsyte and Thomas Hauser.

“When you think about boxing, you just see the athlete on a stage,” says curator Susan Shaffer Nahmias. “For many years, Ali’s story stopped at the ring. This center shows a picture of Ali through a voice that isn’t a sportswriter.”

Numerous exhibits highlight parts of Ali’s life often buried beneath his athletic prowess.

One exhibit aims to set the record straight about the story in Ali’s autobiography of him flinging his light heavyweight Olympic gold medal into the river. The since-denied story goes that he tossed the medal in disgust over continued racism in his hometown after he was refused service in a restaurant and harassed by a group of racist motorcyclists.

Other displays recall the lighting of the Olympic flame at the 1996 Atlanta Games, when a trembling Ali hoisted a golden torch as spectators frantically clicked cameras and stood to give him a loud, emotional ovation.

“He held the torch, with the world watching, and somehow, his disability enhanced his persona,” says Tom Owen, a Louisville historian and professor.

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