ALI’S WIFE

LONNIE ALI

“Needless to say, I was shocked. I tried to keep myself busy with Boxcar (public relations), planning everything. That was by design. I had to be strong for the kids, for the public and for Muhammad. The final trip home, I thought, He’s where he wanted to be.

“I remember going home in the evenings and turning on the news and it was filled with people from all over the world going to pay their respects at the Ali Center, this memorial growing by the hour. It was huge. It was overwhelming. Then tickets to the service became available and the line was so long it zigzagged across the steps of the Yum! Center, down across the bridge into Indiana. People called me because they couldn’t get flights. I didn’t know what to expect. I knew people would come. I did not know how many people would come.

“When I say he was pulling the strings, I mean from heaven. From up above, Muhammad was orchestrating all of this. He said he wanted his memorial to be in a stadium or an arena. I thought it sounded ridiculous at the time, but he said, ‘All my fans will come.’ He was right. Even the attorneys who had been with us for 25 years didn’t realize how big this would be. Muhammad said it was going to be standing room only, only he meant the whole city, not just the Yum! Center.

“We decided to add the procession. We wanted people who were not able to attend to be a part of it. He belonged to the city and wanted them to say goodbye. Everybody — every walk of life, every color, every political persuasion, young, old — joined together happy and waving. People in their chairs with signs and flowers. One little boy ran aside the motorcade. He must have been eight or nine. I thought, Oh, my gosh, this child really understands who Muhammad is. It was sad, but it was joyous. It gave Muhammad’s family — his children who were not raised here, his grandchildren — the opportunity to see how their father affected the lives of so many people. And the service itself was perfect. It was just the way he wanted it. If I took what was in my head, that was it. Not just for Muhammad, but the way it brought people together. I will always be indebted to the city of Louisville. I will always be indebted to Greg Fischer.

“I should have known how big it would be. It still surprises me. I think we’re normal. We live like anybody else. Even though he loved being a celebrity — if anyone was meant to be a celebrity, it was him — we didn’t live with bodyguards or pomp and circumstance or an entourage. I shopped, I cleaned, I took out the garbage. We were raised in Louisville, Kentucky. We are Kentucky. Kentuckians are grounded people. 

“It showed Muslims around the world and in America, but especially in the Middle East, that this Muslim American who was black was honored in a way that probably no one else was honored in the U.S. because of how he carried himself, always doing good deeds. Muhammad never shunned anybody — I do mean anybody. Not that he approved of everything someone does.

“I had a call from President Clinton a few weeks later. He was calling to check on me. He said, ‘I don’t think I’ll ever attend anything like that in my life — I don’t think I’ve ever attended anything like that and I don’t think I’ll ever attend anything like that again in my life.’ Muhammad affected one person at a time. He opened his heart and loved each and every person he met. They knew it. People knew it.

“Afterwards, I jumped into things to distract myself. But I’ve had time to think. The kids and I have difficult days but we get through it. It’s lonesome, that’s obvious. This Saturday, Nov. 19, is our 30th anniversary.

“Nobody knows me. I am under the radar — I like to be under the radar. But people have stopped me in the store and on the street and they say, ‘Can I give you a hug?’ and I say, ‘Of course you can.’ I feel protected and I feel supported. And because of him that’s what’s being extended to me. Because of Muhammad’s legacy, I have to be more conscious of how I respond to and welcome people. I’m a conduit, in a way, for them to connect to him. I have the opportunity to carry it on and carry it forward. It’s his legacy, but it becomes mine as well. Especially now in a country that is so divided, his voice needs to be heard loud and clear. I just wish every day could be like June the 10th. People didn’t care who the other person was. They forgot their differences. I wish every day could be like that.”

— MCA

IMAM

ZAID SHAKIR

“Muhammad Ali wanted everything to conform with Muslim tradition and be consistent with Muslim law, and about seven years ago my friend, the Muslim scholar Timothy Gianotti, and I met at the Ali home in Louisville for two days with Lonnie and the legal team and Muhammad, who at that point had difficulty talking but was definitely still in command of his mental faculties. I wrote him a couple poems that he really liked. (Shakir read them at the memorial service. Example: “If reindeer could box he would have whooped Donner and Blitzen, if presidents could fight he would have whooped Richard Nixon.” — Ed.) If there was something he wanted to communicate and couldn’t say it, he was able to write. Actually, we went to dinner and he drew me a picture with a marker on a cloth napkin of a chain of snow-capped mountains.

“We knew from the media that Ali had been hospitalized, but he had been hospitalized several times over the last few years — pneumonia, this or that. We figured he’d get out and be going home soon. But we got the call that he wasn’t going to make it. OK, now this is no longer a plan. This isn’t just something on paper. I’m in Oakland, and when he did pass, I was able to get on the first flight to Phoenix and go to the hospital and spend the last hours with Ali and his family. He was still alive, via life support, for about five hours after I got there. My role was just to comfort Ali and surround him with encouragements, to read the Quran, comfort the family. It was a serene and spiritual environment for his transition from this world to the next. 

“I was right there at his bedside when he passed. In fact, it was during the call to prayer that he passed. That’s the first thing a baby hears when they’re born. Traditionally, the father makes that call in the right ear, and then a very similar call in the left ear. Those should be the first things a child hears when they come into the world. And that was the last thing Ali heard leaving the world. After he passed, the family wanted me to stay with the body. He’s lying in the bed, and I was always on the right side, so for a lot of that time I’m standing and just holding his left hand — the hand of the famous Ali jab. 

“When we left the hospital, we kind of faked the media out, to avoid a circus. The hearse left from a delivery ramp, a back door. I was in the back of the hearse with the body bag, chanting some Muslim prayers. The funeral home in Phoenix was in a more suburban part of the city, with access to plants and wild flowers and the mountains. 

“We made sure that in each of the cities where Ali spent a significant amount of time — Louisville, the Phoenix area, Atlanta, the farm in Michigan — that there were teams of people available for the washing and shrouding of the body. The person who washed the body in Phoenix was probably the most experienced body washer in America. He had prepared over 900 bodies for burial. He was a master.

“First we washed the parts of the body that one would before praying — the face and then the arms up to the elbows, then the hair, then the ears, then the feet. Then we washed the rest by pouring water under a set of sheets covering the body, the water running from a hand-held spout like you’d use to water flowers. We scrubbed the body down with a wash cloth, from head to toe. You do that three times, the third time with perfumed water. We shrouded the body in three full-length, sheet-like white cloths.

“On the plane from Phoenix to Louisville, due to a change in the schedule, there was talk about having a private funeral. I just remember pushing emphatically for that not to happen, that it had to be a funeral that was open to the public, large enough to accommodate a large amount of folks. People deserved an opportunity to send the Champ off in an appropriate way. We were able to get the North Hall at the Fairgrounds for the funeral prayer, the Jenazah. 

“He was in the hole of the plane, and when the container came down the conveyor, covered in the tapestry with Quran verses, I remember reflecting on the great journey that Muhammad Ali had taken. And yet, in doing everything he did, he maintained what Kipling says in his poem: ‘You can walk with kings and not lose the common touch.’ 

“The procession through the city is one of the most memorable and moving experiences of my life. Old folks, black folks, white folks, rich folks, poor folks. This isn’t something human beings accomplish on their own accord. There’s something more powerful at work here. Ali was used by God to do some extraordinary things in this world. Ali opened people’s hearts in a way that nobody else on the face of this earth has been able to do, especially in the 20th century. Even in death, to be so alive in people’s hearts — those are the signs of sainthood. The saint lives on in the hearts of the believers.

“I’d been out to the cemetery before the burial to make sure the grave was properly aligned, to make sure it was perpendicular to the direction of Mecca. The preferred practice is that the body is directly put in the ground, lying on the right side to face Mecca, but we arranged all of that in the coffin. Once we were graveside, we made sure all attendees had an opportunity to throw dirt onto the coffin. We said our prayers, and bid farewell to certainly the greatest figure ever to come out of Louisville, Kentucky.” 

— JM

THE GATHERING PLACE

THE MUHAMMAD ALI CENTER

“Crazy. Just crazy.” For the 40 employees of the Muhammad Ali Center, that’s the overwhelming sentiment when remembering the week after Ali’s death. Crazy, they’ll say, in a wistful tone, a gentle exhalation to follow. There are other descriptions too — beautiful, amazing. To understand the crazy, absorb the volume: That week the Ali Center credentialed 263 members of the media; 25,000 people came to tour exhibits (the nonprofit museum and cultural center considers 100,000 guests over an entire year a bustling attendance rate); the Ali Center’s website traffic increased 2,200 percent and the center was mentioned in 30,000 stories seen around the world; the retail store recorded 3,329 purchases for a total of $129,308 in sales, compared with 793 purchases and just under $11,000 in sales for the same week in 2015.

12:30 a.m., June 4. That’s when the crazy started. Jeanie Kahnke, the Ali Center’s director of public relations, got the call that Muhammad Ali had died the day before. She activated the Ali Center’s phone tree — the same one used on snow days — to alert staff they must report to work. “Five or 10 minutes after that my phone started blowing up,” she recalls. That week it rarely stopped ringing. Calls came from ESPN and Al Jazeera and the BBC, all the networks, newspaper after newspaper, reporters needing confirmation and quotes. The Greatest was gone. “I heard from a friend who was on a safari in Africa, and they got to their hotel, and it was the only thing on TV,” Kahnke says with a bewildered chuckle. 

Soon after news broke of Ali’s death, before the sun had a chance to rise, flowers started popping up around a fountain on the 40,000-square-foot plaza outside the Ali Center. Over the next week, visitors left poems, boxing gloves, pictures, a bee-shaped balloon. “The thing about Muhammad is, everyone felt like they knew him,” Kahnke says. “And even after one meeting, people thought they were friends. Muhammad made people feel like they were friends.” So the Ali Center’s 40 employees worked nonstop. “The thing that kept me going is that I know Muhammad always stayed somewhere to meet every single fan,” says Marissa Franz, the center’s visitor services manager. “Muhammad would’ve wanted us to make sure every fan could pay their respects.” 

Even after exhibits closed, employees folded shirts to restock shelves cleaned of merchandise several times a day. At one point during the week, Franz ran out of shirts. A vendor in Alabama agreed to drive five hours to deliver a new order because shipping would take too long. The center received lots of help that week. Folks from the mayor’s office watered flowers and fielded press calls. Musicians, including Will Oldham and Teddy Abrams, performed on the plaza in tribute. It was hectic. It was lovely. Since the Ali Center opened in 2005, whenever challenges appear, a saving grace swoops in. Some of the employees credit what they like to call “Muhammad Magic.”

No one had time to jot down memorable moments. But some stories remain fresh. Like how that entire week the lobby smelled of fresh flowers. Or how, at first, the center tried to keep track of guests by giving out bracelets. They quickly ran out, so they tried stickers. Those ran out too. Eventually someone just stood at the door with a counter, clicking as each guest arrived. (The Ali Center waived fees that week.) Kahnke likes to share the story of a middle-aged man she met from Australia. He’d never been out of his country, never been on a plane, but when he heard of Ali’s passing, “He just had to come,” Kahnke says. 

On Friday, June 10, the day of the funeral, at about 10 in the morning, an exhausted staff gathered on a sixth-floor balcony overlooking I-64. Under a bright sun, they waited to view Ali’s procession. At 10:17, Ali’s hearse slowed to a stop on the concrete ribbon below. All small talk vanished. Perched atop the shimmering, boxy structure that sits on the lip of the Ohio River and appears to lift off to the sky, the staffers looked down and wept. For the first time in a week, they paused. Crazy had put up a good defense to grief. In stillness, loss settled in. “It was like a period to a very long sentence,” Kahnke recalls. After a few minutes, the procession rolled westward. Everyone went back to work. 

— AM

DAUGHTER

RASHEDA ALI

The details of June 3 blur. Mostly Rasheda Ali remembers the sting of grief, dull then sharp from one moment to next. “I never thought this would happen to us. I thought Daddy was superhuman,” she says. “Even though he had Parkinson’s, I thought he would never die. I know it’s silly.” In the Phoenix hospital, she remembers leaning over her father and whispering into his ear, “I give you permission to leave. I want you to stay here but I know you’re struggling.” Then she whispered again, this time a send-off that would make the champ smile if he could: “I know now you’re young and you’re fast, you’re handsome and you’re pretty,” she said.

Rasheda, an author, motivational speaker and Parkinson’s disease advocate, is one of Muhammad’s eldest daughters. The family’s sobs filled the quiet after life support machines were turned off. Then, a peculiar, persistent noise. “A dialysis machine or something,” Rasheda recalls. “It interrupted our crying. It started — ding, ding, ding. And it stopped all of us in our tracks. It sounded like the bell from his fights and we all kind of stopped and froze and we started breaking up laughing. We thought Daddy interrupted us from crying because he didn’t want us to cry. He wants us to celebrate his life and not mourn.”

As Rasheda, her husband and two teenage sons, along with Mike Tyson’s son, piled into a car for the procession, sadness loosened its grip. She couldn’t believe the thousands of people lining the streets, all longing to share in this public farewell. “I’ve never seen anyone with a send-off as beautiful as my dad’s,” Rasheda says. “If you looked at the people, it was exactly what Daddy would’ve wanted. It was every single race, every single religion was represented, every single skin color, every single age. We had tiny babies with Ali shirts on. I saw a man in a hospital gown with an IV — he must have walked out of the hospital and stood.” 

Rasheda rolled the windows down in the car to wave and greet her father’s fans. “One person said, ‘Thank you.’ And I said, ‘Why are they thanking me?’ Then someone else said it. And I kept thinking: Why are they thanking us? And I realized they are thanking us because we shared him,” Rasheda says, pausing to sob at the memory. “They were thanking us because we let them borrow him.”

During the procession, Rasheda’s sister, Hana Ali, remembered a story her father would tell. She sent it out in a tweet as the line of black cars and SUVs rolled toward Cave Hill Cemetery: “We just left the funeral home and are in the car now following our beautiful father en route to his final resting place, as his recurring dream is realized. When he was younger he said, ‘I used to dream that I was running down Broadway in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, and all of the people were gathered in the street waving at me and clapping and cheering my name. I waved back, then all of a sudden I just took off flying.’”

Rasheda spotted the tweet later that day. “Chills went down my spine because that’s exactly what happened,” she says. “He was there in the moment, and I believe he flew up to heaven that day.” 

— AM

HEARSE DRIVER

CHASE PORTER

A.D. Porter and Sons

“Albert Logan was driving the hearse to the airport and from the airport to the funeral home. I was riding with him, and he backed it up to the airplane, and I got out and made sure the locking mechanism was on the body so it didn’t rattle in the car. All these helicopters are around, and all this security. We peeled out of the airport. You’re on the expressway, and you get off on Bardstown Road going to the funeral home, and now people knew what was going on. News travels so fast. People were on Bardstown Road by the Rally’s, by the Thortons, by everywhere, and they’re standing. And we had police escorts and whatnot, but this was already like a parade, like a New Orleans funeral. 

“At the funeral home there are some preparation tables, like from mortuary science. Those are stainless, and you have a counter — it’s a preparation room. The tables are on wheels, pushed aside. And then you have the Champ, just there in his casket. He was in a locked location, so nobody could get in there except for a few. The code on the door was changed just for that. There were police in there, sheriffs, and officers maintaining the grounds the whole week because people would come to take pictures and stuff like that. 

“I knew I’d be driving the hearse, and by Friday morning, I knew it was going to be a lot of fanfare. The hearse was at our downtown location, and we got there early, around 7, to make sure the car was nice and cleaned off. Ron Price, he was like my copilot, right there with me the whole time. We drove out to the funeral home, and of course we got there before 8 and it was already a circus. Helicopters. Traffic. But then it just became more and more and more and more. And then, as the family arrived, it was really wild. I was kind of calm on Friday because Thursday I had to drive the body from the funeral home to the Fairgrounds, where they had the prayer service. Getting the body out, taking it in the arena, bringing it back out to the hearse, driving back to the funeral home — it was kind of like a rehearsal. 

“Friday, we got to the funeral home, and the pallbearers and everybody come in. Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis — like, these are names. We got the pallbearers on either side of the casket, and we wheeled him out to the car. They had put these black curtains on both sides of the carport at the funeral home, so it was very dark — you couldn’t really see. There were so many helicopters flying around. By this time, people were everywhere all around the funeral home. Everybody was kind of respectful, nobody was acting crazy. This is what America is supposed to be about — it was all sorts of different people there smiling, high-fiving, shadow boxing.

“I always had someone in front of me, so I never had the opportunity to actually dictate the pace. I was just driving. That really allowed me to soak in the moment a lot more. I remember, we kept joking during the procession, ‘Ain’t nothing gonna top Bardstown Road.’ And it’s like some comic strip. You get to the next spot, like, ‘Nothing’s gonna top that.’ I remember people going south on Bardstown Road, them stopping. And so then you have traffic backing up. I remember people rolling down the window, screaming, ‘Yeah! Yeah!’ And then, going down Bardstown Road, people were everywhere. Where did these people park? It was just people everywhere, people with different flags, people with signs they made, people shouting, tossing flowers on the hearse. When we got on the expressway, the flowers all kind of blew off. I remember feeling relieved about it. I was able to see for the most part, and then, once the flowers got to be so much, the wipers didn’t work anymore. The flowers were too heavy for the wipers. We go past the Newburg Road exit, and there are people on the overpass stopping, watching. That moment was like the O.J. Simpson chase. They blocked the entrances to the expressway, but people going the other way are stopping.

“Right as we got off the interstate there, at Ninth Street, you kind of go down, and it’s like, all these people. I remember Ron and I just like: ‘Do you see this? Are you kidding me?’ You heard people scream and yell and shout, and everybody was singing and happy, you saw some people crying — but it wasn’t a sad moment, it was totally incredible. Then flowers were just going, and we were like, ‘Raise the windows up!’ Because they were flying in. These were like torpedoes or something. They were in the floorboards, on both sides. As we were riding, people were just tossing, and they wanted their flower to stick.

“We got to the childhood house. People were so close, they were brushing the side mirrors. People were smacking the car. At the same time, people were kissing the car, just wanting to touch it. You saw people running up to the car. All the while, people were throwing flowers on the car. Once we got a few houses down from his home, the cops moved away, and we were able to pick up speed again and get back onto Broadway. And then it was mass hysteria. By then, the flowers were too heavy for the windshield wipers again. It was like a veil over your eyes; you can see, but you can’t see.

“We finally got to the cemetery and all the people disappeared. It was like out of a movie, like the character just woke up in dreamland, like you blink and you’re in another place.

“There’s like 6 billion people in this world. How much of 1 billion saw a picture or a clip? How many people know that happened? How many people saw that picture of the hearse with all the flowers on it? I can never forget.” 

— DJ

PHOTOGRAPHER

MICHAEL CLEVENGER

Courier-Journal

“I got a call from my boss that was like, ‘Right now, it looks like you’re gonna be in the motorcade, and for the time being keep it to yourself.’ So I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t tell my wife for at least a day. But it was a matter of realizing what that meant and the importance of it, because I knew there was only going to be one of me.

“I felt a little bit of pressure getting into the back of the SUV because I was really there to do a job for everyone and I didn’t want to mess up. I was in what they call a pool situation, so any photos that I shot were going to be shared with anybody who wanted them. I think the Associated Press picked them up. And then I have no idea how far they were distributed after that. I found the photos in multiple outlets around the world. And that truly was humbling. Humbling to be asked to do it, to be relied upon to do it.

“The very first time that I saw somebody walk out and touch the hearse I thought, oh, this is not gonna go well. And nothing happened. The next time that somebody came out I thought, OK, we’re probably OK. A few people reached out and kissed the hearse. What surprised me the most was how everybody was on their best behavior. You have that many people gathered at that many places waiting that long just to catch a glimpse or to wave a sign or to see the hearse go past that I thought, well, something will go wrong. At the end of it I remember exhaling and thinking: what a wonderful day in Louisville.

“I think it had the elements of pride, respect, love, admiration and all of those feelings were in each flower that hit the windshield and each petal that was laid out at Cave Hill Cemetery. And every sign that they waved and every person who touched the hearse, that’s what they were infusing back into that car and back into Ali. What he gave to the city, the city gave back. 

“You can argue that Louisville’s day every year is the Kentucky Derby, the first Saturday in May. That’s a Louisville day, but this may truly be the most Louisville day ever.”

— MCA

SPEAKER

NATASHA MUNDKUR

She walks to the podium, elegant in a black dress and navy blazer, her black curly hair neatly draping one shoulder, her delicate features and dark eyes resting in a solemn, thoughtful state. Millions are listening and watching the eulogies for Ali. She speaks, her voice a bit shaky. Before I begin, I would like to say I’m truly honored and humbled to be here. Natasha Mundkur’s not nervous. All the 19-year-old University of Louisville student can think about are her too-tight shoes that have left her feet aching and bleeding.

She looks at her speech, then out to the audience, which exists in a dark abyss behind bright lights. So let me tell you a story about a man. She can make out Lonnie Ali and Muhammad’s kids in the front rows. A man who refused to believe that reality was limitation to achieve the impossible. Mundkur first learned of Ali — his boldness and tenacity — in an elementary school civil-rights lesson. A man who once reached up through the pages of a textbook to touch the heart of an eight-year-old girl. 

A fly in a milk carton — that’s how Mundkur describes her childhood in rural Virginia. A girl whose reflection of herself mirrored those who could not see past the color of her skin. Kids saw her brown face and Indian heritage as unwelcome, even once throwing rocks at her. At the podium, tiny gasps of air, like soft hiccups, escape with each word. It’s OK to get emotional, she tells herself. It’s true to the moment. But instead of drawing on the pain from that distorted reality, found strength, just as this man did who stood tall in the face of pelting rain and shouted, ‘I am the disturbance in the sea of your complacency and will never stop shaking your waves!’ The crowd roars. She picked up those rocks that were thrown at her and she threw them back. Mundkur covers her mouth, choking back tears. Lonnie Ali mouths, “It’s OK.” For the rest of Mundkur’s life, this will remain the clearest memory of her five minutes onstage. 

She continues. Impossible is not a fact. Impossible is an opinion. Impossible is nothing. Mundkur was asked to speak about Ali earlier in the week. She’s well-known at the Ali Center, having participated in youth programs there once her family moved to Louisville from Virginia. When I look into this crowd, I smile. I smile to recognize that he is not really gone. As of last night, she hadn’t even written the speech. Every time she’d try, she’d crumple into sobs. Finally, with the help of a pizza and a close friend who’s skilled in debate, she wrote thoughts down in her personal journal. Within an hour, she had her speech. He lives in you and he lives in me and he lives in every person he has touched in every corner of this world. Impossible is never enough to knock us down because we are Ali.

What a week this has been for Mundkur. She’s done interviews for Indian and British media. In the days to come, she’ll receive 2,000 Facebook friend requests. In the months to come, her speech will be viewed on YouTube more than 130,000 times. So let me tell you about a man. His name is Muhammad Ali. He is the greatest of all time. Ali taught her not to doubt the power of her own voice. He is from Louisville, Kentucky, and he lives in each and every one of us. And his story is far from over. Mundkur wipes tears and pauses for her standing ovation. 

— AM

ARTIST

MAGGIE CASSARO

The night after Ali died, Maggie Cassaro and her former classmate spread the petals of a dozen roses across the steps of the Ali Center. The next morning, the petals remained. Cassaro watched as a woman approached the stairs, lifting and dropping a foot at the bottom. “It was like she didn’t know whether to go forward,” Cassaro says. “She started walking, but so gently. I realized that perhaps in her mind she was walking on hallowed ground.”

The day of Ali’s funeral, Cassaro dropped nearly 90,000 rose petals over the entrance to Cave Hill Cemetery. Eddie Kraft, owner of Nanz and Kraft, contacted every flower distributor within 100 miles. ValuMarket provided roses and assistance. Bags of petals overflowed in Cassaro’s living room and basement. “One person could never accomplish anything like that alone,” she says. (Bob Gunnell, owner of Boxcar PR, said that Lonnie Ali cried when she heard about Cassaro’s proposal.)

“I knew of no finer way to pay tribute than to kiss Muhammad Ali in his final farewell. As each rose petal fell from my fingers it felt as though I was blowing him a kiss,” Cassaro says.

Cave Hill told Cassaro that they wanted the petals to remain as long as possible, a physical reminder of Ali and the hallowed ground. But after the hearse passed over the bed of petals, spectators began to collect them. “There were so many people touched by Ali that they wanted to take a piece home with them,” Cassaro says.

— JK

THE MAYOR’S OFFICE

JEAN PORTER

deputy director of communications 

CHRIS POYNTER

director of communications

Jean Porter: “I actually was going to a fundraiser at the Ali Center that Friday night that started at 6 and I knew when I left (for the fundraiser) that it was imminent. In fact, I said to Chris, ‘If you find out, call me because I’d like to tell the people who are there.’ It was a church kind of fundraiser, and I knew they’d want to do something or say something. My son did the opening benediction and he mentioned, ‘In case you hadn’t heard…’ He did this beautiful prayer. Here we are praying for Ali in his last moments. I knew it was possible that it had already happened.

     “Saturday morning after the flag (lowering) ceremony, the mayor went over to the Ali Center for another press conference and we walked over there with him. It struck us, and then the mayor reinforced this: the people who work at the Ali Center have lost a family member. Ali would come there, he had a little office with his own recliner where he would sit; he’d go through the place. Even though all of us knew he was going to die, it was still a shock. I think the community had gotten to the point where they just didn’t believe that he ever would die.” 

Chris Poynter: “We had been planning for a pretty short funeral, a couple days, so we had a really good public safety plan around that, and when Muhammad Ali died and we realized it turned into an entire week, suddenly we had to flip to a communications plan. There’s no website where you can go to find out about all things Ali. There was a website for the Ali Center, a website for boxing — but nothing about Ali in Louisville. We pulled the team together and launched the site in less than 24 hours. You had to sort of feed a weeklong series of events to the media.”

JP: “And then have it not just be a national thing but international. We knew we’d get some global press, but they were here from Japan and Ireland and China and Bangladesh.”

CP: “Ali loved kids. If you’ve ever seen him around kids, he just had this natural thing. I was on the phone at like 6:30 Sunday morning. I just blurted out, ‘Well, let’s have an I Am Ali festival.’ I didn’t even know what that meant. No matter what we asked of the community, everybody dropped everything and worked together, whether it was arts groups or the Kentucky Center, which gave us the space for free.” 

JP: “They were like, ‘OK, you can have it till 4 o’clock and then you gotta be gone because the show starts.’ I think it was Phantom of the Opera. It was amazing that it came together like it did.”

CP: “We were talking early in the week about the procession. We were like, is anybody going to show up? Nobody really knew until the hearse turned onto Bardstown Road. Obviously lots of people showed up. We thought: What is Louisville going to look like on national TV that entire route? LMPD, Public Works — we all drove the route and we literally said, ‘That lot needs to be cut, that building needs to be painted, that graffiti needs to be removed.’ Whatever we asked about, people just did it.

     “When we created the website, we realized, if you’re a visitor you may not know about it. We had these little business cards that our graphic designer Priscilla did in like an hour. I said, ‘We gotta have 5,000 of these.’ So she called the printer and they were like, ‘We’re not going to be able to get to it until next week.’ Priscilla said, ‘Well, this is for Ali,’ and he dropped everything. We had the cards that afternoon.

     “We’ve said this and Lonnie has said this: It’s almost like the hand of Muhammad Ali was working invisibly from the heavens. Because even the little things that happened that week, it was like, did that just really happen? 

     “We had been searching for any descendants of the guy who taught Ali to box at what is now Spalding (formerly the Columbia Gym) — a Louisville police officer, Joe Martin. We wanted to invite them to the funeral, wherever in the world they were. We couldn’t find any. The Ali family had looked. Ali Center had looked. I had looked. Monday I picked up the paper and there was a story by Tim Sullivan about the granddaughter and she lives over in Crescent Hill! I mean, we thought his family had been long gone. I called Tim from the gym at like 5:30 in the morning, like, ‘I need that girl’s number.’ She was getting ready to go to work and we said, ‘We want to introduce you to the world as Joe Martin’s descendent, can you be at the Ali Center in one hour?’

     “And the boyhood home. It’s like, did he plan this? Because a few weeks before, we were down there for the ribbon cutting. It was weird how things fell into place so easily that week.”

JP: “I actually had already planned a vacation and I left town on Friday, the morning of the funeral. My husband had snuck his phone out on the airplane. We were watching the motorcade come down Ninth Street off of 64 and you could hear people shouting, ‘I am Ali.’ We were in tears on the plane. We stayed with my aunt and uncle in Jacksonville and I asked them to DVR it. I remember it was raining in Florida and we just sat in a dark room and watched the whole thing. I teared up when I saw the processional come down Ninth Street. I was proud.”

CP: “I was inside the cemetery at the front gate waiting for the hearse to arrive. I had gotten there early and (artist) Maggie (Cassaro) was putting out the rose petals. I took out my phone to take a video of her. I just posted the thing on social media and it had like 2.5 million views within like two hours. I was at Cave Hill watching the procession on the TV, waiting for the hearse to arrive. When I saw that little kid shadow box, that was pretty amazing. 

     “We got the hearse in. We got the family in. They went back to the grave and then the crowd started to dissipate. I looked down and — you know at the entrance of Cave Hill there’s a guard shack? Every day they have a list of burials and what time they’re coming in. Usually there are like six or seven names. There was just one sheet that read: Muhammad Ali. It was like, wow. Actually I have that paper. The cemetery gave it to me.

     “You know what else happened that week that was pretty amazing? There was not a single homicide that week. That week we had no significant crime issues. When I was sitting in the Yum! Center for the funeral, I realized this is taking on a global message here. This has moved beyond Muhammad Ali. Watching that service 20 years down the road with the context of history, what was said that day, I think that will stand the test of time.” 

JP: “Especially in this year. There weren’t politics, there were no murders. In this year of being so divisive on every front, it was just a breather from all that and I think that’s why it wasn’t so sad as much as it was inspiring.” 

— MCA

BEST FRIEND

JOHN RAMSEY

sports radio host

“I was in my early 20s — I’m 55 now — and Muhammad was helping former Gov. John Y. Brown run for office. I grew up watching Muhammad fight. I never really had a male figure in my life, so I looked to him as a role model. I always thought I’d get along with him, that he’d like me. Maybe you wish for something so hard it comes true. 

“I was dating a girl who got me into a Derby party for Gov. Brown, maybe 100 people. It was at the end of Muhammad’s career but he was still fighting. I remember being so nervous. Eventually, I leaned over to him and did a bad Howard Cosell impression. He said, ‘Howard Cosell gets paid for that, what’s your excuse?’ I’m talking 100 miles an hour, telling Muhammad about Muhammad. He said, ‘Man, you know more about me than me.’ When he left he told me to walk him to his car. It was like a dream. He started throwing punches at me. He said, ‘I like you. I’ll come see you some time, write down your address.’ Three weeks later he shows up at my house. I had this little man cave with all these Ali pictures in it. He told me to call all my friends, to tell them the Greatest was there. They came over and we watched fight films with him. I distinctly remember the room smelled like BO because everyone was so nervous. The friendship took off from there. 

“We traveled the world together: England, Ireland, Australia, Canada, all over the U.S. — all on his dime. We’d go to fights, which was like going to church with the pope. Lonnie would always tell us to go out and spend some man time together. We’d put some Marvin Gaye on the CD player and drive around. We’d come home five hours later — midnight or 2 o’clock in the morning — and Lonnie would say, ‘You were on Muhammad time, weren’t you?’ Somebody would meet him and he’d want to sit and talk to them and all the sudden he’s holding court. One time in Atlanta, I’m trying to get him back home to Louisville, and Muhammad’s signing autographs. He goes, ‘John, when’s the next flight? Let’s stay here and make some people happy.’

“I knew he was going into the hospital, but he’d gotten off the mat so many times before. I was flying into New York because my son was getting engaged. Lonnie said, ‘You go be with your son.’ I landed in New York and had a voicemail from Lonnie. I called her up and she was crying. She said, ‘John, you might want to come see your friend.’ I saw my son, gave him a hug and got on another flight. Muhammad gave so much of himself. I think he just gave all that he had. It was time.

“To be honest, I went to Phoenix that time for Lonnie. Because Lonnie gave me the best gift she could have ever given me in April, two months prior. I’d go out once or twice a year to be with Muhammad, watch fight films with him. Back in the day it was going to parties, meeting celebrities — but it wasn’t like that in the end. It was helping him take his meds, getting him to speech therapy. In April, she said, ‘Come on out and see Muhammad.’ I think she knew he wasn’t doing well. 

“I’d read to Muhammad. It was always an Ali book. Lonnie and I would laugh because he loved hearing about himself. I always tell people, ‘The only person who liked to watch Muhammad fight more than me was Muhammad.’ I would remind him of quotes he said. In the later years, his mind was sharp. Sometimes he would stop me and would point at a picture. He could very softly say, ‘Read it again.’ In the mornings, after a good night sleep, he was pretty good. We’d get up early and have breakfast. In April, I got to say goodbye to him correctly. I knew he was struggling, that he had lost a lot of weight. I got to look him right in the eye and go, ‘Hey, Champ, I gotta talk to you for a second. Do you know how much you meant to me? How I see you work? How I see what kind of person you are? Thank you for letting me be a part of that.’ He held my hand; he got it. I remember leaving that day and thinking I may not see him again, at least not in good health. 

“He had no fear of dying. None. As close as he was to his mom, I remember being nervous getting around him the day she died. All his kids were in town and I wanted to leave him alone and let him grieve. They had just taken the casket out of the church and Muhammad is flirting with my wife, joking around. I talked to him about it, and he said, ‘She’s in a better place.’ But when he said it, he meant it. 

“We’d been planning the service for almost nine years, and they told me they wanted me to give a eulogy. I said I’d do it, but I told Muhammad he had to promise me he had 30 years left in him. I put off writing it because I didn’t want to think about it. Because I always thought he’d be OK. I wrote my eulogy on the flight to Phoenix. I was supposed to be the voice of the common man. I could have talked about how great a boxer he was, how great a humanitarian, but, man, he was cool. He had swagger before we knew what swagger was. 

“On the flight from Phoenix to Louisville, the imam said, ‘You know, he could have been buried in Mecca.’ When we landed, everybody’s getting ready and Lonnie stood up, she’s pretty soft-spoken, and said, ‘Everybody, sit down. Muhammad gets off first.’ She said, ‘John, you go down and get him off the plane.’ There were some police officers and the imam. They brought the casket down and that was my goodbye to him. I see the helicopters up in the sky. I put my hand on the casket and said, ‘Champ, you’re in Louisville. You’re home, man. This is what you wanted.’ 

“The day of the funeral, they wanted all the pallbearers — Lennox Lewis, Will Smith, all of us — to meet downtown at the Marriott, in the private dining area at BLU. Somebody said, ‘There’s one pallbearer who’s really upset, can you go up and see him?’ I go up to his room and it’s Mike Tyson. Tyson’s sitting on his bed, rubbing away tears with a towel in his hand. He goes, ‘I was 12 years old, in a detention center, a street kid, and Muhammad came in and made me feel like I could be somebody. The Greatest of all time comes in and tells me I was somebody.’ He was pretty upset, so I started telling him funny Ali stories and before long he’s on the bed kicking like a kid, going, ‘Ooh, you’re making me laugh.’

“During the procession, I was in a car with Will Smith, and almost as soon as we left he put the windows down. And I thought uh-oh. Will said, ‘Muhammad wouldn’t want us in a bubble.’ People would run up, see me, and I’d say you want the other side of the car for Will. As we drove through town, because I know so much historically about Muhammad, I’d tell them stories: This is Grand Avenue where he grew up, this is Chickasaw Park where he’d run. 

“At the gravesite, as part of the Muslim burial, there were shovels and a stack of dirt. Mike Tyson, man. It was so hot that day. And they had a plastic tarp over us in case it rained. Tyson took off his jacket and was like, ‘C’mon, let’s go to work.’ So we had a line: shovel, move, shovel, move. He’s down there and we’re burying him. Tyson was getting at it. They had a little station where you could clean off your shoes, and I remember looking at Tyson and he was dripping with sweat.

“I still struggle with it. I hope there’s a time when I can come to peace with it. Maybe it’ll always hit me. It’s just so hard to let him go. Who fills that void?

“I go to Cave Hill often. I’ve probably been seven, eight times since he passed and I’ll probably go again this week. The gravesite is not ostentatious or showy. It’s welcoming: come on in and sit down with me for a while. The last time, I didn’t go out there with this intent, but there’s a new book out on Muhammad, and I just happened to have it in my car. I saw the benches and said, ‘Hey, Muhammad.’ And I got my book out and read to him.”

— JM