Muhammad Ali's Influence On American Society

Muhammad Ali was born as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on 17th of January, 1942. Despite his opinions on controversial themes such as war or religion, nobody can argue that Ali was the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. Who was Muhammad Ali? How did he influence the American Society? Muhammad Ali helped shape the American Society by encouraging people to believe in themselves, stand up for what they believe in and by giving voice to people that did not have one.

Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on the 17th of January, 1942. His father was a painter and his mother worked as a servant. The Clay’s had always been a lower-class family. At the age of twelve, his bike was stolen and he reported to a police officer saying

This decision changed his life completely, Cassius Clay “his slave name”, was now Muhammad Ali “beloved of God”. Ali was a member of the Nation of Islam until 1975, when he converted to the more general Sunni Islam. Islam was considered, and is still today, a very radical religion and way of thinking, however, Ali’s view of it seemed to be totally different. For him, Islam was all about love. Malcolm X was in charge of showing Ali the path to a newer, and more tolerant version of Islam. After the Supreme Court overturned his conviction for draft evasion, Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X established a leadership in a Chicago mosque that rapidly grew up to sixty-thousand members. The new bases were: “As a religion, the Nation of Islam offered an antidote to "white" Christianity; as an economic base, it stressed self-sufficiency; as a social force, it promoted black pride and unity” (Stravinsky). The Nation of Islam started dividing between the people that liked traditional ways, and people that preferred the new ways of thinking. Due to this conflict, Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965 and ten years laters, Elijah Muhammad, the new leader of the nation, died from a heart disease. These events triggered changes within the Nation of Islam and by the start of the 1970s, the group became known as the World Community of al-Islam in the West (WCIW). They believed in a more

What is surprising is that, after fighting against Parkinson’s disease for more than 30 years, it was not the disease that killed him. According to Ali’s family, the cause of his death was a “septic shock due to unspecified natural causes”. Sepsis is the body’s reaction to an infection, which can lead to tissue damage, organ failure and death. It is hard to believe that a disease like Parkinson's can lead to Sepsis because they are not usually related, but, in certain phases of the disease, Parkinson’s patients can be exposed to higher risks of developing an infection, which can lead to