The year was 1942. The world was witnessing another devastating World War. For a common man like Cassius Clay of Louisville, USA, life continued. His pregnant wife, Odessa, had given birth to a baby boy at the city hospital on 17 January. Clay did not want to work hard in finding the perfect name for his son, so he decided that his son will be named after him. Thus, they registered the little boy's name as Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.

Young Cassius owned a red-and-white Schwinn bicycle. He and his friends would ride along the streets of Louisville. One day, while attending an event at the Columbia Auditorium in Louisville, he found his bicycle missing. The enraged 12-year-old Cassius felt helpless. He was certain that his family probably cannot afford to scrape money just to buy him another Schwinn.

He wanted to report his stolen bicycle. He was told that a policeman was in the basement. Cassius went to meet the policeman, Joe Martin and narrated the whole incident of how he found that his bicycle was missing. He added that if he could find the thief, he would beat him black and blue.

Joe Martin was a member of the Louisville Police Squad and had experience working with both the whites and the blacks. He also taught boxing at the Columbia gym. When little Cassius was reporting to him about his stolen bicycle, Joe Martin noticed the anger in his words. Joe remarked, "If you are beating up someone, you better learn how to fight."

Cassius found this intriguing. He would learn how to fight so that he could beat up the bicycle thief. He decided to learn boxing under Joe Martin himself. Joe noticed that anyone could easily beat up the skinny eighty-nine-pound Cassius. But there was a slight difference between Cassius and the other boys. He would dedicatedly show up at the gym right on time without fail, a trait that the others lacked. He would do anything that Joe asked him to do and practice six days a week with Joe and another trainer, Fred Stoner.

Fred Stoner worked at Grace Community Centre in Louisville. He worked diligently to show light to the young black boys and help them find a cause. Cassius belonged to this group too, and found the Grace Community Centre efficient in improving his boxing knowledge. He and his brother Rudolph attended both gyms.

Cassius never accepted defeat. He was far from acknowledging defeat. He liked to brag in front of his fellow trainees about how he can defeat them. Joe and Fred knew that whatever be it, this young boy is dedicatedly in love with boxing.

By the time Cassius turned sixteen, his devotion towards boxing did not change. He won two national Amateur Athletic Union titles, six Kentucky Golden Gloves, and two Golden Gloves championships. He was completely inclining his attention towards a career in boxing and wanted to try his best in the upcoming Olympics.

After polishing his skills under rigorous training, Cassius was finally shortlisted for the 1960 Olympics. An eighteen-year-old Cassius fought against Olympic winner Zbigniew Pietrzykowski of Poland. He fought to the limit, and won the 178-pound light heavyweight division.

The 1960 Rome Olympics made Cassius Clay the most famous black man in the USA. Even people who did not know anything about boxing knew a boxer called Cassius Clay. At the age of eighteen, Cassius made the world cheer for him.

In 1964, Cassius met with Sonny Liston, a heavyweight world champion of that time. During those days, boxing had connections to the underworld and betting was legal. They duelled again in 1965, with Sports Illustrated giving a detailed description of the events within the ring. The Louisville Lip, as Cassius was called, used the controversial ‘Phantom Punch.’ The people who knew the boxers were left in a jaw-dropping state when the hardest hitter Liston lost to a light hitter like Cassius.

The victory of Cassius Clay after the Liston fight made him change his name to Cassius X. Later, upon embracing Islam, he again changed his name to Muhammad Ali. The change from a catholic Cassius Clay to a dedicated Muslim as Muhammad Ali had to do something about ideology and colour. Clay always found that the Book of Genesis never talked about men of colour. Since his birth, he had witnessed the white peoples’ dominance over the blacks. He therefore wanted to free himself from the religion he followed since birth and started resonating with Islam.

In 1978 DC Comics published a 72-page “Muhammad Ali vs Superman”. The two superheroes meet at the ring without Superman using his superpowers. The duel ends with Muhammad Ali being the champion and later both the superstars join to fight against an alien.

The 1960s had the world glued to another historic event — the Vietnam War. America’s involvement in the war made the effects of the war severe. Thousands of soldiers lost their lives, and America required more support to win the war. The anti-war protesters were trying hard to make their voices heard. They were busy burning the draft cards. The ones who wanted to take a stand against participating in military services, i.e. the Conscientious Objectors, started fleeing the country.

Ali did not want to join the military and he did not want to flee the country. He, therefore, did the best he could in this situation — he spoke up. Known for speaking fluently and mostly in rhymes, Ali mentioned that he could not fight against his coloured brothers. Black people fighting against the prevalent white dominance in the USA will never look good fighting against another coloured race in Vietnam. This later led to his arrest and conviction in 1966.

Muhammad Ali, the world-famous boxer, spent five years in prison for refusing to serve in the US military. But, with his case still on appeal, he was allowed to pursue boxing. Ali defeated Jerry Quarry and Oscar Bonavena. He lost to Joe Frazier in what was called the ‘Fight of the Century’.

It is rightly said that a star is born. Ali, in his twenties, was popular for his boxing and his poetic style of speaking. He remained undefeated for a long time. He even appeared as a cameo in a film called Requiem for a Heavyweight. During his exile from boxing, he starred in a Broadway musical called Buck White. Later he penned his autobiography titled The Greatest: My Own Story.

The sports star-turned-philanthropist married four times and had nine children, including the famous Laila Ali, who also became a female middleweight boxer. Muhammad Ali was later diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which is attributed to repeated head trauma while boxing. But he was still an active sports legend, guiding many young talents for as long as he could. He kept working until the 2000s, after which his health deteriorated and breathed his last on 2 June 2016.

The famous sports channel ESPN paid tribute to Muhammad Ali’s undefeated life by airing four hours of non-stop coverage of Ali. The whole tribute was advertisement-free.

Cassius Clay aka Muhammad Ali lived his life to his standards. He could never catch the bicycle thief, but he lived his life as a boxer, bringing glory and fame not only under his name but also to the people of his race. He made the white people sit up and take notice of a black man and left no effort in telling a country like the USA to withdraw from white supremacy and create a world which could base itself on equality.