:00:12. > :00:14.Muhammad Ali, the boxing legend and giant of 20th
:00:15. > :00:21.I will beat any man in the world and I want everyone out there to know
:00:22. > :00:22.it, I am the greatest! The most iconic heavyweight
:00:23. > :00:25.of all time had been in hospital I'm the champion, the real champion!
:00:26. > :00:31.There will never be one like me! BBC viewers voted him
:00:32. > :00:36.Sports Personality of Diagnosed with Parkinson's disease
:00:37. > :00:44.30 years ago, Mohammed Ali We'll be looking back
:00:45. > :00:59.at his extraordinary life. Muhammad Ali, the boxing legend
:01:00. > :01:06.and for many the greatest sporting icon of the 20th
:01:07. > :01:08.century, has died. The former champion defeated almost
:01:09. > :01:12.every top heavyweight in his era. George Foreman, who lost
:01:13. > :01:14.to Ali in the famous Rumble In The Jungle,
:01:15. > :01:16.said, "Part of me has gone". Joe Wilson looks back
:01:17. > :01:21.at the life of Muhammad Ali. I'll whoop any man in the world
:01:22. > :01:24.and I want everybody out Muhammad Ali simply
:01:25. > :01:30.voiced his own punchlines. He could tell you he would float
:01:31. > :01:33.like a butterfly and sting Born Cassius Clay in Louisville,
:01:34. > :01:42.Kentucky, in 1942, he first achieved fame when he won gold
:01:43. > :01:51.at the Rome Olympics in 1960. Three years later, he was famously
:01:52. > :01:54.floored by a left hook Cooper stole the moment,
:01:55. > :01:57.lost the fight. Clay was left with a shot
:01:58. > :02:00.at the world title, held by Sonny Liston,
:02:01. > :02:03.a fearsome fighter Ali called him The Bear,
:02:04. > :02:06.mocked him before, Put him in the hospital,
:02:07. > :02:14.he's never been stopped! The next day he announced his
:02:15. > :02:19.conversion to Islam, swearing allegiance to Elijah
:02:20. > :02:21.Muhammad. Why do you insist on being
:02:22. > :02:35.called Muhammad Ali now? Because that's the name
:02:36. > :02:37.given to me by my leading My original name, that's a black man
:02:38. > :02:41.name, Cassius Clay was my slave On religious grounds,
:02:42. > :02:45.Ali refused to obey his call-up The territory he now occupied
:02:46. > :02:48.was way beyond boxing. A champion in the ring,
:02:49. > :02:52.a hero beyond the ring, sacrificing his career
:02:53. > :02:54.for principals and anti-war profit. He was stripped of his title
:02:55. > :03:03.and sentenced to five years in jail. This was quashed on appeal, but Ali
:03:04. > :03:06.was refused a licence to box. He spent over three years out
:03:07. > :03:11.of the ring. In the 1970s, Ali made some
:03:12. > :03:14.memorable appearances To me, as someone interested
:03:15. > :03:22.in sport, he's without doubt the most beautiful and compete
:03:23. > :03:25.athlete I've ever seen. To others, he's a political leader,
:03:26. > :03:29.a figurehead in the battle between black and white,
:03:30. > :03:34.and to more people who care little about sport and even less
:03:35. > :03:36.about politics, he's one of the world great
:03:37. > :03:38.entertainers, a character, He revealed his showmanship
:03:39. > :03:49.and taste for publicity were inspired by an American
:03:50. > :03:58.wrestler called gorgeous George. When I saw all of those people
:03:59. > :04:01.coming to see George get beat, and they all paid to get in,
:04:02. > :04:04.that's the thing, they paid! And right away I start talking,
:04:05. > :04:19."I am the greatest! When you look back over a career
:04:20. > :04:24.such as I have had an look at the thousands of people you have
:04:25. > :04:28.interviewed, a few standout, and he was the one who stands out most of
:04:29. > :04:33.all. And extraordinary man, and you are lucky to have met him, that is
:04:34. > :04:34.the thing, his image and memory will live on for the rest of time, I
:04:35. > :04:38.suppose. His career had one remarkable twist
:04:39. > :04:42.of bravery and achievement to come. In Zaire, in 1974, against
:04:43. > :04:44.the mountainous George Foreman, If you think I whooped Sonny Liston,
:04:45. > :04:49.you wait till I get George Foreman! He talks too much, he's
:04:50. > :04:51.ugly, he's pretending! I'm the true champion
:04:52. > :04:54.and they make me the underdog?! I'll show them all they're wrong
:04:55. > :04:57.because I'm the champion, the real champion, there will never
:04:58. > :05:01.be one like me and all you people in Britain who rate me
:05:02. > :05:06.as the greatest, I'm going to prove I'm the greatest,
:05:07. > :05:09.prove to you and prove to the world This is my last fight,
:05:10. > :05:13.I want none of you to miss it! I'm going to eat some raw meat,
:05:14. > :05:16.I'm going to train, I'm Ali won after deliberately absorbing
:05:17. > :05:24.punches and exhausting his opponent. He just beat himself out,
:05:25. > :05:41.he was so tired, he was just I said, "Man, this is the wrong
:05:42. > :05:50.place to get tired!" Ali predicted Zaire
:05:51. > :05:54.would be his last fight. It wasn't - he fought
:05:55. > :05:58.on for seven more years. The onset of Parkinson's disease
:05:59. > :06:00.was only too obvious when, with great dignity and bravery,
:06:01. > :06:10.he lit the Olympic flame in 1996. When it came to a vote for
:06:11. > :06:13.Sports Personality of the Century, Ali polled more than the rest
:06:14. > :06:17.of the contenders put together. Even while his body was failing him,
:06:18. > :06:20.the famous wit still sparkled. I had a good time boxing,
:06:21. > :06:23.I enjoyed it, and I may come back! Go to any country, any city,
:06:24. > :06:26.any village in the world, To put it simply, to use his words,
:06:27. > :06:33.he was the greatest. Though he was born and raised
:06:34. > :06:48.in Louisville, Kentucky, New York became the place where Ali
:06:49. > :06:51.trained and where he fought some Nick Bryant has been talking to some
:06:52. > :07:08.of the New Yorkers who knew New York's most famous boxing gym
:07:09. > :07:12.also doubles as a shrine to Muhammad Ali. He trained at geese and in the
:07:13. > :07:17.1960s, where his super-sized charisma made him an electrifying
:07:18. > :07:22.presence. But it is not just as a megastar that they remember him yet,
:07:23. > :07:27.it is also as a friend. He would do anything, he helped as much as he
:07:28. > :07:32.can. He would give me the shirt off his back, a is just that nice of a
:07:33. > :07:38.guy, just a nice person, period. He will stop, he will not only stop and
:07:39. > :07:44.talk to the guy standing on the corner with a suit and tie on, he
:07:45. > :07:48.will talk to the bomb laying on the ground, half drunk. You start
:07:49. > :07:51.talking to him, he will start talking to you. One thing about
:07:52. > :07:58.Muhammad Ali, he loved to talk. Two things that are hard to it and see,
:07:59. > :08:02.a spooky ghost and Muhammad Ali! People would queue up even to watch
:08:03. > :08:06.Muhammad Ali train and at a time when boxing was in danger of being
:08:07. > :08:12.relegated to a backstreet sport he ushered in its golden age. His star
:08:13. > :08:16.power could fill arenas the size of Madison Square Garden 100 times
:08:17. > :08:20.over, but it was the intimacy that photographer Michael Gaffney
:08:21. > :08:25.recalls. He spent a year on the road with Ali in the late 1970s and has
:08:26. > :08:29.special memories of a trip to South America where Ali toured hospitals
:08:30. > :08:33.filled with polio victims, and lent a helping hand to the poor. Every
:08:34. > :08:45.day that we were there, there were beggars lined up in the wall way.
:08:46. > :08:55.And he would... Sorry. He gave each one of them $100 bill. And I said,
:08:56. > :09:04.Champ... Why are you doing that? And he said, because $100 here is worth
:09:05. > :09:12.$10,000 at home. That was him. Ali was a sportsman who almost defies
:09:13. > :09:15.description, superstar, icon, the superlatives seem inadequate but his
:09:16. > :09:17.own famous post also served as an epitaph. He was, quite simply, the
:09:18. > :09:28.greatest. Let's go live now to
:09:29. > :09:30.Louisville in Kentucky and to our correspondent,
:09:31. > :09:36.Aleem Maqbool. A sad day?
:09:37. > :09:40.Indeed, this is where Muhammad Ali was born and when he complained, at
:09:41. > :09:45.12 years old, to a police officer saying that his bike had been stolen
:09:46. > :09:48.and said he wanted to beat up whoever stole the bike, and the
:09:49. > :09:52.police officer persuaded him to go to a boxing gym. He returned here at
:09:53. > :09:55.Olympic gold-medal winner and he returned here after winning both
:09:56. > :09:59.world titles, where he spent some tough times out of the ring in the
:10:00. > :10:04.late 60s, and also where this building has been built in tribute
:10:05. > :10:21.to Muhammad Ali, the Muhammad Ali centre which deals not
:10:22. > :10:25.just with his life and sporting achievements but the other
:10:26. > :10:27.dimensions of the man, the charity giving, the spirituality as well.
:10:28. > :10:29.While tributes have been coming in from around the world, from world
:10:30. > :10:32.leaders, from across America from people like Bill Clinton, Mike
:10:33. > :10:34.Tyson, it is here that it would appear his loss is being felt the
:10:35. > :10:37.most. The mayor, in a few hours' time, will lead a tribute to
:10:38. > :10:39.Muhammad Ali and flags will be delivered across this city. As I
:10:40. > :10:42.say, as people here reflect, there are those around the world who are
:10:43. > :10:45.now looking again at the impact that Muhammad Ali had not just on sport
:10:46. > :10:50.but far wider than that as one of the most recognisable figures
:10:51. > :10:51.through the 70s and 80s, and a man who transcended his sporting
:10:52. > :10:53.achievements. Thanks very much.
:10:54. > :10:56.As we've been hearing, Ali was a prominent figure both
:10:57. > :11:01.In the 1960s he became a leading civil rights activist in America,
:11:02. > :11:04.but his influence on racial equality was felt far beyond the shores
:11:05. > :11:06.of the United States, as Elaine Dunkley now reports
:11:07. > :11:20.Britain in the 1960s was deeply divided, a colour bar meant new
:11:21. > :11:26.arrivals from the Commonwealth were denied housing and work. It was to
:11:27. > :11:29.America that black Britons would look for cultural icons, and they
:11:30. > :11:35.didn't come much bigger than Muhammad Ali. The white man has been
:11:36. > :11:37.brainwashed and it is time for him to learn something about himself!
:11:38. > :11:45.Someone like Muhammad Ali came on the scene, you know, he made to feel
:11:46. > :11:48.so good as young people. He was of great significance for someone like
:11:49. > :12:00.myself who was involved in radical politics. I was a member of the
:12:01. > :12:04.Black Panther movement, and people like Angela Davis, Malcolm X, were
:12:05. > :12:15.like our heroes when we were teenagers. Muhammad Ali fit nicely
:12:16. > :12:19.within that group of people. In 1963, activist Paul Stephenson
:12:20. > :12:23.successfully led a campaign to boycott a bus company in Bristol
:12:24. > :12:27.which was refusing to employ black and Asian drivers. The fight for
:12:28. > :12:33.regular quality was the making of a friendship with Muhammad Ali. He
:12:34. > :12:43.wanted to see England follow America in the civil rights. We spoke about
:12:44. > :12:49.how we can deal with racism and how he could be used to get England
:12:50. > :12:52.talking about racism. In 1974 Muhammad Ali's visit to Brixton
:12:53. > :12:58.bought the streets to a standstill. Photographer Neal Ken Lough, caught
:12:59. > :13:04.on camera pivotal moment in black British history. It was just
:13:05. > :13:09.fantastic that he decided to leave America to come to Brixton to
:13:10. > :13:15.support our community, and that is what really touched me. And of
:13:16. > :13:23.course he would play with people, talk to anybody, he was an
:13:24. > :13:36.incredible person. He didn't behave like other successful and rich
:13:37. > :13:42.superstars. Muhammad Ali will be remembered as one of the greatest
:13:43. > :13:46.boxers of all time. But, to many, his greatest legacy was his fight
:13:47. > :13:52.for civil rights. Memories of the Muhammad Ali.
:13:53. > :13:54.Now briefly to some of the day's other news.
:13:55. > :13:56.Police searching for a missing couple have launched a murder
:13:57. > :13:59.inquiry after a body was found in woodland near where they live.
:14:00. > :14:01.Peter and Sylvia Stuart, from Weybread in Suffolk,
:14:02. > :14:03.were reported missing after not being seen since last Saturday.
:14:04. > :14:06.Six former Labour leaders have published a joint open letter urging
:14:07. > :14:12.supporters of the party to vote Remain in the EU referendum.
:14:13. > :14:14.In a speech this morning, Lord Kinnock said, "Decisions
:14:15. > :14:21.Later today, the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown
:14:22. > :14:24.is expected to say that if Labour stays at home, Britain leaves.
:14:25. > :14:28.Our next news on BBC One is on at 6.30pm, but before we go
:14:29. > :14:31.we'll leave you with a few words from Muhammad Ali.
:14:32. > :14:40.Float like a butterfly and stings like a bee! He has got ten! I love
:14:41. > :14:44.my people and I'm not going to sell them out and mislead them. I'm the
:14:45. > :14:47.champion, the real champion, there will never be one like the! We're
:14:48. > :14:57.going to prove to the world I'm the greatest!
:14:58. > :15:03.Good afternoon, it was a slow start to the day for many others with
:15:04. > :15:09.extensive cloud cover, a view of Liverpool not so long ago. There was
:15:10. > :15:10.some mist and fog, very little to speak of but the cloud has broken