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Last Updated: Aug 10th, 2010 - 23:16:19 |
Muhammad Ali to be honored at Atlanta fund-raiser
By CHARLES ODUM
Feb 24, 2005, 16:35
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ATLANTA - Muhammad Ali may be the world's best-known athlete of the past century, but he still gets a kick out of being recognized by a kid at a fast-food window.
"Muhammad is in awe when we go through the McDonald's drive-through and the teenager who is 16 knows who he is and thinks he is cool and awesome," said Ali's wife, Lonnie Ali. "It just really brightens him up. He loves connecting with the next generation."
It is not just teens or fast-food fans who still think the 63-year-old boxing great is cool.
An audience of admirers, including celebrities, will pay up to $1,000 per ticket to attend the Butterfly Ball Saturday night in Atlanta to honor Ali as part of Black History Month. Proceeds will support the Muhammad Ali Center, scheduled to open in November in Louisville, Ky.
Lonnie Ali says the event will bring a needed late push for efforts to raise $75 million for the Ali center. The six-story, 93,000-square-foot building will overlook the Ohio River in downtown Louisville, Ali's hometown. The center will chronicle Ali's life career, but it is designed to be much more than a shrine.
Muhammad Ali, regarded as perhaps the top heavyweight champion in boxing history, says the center will help visitors learn more about themselves.
"For many years I have dreamed of creating a place to share, teach and inspire people to be their best and to pursue their dreams," Ali said in a brochure promoting the center.
Lonnie Ali said completion of the center "will be a dream come true."
"It's almost unbelievable this day will arrive, and it's almost just an arm's length away," she said.
While not his hometown, the ball's venue city of Atlanta holds special memories for Ali. Those include lighting the torch that burned through the 1996 Olympics.
Atlanta also played host to Ali's 1970 comeback fight against Jerry Quarry, more than three years after Ali was stripped of his championship titles following his refusal in 1966 to serve in the Vietnam War.
Ali, famous for his rhymes and chants, including "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee," that began when he was known as Cassius Clay, regained the heavyweight championship in 1974. Following his final fight in 1981, a loss to Trevor Berbick, Ali began treatment in 1982 for Parkinson's disease.
The once brash and loquacious Ali now speaks in whispers and his hands often tremble with the effects of the disease.
Saturday night's black-tie event, to be co-hosted by PBS late-night talk show host Tavis Smiley, is designed to generate money and interest for the Nov. 19 opening of the Ali Center.
"As a kid growing up in Indiana, I had Ali as a childhood hero because my dad was the biggest Ali fan," Smiley said. "I never had any idea I would one day be his friend. I've been fortunate over the years to interview him and travel with him and hang out with him. He is fascinating to me.
"He and I talked about coming to Atlanta. He remembers quite fondly lighting that torch. It's a great place for him to come to."
Former boxing champions Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield, track standout Jackie Joyner-Kersee, singer Brian McKnight, baseball great Hank Aaron, and civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson and Coretta Scott King are among the celebrities expected to attend. In 2004, Lewis pledged $300,000 for the center.
The Ali Center will emphasize six core values - respect, confidence, conviction, dedication, giving and spirituality - as the major themes of Ali's life designed to inspire visitors to achieve personal greatness.
"For years I struggled with trying to figure out what it was about Ali that made him so uniquely different," Smiley said. "It really is these six core values. Also Ali, like or loathe the guy, he has never lied to the American people. Whatever Ali had to say, whatever he felt or believed, he said. He has embraced those core values."
Michael Fox, president of the Ali Center, said Ali "simply did not want for the center that he was envisioning to be a place to recognize only his achievement."
Fox said there was no model for the center "and I've been in the museum profession for three decades."
Ali fans who can't afford tickets to Saturday night's ball may soon have an opportunity to see the former champion in the new center that bears his name. Lonnie Ali says her husband will have an office in the center and likely will be frequently seen by visitors.
"Muhammad lives and breathes people, that's what motivates him," she said. "That's what gets him going each day. He loves people. He's one of the few celebrities I've seen who gets a thrill out of meeting people. Muhammad will probably be a very visible presence."
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