[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 98 (Friday, July 11, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1416-E1418]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                  MUHAMMAD ALI--``STILL THE GREATEST''

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. LOUIS STOKES

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 11, 1997

  Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, I recently read an inspiring article which 
appeared in the Washington Post's national weekly edition. The article 
is entitled, ``Still the Greatest.'' In the article, David Maraniss, a 
staff writer for the Post, reminds us of the struggle, perseverance, 
and success of one of the world's greatest boxers--Muhammad Ali.
  Muhammad Ali, the once Olympic boxing medal winner and past world's 
heavyweight champion, is considered by some to be the ``Greatest of All 
Time.'' But, he has always been more than just an exceptional athlete. 
He was, and still is an exceptional man. Muhammad Ali, as Maraniss 
points out, ``is universally recognized as a man who stood for what he 
believed in and paid the price and prevailed.'' As champion, Ali 
converted to the Islamic religious belief, took a stand against the 
Vietnam war, and donated time and money to charitable organizations. 
After his boxing career ended, he continued to spread goodwill and 
associate himself with worthy causes.
  Today, Ali maintains his commitment to the funding of research for 
Parkinson's disease, a disease he himself was diagnosed with in the 
early 1980's. He travels frequently, doing good deeds, visiting 
schools, and campaigning against child abuse, as well as ``promoting 
universal understanding and tolerance.''
  Mr. Speaker, this article shows the strength of the human spirit when 
coupled with the will to survive and drive to succeed. Muhammad Ali is 
an inspiration to all of us, young and old, rich or poor, athlete or 
spectator. He not only stands for what he believes in, but he also 
backs it up. Whether the fight was in the ring, with American policy, 
or with a debilitating disease, Muhammad Ali never backed down. It 
pleases me that Mr. Maraniss decided to pay tribute to the ``Greatest 
of All Time.'' I take pride in sharing ``Still the Greatest'' with my 
colleagues and others across the Nation.

               [From the Washington Post, June 16, 1997]

   Still the Greatest--Muhammad Ali's Latest Comeback Has Made Him a 
                   Beloved Figure All Over the World

                          (By David Maraniss)

       Berrien Springs, Mich.--No words at first. The greeting 
     comes from his eyes, then a handshake, light as a butterfly, 
     followed by a gesture that says, ``Follow me,'' He has just 
     popped out the back door of his farmhouse wearing green pants 
     and a light brown wool pullover with sunglasses tucked coolly 
     into the mock turtleneck collar. He is carrying an old black 
     briefcase. His hair is longer than usual and a bit uncombed. 
     He starts walking toward his office, a converted barn on the 
     lower end of the circular driveway.
       He moves slowly, hunching slightly forward as he goes, 
     never a stumble but sometimes seeming on the verge of one, as 
     though his world slopes downhill. He opens the door and stand 
     aside, following, not leading, on the way upstairs to his 
     second-floor office. Halfway up, it becomes clear why. He 
     sticks out a hand and catches his visitor's foot from behind. 
     The old trip-up-the-stairs trick. Muhammad Ali loves tricks.
       At the top of the stairs is the headquarters of GOAT. 
     Another trick. It is the playfully ironic acronym for 
     Greatest of All Time, Incorporated. Ali wants the world to 
     know that he is just another goat, one living thing in this 
     vast and miraculous universe. But also the greatest there 
     ever was. He is 55, his mouth and body slowed by Parkinson's 
     disease, yet still arguably the best known and most beloved 
     figure in the world. Who else? The Pope? Nelson Mandela? 
     Michael Jordan? Ali might win in a split decision.
       Even the most dramatic lives move in cycles of loss and 
     recovery. Last summer in Atlanta, when Ali stood alone in the 
     spotlight, the world watching, his hands trembling, and lit 
     the Olympic flame, he began another cycle, perhaps his 
     ultimate comeback, as emotional as any he had staged in the 
     ring against Joe Frazier or George Foreman. For 16 years he 
     had been retired from boxing. During that time he had gone 
     through periods of boredom and uncertainty. Not that he was 
     passe, but the world tends to forget its old kings when new 
     ones come around.
       He kept going as best he could, his health deteriorating, 
     spreading goodwill with his smiling eyes, trying to keep his 
     name alive.
       Then, finally, his moment arrived again, first at the 
     Olympics, then at the Academy Awards, where he bore silent 
     witness to ``When We Were Kings,'' the Oscar-winning 
     documentary about his dramatic heavyweight championship fight 
     in October 1974 against Foreman in what was then Zaire.
       The shimmering house of movie stars seemed diminished, 
     their egos preposterous, when Ali rose and stood before them. 
     Yet some saw in that appearance a hint of the maudlin; poor 
     Ali, enfeebled and paunchy, dragged out as another 
     melodramatic Hollywood gimmick. Was he real or was he memory? 
     What was left of him if he could no longer float and sting?
       Quite a bit, it turns out, no sorrow and pity from the 
     champ. He says he cherished his performances at the Olympics 
     and Academy Awards more than anyone could know. Publicity is 
     his lifeblood, more important to him than any medicine he is 
     supposed to take. ``Press keeps me alive, man,'' he says, 
     with an honesty that softens the edge of his ego. ``Press 
     keeps me alive. Press and TV. The Olympics. Academy Awards. 
     `When We Were Kings.' Keeps me alive.''
       When the producers sent him a videotape of ``When We Were 
     Kings,'' he stuck it into his VCR at home and watched it day 
     after day. At a recent autograph extravaganza in Las Vegas, 
     he conducted his own poll by comparing his line to those for 
     Jim Brown, Paul Hornung, Bobby Hull and Ernie Banks. Twice as 
     long as any of them. Staying alive. And the biggest life-
     saver of all: that night in Atlanta last July, 36 years after 
     he had first danced onto the world scene as the brash young 
     Olympic champion Cassius Marcellus Clay.
       Long after the torch scene was over, Ali would not let go. 
     He went back to his suite with his wife, Lonnie, and a few 
     close friends. They were tired, emotionally drained from the 
     surprise, anxiety and thrill of the occasion, but Ali would 
     not go to sleep. He was still holding the long white and gold 
     torch, which he had kept as a prized memento. He cradled it 
     in his arms, turning it over and over, just looking at it, 
     not saying much, sitting in a big chair, smiling, hour after 
     hour.
       ``I think the man was just awed. Just completely awed by 
     the whole experience,'' Lonnie Ali recalls. ``He was so 
     excited. It took forever for him to go to bed, he was on such 
     a high. He found it very hard to come back down to earth. 
     There was just such a fabulous response. No one expected 
     that. None of us did.''
       By the time he and Lonnie returned to their farmhouse here 
     in southern Michigan, the mail was already backing up, 
     flooding in at tenfold the previous pace. Letters from 
     everywhere. The return of a trembling Ali had unloosed 
     powerful feelings in people. They said they cried at his 
     beauty and perseverance. They said he reminded them of what 
     it means to stand up for something you believe in. Disabled 
     people. Old '60's activists. Republicans. Black. White. 
     Christian. Jewish. Muslim. A little boy from Germany, a 
     boxing fan from England, a radiologist from Sudan, a 
     secretary from Saudi Arabia--the multitudes thanked him for 
     giving them hope.
       When Ali reaches his office, he takes his customary chair 
     against the side wall. There is work to be done, the room is 
     overcrowded with mementos to be signed for charity, and his 
     assistant, Kim Forburger, is waiting for him with a big blue 
     felt pen. But Ali has something else in mind right now.
       ``Mmmmmmm. Watch this, man,'' he says. His voice sounds 
     like the soft, slurred grumble-whisper of someone trying to 
     clear his throat on the way out of a deep sleep. Conversing 
     with him for the first time, one unavoidably has to say, 
     ``I'm sorry, what?'' now and then, or simply pretend to 
     understand him, but soon enough one adjusts, and it becomes 
     obvious that Parkinson's has not slowed his brain, only his 
     motor skills.
       Ali walks toward the doorway and looks back with a smile.
       ``Oh, have you seen Muhammad levitate yet?'' Forburger 
     asks. She suddenly becomes the female assistant in a Vegas 
     act. With a sweep of her hand, she says, ``Come over here. 
     Stand right behind him. Now watch his feet. Watch his feet.''
       Ali goes still and silent, meditating. His hands stop 
     shaking. He seems to radiate something. A mystical aura? Ever 
     so slowly, his feet rise from the floor, one inch, three 
     inches, six inches. His hands are not touching anything. 
     ``Ehhhh. Pretty heavy,

[[Page E1417]]

     mmmm,'' he says. His visitor, familiar with the lore of Ali's 
     levitations yet easily duped, watches slack-jawed as the 
     champ floats in the air for several seconds.
       Come over here, Ali motions. To the side. ``Look,'' he 
     said. He is not really levitating, of course. He has managed 
     to balance himself perfectly, Parkinson's notwithstanding, 
     all 250 pounds of him, on the tiptoes of his right foot, 
     creating an optical illusion from behind that both of his 
     feet have lifted off the ground.
       The tricks have only just begun. He hauls out a huge gray 
     plastic toolbox, opens it and peers inside. His hands now 
     move with the delicacy of a surgeon selecting the correct 
     instrument from his bag. For the next quarter-hour, he 
     performs the simple, delightful tricks of an apprentice 
     magician. Balls and coins appear and disappear, ropes change 
     lengths, sticks turn colors. ``Maaann! Maaann! Heavy!'' he 
     says.
       Then he turns to slapstick. Close your eyes and open your 
     hand. The champ places something soft and fuzzy in it. 
     ``Mmmm. Okay. Open.''
       A fuzzy toy mouse.
       Ali beams at the startled reaction.
       His voice becomes louder, higher, more animated. ``Ehhh.'' 
     he shrieks. ``Kids go `Ahhh! Ahhh!' ''
       Try it again. This time it's a cockroach.
       And again. This time fake dog doo.
       Ali closes his gray toolbox and puts it away, satisfied.
       What is going on here? In part it is just Ali amusing 
     himself with magic tricks that he has been doing over and 
     over for many years for anyone who comes to see him. But he 
     is also, as always, making a more profound point. He has 
     transferred his old boxing skills and his poetry and his 
     homespun philosophy to another realm, from words to magic. 
     The world sees him now, lurching a bit, slurring some, 
     getting old, trembling, and recalls that unspeakably great 
     and gorgeous and garrulous young man that he once was. He 
     understands that contrast. But, he is saying, nothing is as 
     it appears. Life is always a matter of perception and 
     deception.
       Poets and philosophers contemplate this, and boxers know it 
     intuitively (Ali ghost boxing before the Foreman fight ``Come 
     get me, sucker. I'm dancin'! I'm dancin'! No, I'm not here, 
     I'm there! You're out, sucker!'') back when he was Cassius 
     Clay, he pretended that he was demented before fighting Sonny 
     Liston because he had heard that the only cons who scared 
     big bad Sonny in prison were the madmen. By acting crazy, 
     he not only injected a dose of fear into Liston, he took 
     some out of himself. Life is a trick.
       The Islamic religion, to which Ali has adhered for more 
     than 30 years, disapproves of magic tricks, but he has found 
     his way around that problem, as always.
       ``When I . . . do a . . . trick,'' he says now. He seems 
     more easily understandable. Is he speaking more clearly or 
     has the ear adjusted to him?
       ``I . . . always . . . show . . . people . . . how . . . to 
     . . . do . . . it.''
       He smiles.
       ``Show . . . people . . . how . . . easy . . . it . . . is 
     . . . to . . . be . . . tricked.''
       Perception and deception. He has returned to his chair in 
     the office, with his black briefcase on his lap. Slowly and 
     carefully he opens it up . . . click . . . click . . . and 
     looks inside as though he is examining its contents for the 
     first time.
       Tucked in the upper compartment is his passport. 
     Parkinson's has not slowed his travels. He's at home no more 
     than 90 days a year. Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, 
     Louisville, Las Vegas in a week, doing good deeds. he visits 
     schools, campaigns against child abuse, for more Parkinson's 
     funding, for peace and tolerance. Everyone want to see the 
     champ. Germany is clamoring for him. Its national television 
     network just ran an hour-long documentary on him.
       Next to the passport is a laminated trading card. He lifts 
     it out and studies it. There's Ali next to Surgar Ray 
     Robinson and Joe Louis.
       ``Two of the greatest fighters in the world,'' he says. He 
     pauses. ``Mmmmm. Both dead.''
       Ali think a lot about death. Aging and death and life after 
     death. His philosophy is at once selfish and selfless. 
     Publicity keeps him alive. He wants to stay alive so that he 
     can make people happy and do good deeds. And ``good deeds are 
     the rent we pay for our house in heaven.''
       He is teaching our preaching now. A new poetry, slower, no 
     rhymes, stream of consciousness, deeper meaning.
     ``Twice a month they call us to sign autographs
     Make two hundred thousand a day.
     Signing. Hundred dollars a picture
     Long lines. Bring millions of dollars.
     I'm not fighting no more
     I'll sign for nothin'. Give it to charity.
     Get the money, give it to the homeless
     Give it to soup lines
     If I see someone who needs some
     Here's a hundred. Here's fifty
     Soup vendor. Wino. Old woman with varicose veins.
     Good deeds. Judgment.
     I'm well pleased with you my son. Come into heaven.
     That's eternal life. Maann! Maann!
     Look at all the buildings in downtown New York.
     People built them. They're dead.
     Buildings still standing.
     You don't own nothin'. Just a trustee.
     Think about it. You die.
     This life's a test. A test.
     Trying to pass the test. I'm tryin'.
     Warm bodies. Shake hands. Gone.
     All dead now. President Kennedy.
     Whatever color you are
     No matter how much money you have
     Politics. Sports. You're gonna die.
     Sleep is the brother of death.''
       Ali closes his eyes. He starts snoring. Reopens his eyes.
       ``Turn over now. It's morning.''
       Back to the black briefcase.
       Stacked in rows along the bottom are a collection of little 
     leather books, five of them, in red and pink and green. It 
     turns out they are Bibles. Why he needs five in a briefcase 
     is not clear. What he does with them is part of the mystery 
     of Muhammad Ali.
       During the past several months, he and Lonnie and Thomas 
     Hauser, author of his authorized biography, have made 
     appearances around the country promoting the cause of 
     universal understanding and tolerance. Ali and Hauser, Muslim 
     and Jew, put together a little book titled ``Healing'' which 
     they distribute at every stop. It contains quotations on 
     tolerance from Cicero, Voltaire, Thoreau and Ali. The book 
     was inspired by Ali's habit of combing through the Koran and 
     other books and writing down phrases that he found moving. 
     Hauser chose the title one day when he studied a series of 
     words and notice A-L-I in the middle of H-E-A-L-I-N-G.
       This crusade seems natural for ali now. In the '60s, when 
     he shed the name Cassius Clay, which he dismissed as his 
     slave name, and refused to be inducted into the military to 
     fight in Vietnam, temorarily giving up his freedom and wealth 
     and title in the process, he stood as what Hauser called ``a 
     symbol of divided America.'' Now his popularity transcends 
     politics, race, country and religion. He is universally 
     accepted as a man who stood up for what he believed in and 
     paid the price and prevailed. He has endured enough 
     intolerance to give the message deeper meaning. His 
     shining eyes are the prize of peace.
       Ali takes the little leather Bibles out of his briefcase 
     and places them on the table beside him. He peers inside 
     again and comes out with a stack of paper. Each page has a 
     typed message. He hands over the first page. Could these be 
     the quotations of tolerance and understanding he writes down 
     each day?
       Read it, Ali indicates, wordlessly, nodding his head.
       ``If God is all perfect his revelation must be perfect and 
     accurate. Free from contradiction. . . . Since holy scripture 
     is from God, it should be impossible to find mistakes and 
     conflicting verses. If it doesn't, you can't trust it 100 
     percent. There are many conflicting verses in the Bible.''
       Ali smiles, gestures to take that piece of paper back, and 
     hands over one page after another of contradictions he has 
     found in the Bible. Some contradictions in numbers, some 
     about what Jesus was purported to have said. ``All in the 
     Bible,'' Ali says, as he finally puts the stack of paper back 
     in his briefcase. ``Heavy.'' He points to a filing cabinet 
     behind the desk, which is overflowing with similar papers. It 
     turns out that this is one of his favorite intellectual 
     pastimes, searching his little leather Bibles for thousands 
     of contradictions of fact or interpretation that have been 
     cited by Islamic scholars. There seems to be no malice in his 
     hobby, though it is hardly what one might expect from a 
     missionary of universal healing.
       What is going on here? The question is later put to Lonnie 
     Ali. She is his fourth wife, wholly devoted to his well-
     being, a smart, funny and gracious woman, a graduate of 
     Vanderbilt University, who started cooking for him when he 
     was getting sick, married him 12 years ago, and is serving 
     more and more as his public voice. She knows that he is not 
     perfect, but she also appreciates his larger meaning to the 
     world. Muhammad, she says, is greater than his individual 
     parts. He means so many things to so many people, and she is 
     determined to preserve that, sometimes in spite of him. She 
     has known him since she was 6 years old and growing up in 
     Louisville in the house across the street from his mother, 
     Odessa Clay.
       Why is Ali doing this? She shrugs at the question. That, 
     she says, ``is part of the dichotomy that is Muhammad.
       ``Even when Muhammad was in the Nation of Islam where they 
     considered whites devils he was putting little white kids on 
     his lap and kissing them and loving them. Muhammad could 
     really care less if a person is of another religion. But 
     Muhammad found out that there are contradictions in the Bible 
     and he's hooked on that. If he can get you to say, `Oh, look, 
     I never knew that,' then it's like he has accomplished a 
     victory. Muhammad is a warrior. And he finds these little 
     things to battle over.''
       There certainly seem to be more important battles now for 
     Muhammad Ali. Perception and deception. How sick is he?
       Ali began showing signs of trouble as far back as 1980, 
     when he lost the heavyweight title in his 60th, and next to 
     last fight, against Larry Holmes. He visited several medical 
     experts over the next few years and finally Parkinsonism, a 
     syndrome related to Parkinson's disease, was diagnosed. 
     Parkinson's is a slowly progressive disease, suffered by an 
     estimated 1.5 million Americans, that causes cells in the 
     middle part of the brain to degenerate, reducing the 
     production of the chemical dopamine and leading to tremors, 
     slowness of movement, memory loss and other neurological 
     symptoms. Its cause is unknown.

[[Page E1418]]

       People who suffer from Parkinsonism have many of the same 
     symptoms but in a milder and usually undegenerative form. 
     Until recently, most of his doctors believed Ali had the 
     syndrome, not the disease. Over the past 18 months that 
     diagnosis has been changing and the belief now is that he 
     might have the disease.
       Some doctors who have examined Ali remain convinced that 
     his ailment was brought on by the pounding he took in the 
     ring, especially the brutal fights late in his career against 
     Frazier, Foreman and Holmes. Mahlon DeLong, his Parkinson's 
     physician at Emory University in Atlanta, and other experts 
     argue, however, that Ali must have had a predisposition to 
     the disease. They note that most ``punch drunk'' old fighters 
     do not show signs of Parkinson's but more often suffer from 
     something known as Martland syndrome, with intellectual 
     deficits that Ali does not show.
       His disorder, in any case, is not as debilitating as one 
     might suspect from catching a brief glimpse of him. He is 
     agile enough to dress himself each morning. He knots his ties 
     perfectly. He lifts his legs to put on his socks. Laces his 
     shoes. Slips on his Swiss Army watch. Feeds himself. Opens 
     doors. Performs magic tricks. Reads his Bibles and Korans. 
     Writes legibly. Talks on the telephone. Understands 
     everything said to him and around him. Flips the remote on 
     his television to watch CNN and Biography and the Discovery 
     Channel.
       ``He doesn't need any help from me,'' Lonnie Ali says, 
     meaning in the physical sense. ``The only thing I may assist 
     Muhammad with, because he is nearsighted and doesn't wear 
     glasses, is shaving. He misses some spots.'' His main 
     problem, she says, is that he shows little interest in 
     keeping up with medical treatments.
       ``I can offer him all the care in the world,'' she says. 
     ``His doctors can give him all the care in the world. It is 
     up to him. Muhammad tends to ignore it.''
       Ali is on the move now, heading down the steps and out onto 
     the grounds of his 88-acre farm. it is an unexpected paradise 
     at the end of the road in the middle of Middle America, 
     between South Bend, Ind., and Benton Harbor, Mich. Once 
     belonged to Al Capone, a mobster's hideaway. ``Found . . . 
     machine . . . guns,'' Ali says.
       There is a gentle pond , a gazebo where he prays to Allah, 
     a playground for the youngest of his nine children, 6-year-
     old Asaad, whom he and Lonnie adopted at birth; acres of 
     sweet-blooming perennials, woods at he edge of the field, the 
     St. Joe River rolling by, white picket fences and white and 
     green barns.
       On his way down the looping driveway, Ali cannot resist 
     some playful sparring. His hands stop shaking as he bobs 
     and weaves and dances backwards. His condition seems 
     irrelevant, or at least that is the point he wants to 
     make. Could knock you out in 10 seconds. His middle looks 
     soft until it is felt: like steel.
       At the turn in the driveway he reaches the far garage and 
     his beige on brown Rolls-Royce Corniche sedan. He slowly 
     eases himself into the driver's seat, then struggles out and 
     onto his feet again, and starts fishing in his pants for the 
     keys. He pulls out a set, examines them, picks a key, settles 
     back into the car, tries to insert it into the ignition. 
     Doesn't fit. He starts over again, pulling more sets of keys 
     out of his deep pocket. Two sets. Three sets. Four sets. 
     Which is it? None fit.
       He gets out again and walks to the rear of the car and 
     points to the license: Virginia plates with a '93 sticker. 
     ``Haven't driven it in four years,'' he says. He leaves the 
     garage and walks toward the fence, where a black Ford pickup 
     is parked. The seat is too close to the steering wheel for 
     him, and he has a difficult time squeezing in. It takes him a 
     few minutes, but now he is there, behind the wheel, and he 
     has a key that fits and the engine starts and he motions to 
     climb in. As the truck reaches the front entrance, Ali stops, 
     waiting for the electronic gate to open. His eyes close. He 
     starts snoring. He can fall asleep any time of day, his 
     doctors say, but he often only pretends to, and people around 
     him can never be sure if he is dozing or duping.
       Only a trick this time. The gate opens. The black pickup 
     goes flying up the road, free and swaying. He always loved to 
     speed. In the old days he might take the wheel of the press 
     bus at training camp and scare the daylights out of the 
     boxing scribes. He is doing it again. What is going on here? 
     No reason to fear. Muhammad Ali is heading out to see the 
     world. He is hungry, and he knows what he wants: some love 
     and affirmation and a quarter-pounder with mustard and onions 
     at the local McDonald's.
       The love is there the moment he pulls in the parking lot. 
     Everyone wants an autograph, and he joyfully obliges. They 
     call him champ and hero and pat his back and shake his hand 
     and kiss him and smile at him and show him pictures and stare 
     at him. They talk about how much he means to them. They say 
     they will miss him if he moves, as he and Lonnie plan to do 
     before the year is out, down to Louisville, his home town, 
     where he is setting up a Muhammad Ali center. He smiles back 
     with his eyes.
       No need to feel sorry for the champ, he wants you to know. 
     ``My life is a party,'' he says softly, chewing his quarter-
     pounder.
       ``Every day. Imagine. Every day. Things are quiet here. 
     Imagine how it must be when I go to New York. Harlem. 
     Detroit. Philly. Walk into a gym. The streets. Look at me. 
     Imagine what it's like.''
       After lunch, Ali returns to the farm and resumes a tour of 
     the grounds. He comes to a barn and slides open the door and 
     looks inside. There, in the dim darkness, is an extraordinary 
     thing. Look up in the rafters. Trophies lining the hayloft 
     beam, one bigger than the next. Gathering dust. And attached 
     to the wall: a huge black-and-white blowup of the young Ali, 
     gloved hands aloft in triumph, after one of his title matches 
     with Frazier. He stares at his own image, the greatest of all 
     time.
       People often wonder about the past; how beautiful it would 
     be if they realized the present. Ali turns and steps out of 
     the barn. He slides the wooden door to the right. Is it 
     closed? He notices an opening on the left. He slides it to 
     the left. Now there is an opening on the right. He decides to 
     leave it that way, a ray of light filtering in, and walks 
     down the path to his home.