![]() Yet at the height of his boxing career in the racially turbulent 1960s, Ali did something no black person had ever done: He hailed himself as "the greatest of all time." That controversial proclamation catapulted him further into the spotlight. There's a framed cover of a 1974 Sports Illustrated naming a young, tuxedo-clad Ali Sportsman of the Year a snapshot of him opposite Nelson Mandela, their hands clenched into fists as if they're boxing a poster of Ali and Michael Jordan, with two words inscribed beneath them: "The Greatest." Those are his words-the declaration of a man who, now 59 and stricken with Parkinson's disease, shakes uncontrollably, speaks slowly, and slurs his words you have to listen with your ear turned up. The home office where Muhammad Ali greets me is a photo gallery of a legend's life. This interview appeared in the June 2001 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. ![]()
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