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Defiant and proud as a boxer, Muhammad Ali showed the same strength as a man living with Parkinson’s disease.
He had flaunted his identity as a black man and a Muslim, especially during his early fighting career, essentially challenging white audiences to deal with it.
And so, too, he owned his disease.
Ali didn’t retreat into seclusion after the 1984 diagnosis, hiding his quivering hands from the world. Instead, he literally held a light up to the neurological condition, bringing global awareness to his situation, raising funds for Parkinson’s research and inspiring others to go toe-to-toe with the disease.
The title-winning heavyweight, humanitarian, racial hero, pacifist and icon died one week ago. Ali was 74, and he lived 32 of those years post-Parkinson’s diagnosis.
Memorial events, including a funeral procession, are planned Friday in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. In eulogies and written tributes, many people rightly have acknowledged that Ali’s most powerful accomplishments came outside the ring.
“Muhammad Ali became human in 1996,” wrote physician Jalal Baig in a commentary appearing this week on salon.com titled “Another gift Muhammad Ali gave us: Refusing to hide as Parkinson’s progressed.”
“On this summer night in Atlanta, the manifestations of a disease diagnosed 12 years before were now evident. … It had reduced his outsized charisma to perpetual silence and his quick fists to tremors,” Baig wrote. “With his body and arm trembling uncontrollably, Ali reached out to light the Olympic cauldron.
“As he attempted to summon control over a nervous system gone awry, the world watched him comport himself with a dignity not often seen in the face of such a chronic and transforming illness. And as the cauldron was inevitably lit, our collective sadness was eclipsed by an overwhelming joy. Despite his frailties, Ali was once again the greatest.”
There is no cure today for Parkinson’s, which affects the nerves and brain.
An estimated 7 million to 10 million people worldwide cope with the condition, for which medications sometimes can soothe symptoms. Likewise, physical therapy can improve daily living and potentially delay the deterioration of body control and mobility.
Ali and his wife, Lonnie, joined forces with actor Michael J. Fox, founder of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, to press for federal funds to be aimed at Parkinson’s research. Ali also helped to establish the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center in Phoenix.
A statement on the center’s Web page boldly states, “A diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease or another movement disorder is not a death sentence.”
As someone who reinforced that message the world over for the past three decades, Ali was, in the truest sense, a champion.