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President Obama: Muhammad Ali Was 'A Man Who Fought for Us'
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Katie Reilly
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Updated: Jan 24, 2024 12:46 PM CUT
Published: Jun 4, 2016 1:46 PM CUT
A portrait of then World boxing heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali in 1960 in Paris, France.
A portrait of then World boxing heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali in 1960 in Paris, France.AFP/Getty Images
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Katie Reilly
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Updated: Jan 24, 2024 12:46 PM CUT
Published: Jun 4, 2016 1:46 PM CUT
President Barack Obama on Saturday joined the many people commemorating the life and legacy of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, who died Friday at the age of 74.
“Like everyone else on the planet, Michelle and I mourn his passing. But we’re also grateful to God for how fortunate we are to have known him, if just for a while; for how fortunate we all are that The Greatest chose to grace our time,” Obama said in the statement.
“Muhammad Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it. We are all better for it,” he said.
Obama said in his private study off the Oval Office, he has kept a pair of Ali’s gloves on display beneath an iconic photo of him after a fight. Obama praised Ali’s “wonderful, infectious, even innocent spirit” and credited him with helping to make “the America we recognize today.”
“That’s the Ali I came to know as I came of age – not just as skilled a poet on the mic as he was a fighter in the ring, but a man who fought for what was right,” he said. “A man who fought for us. He stood with King and Mandela; stood up when it was hard; spoke out when others wouldn’t.”
Read the full statement here:
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