Muhammad Ali funeral: Rousing farewell at Louisville memorial

Rousing

tributes have been paid to boxing legend Muhammad
Ali at a memorial service in his home city of Louisville,
Kentucky.
Muslim, Christian, Jewish and other speakers spoke of his
fight for civil rights, while a message from President Barack
Obama praised his originality.
The interfaith event took place hours after thousands said
farewell to his coffin passing through city streets.
Ali was buried in a private ceremony attended by friends and
family.
The ex-heavyweight champion and rights activist died last
Friday aged 74.
The service, attended by dignitaries and by several thousand
people who acquired free tickets, was held at the KFC Yum!
Centre.
After a Koran reading, local Protestant minister Kevin Cosby
set the tone of the event, saying that Muhammad Ali had
"infused in Africans a sense of somebodiness".
"Before James Brown said 'I'm black and I'm proud',
Muhammad Ali said 'I'm black and I'm pretty'," he said.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of a progressive Jewish
magazine, used his speech to launch a blistering attack on
injustice against black people and Muslims.
"The way to honour Muhammad Ali is to be Muhammad Ali
today," he said. "Speak out and refuse to follow the path of
conformity."
Later Valerie Jarrett, an aide to President Obama who knew
the boxer personally, read a letter from the president
describing Ali as "bigger, brighter and more influential than just
about anyone in his era".
"You couldn't have made him up, and yes, he was pretty too,"
Mr Obama wrote.
"Muhammad Ali was America. Muhammad Ali will always be
America. What a man."
The president was not there, as he was attending his eldest
daughter Malia's graduation.
Former President Bill Clinton is to deliver one of the eulogies.
Ali's wife Lonnie paid tribute to her husband. She told the
crowd: "If Muhammad didn't like the rules, he rewrote them.
His religion, his beliefs, his name were his to fashion, no
matter what the cost.
"Muhammad wants young people of every background to see
his life as proof that adversity can make you stronger. It
cannot rob you of the power to dream, and to reach your
dreams."The comedian Billy Crystal delivered a eulogy peppered with
jokes, laughing at the length of the service and saying that his
beard had grown since it started.
Then he said that "35 years after he stopped fighting, [Ali was]
still the champion of the world".
He said: "He was a tremendous bolt of lightning created by
Mother Nature. Muhammad Ali struck us in the middle of
America's darkest night and his intense light shone on America
and we were able to see clearly."
Among those attending the service is King Abdullah of Jordan.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended Thursday's
prayer ceremony and had been due at the service, but cut
short his visit to the US.
The reasons for his departure are not clear, though there are
reports of differences with the funeral's organisers.
Rose petals
The motorcade procession began at about 10:35 local time
(14:35 GMT), more than an hour behind schedule, and took
the coffin past Ali's childhood home, the Ali Center, the Center
for African American Heritage and then down Muhammad Ali
Boulevard.
Onlookers lining the roadside waved, took photos and chanted
"Ali, Ali" as a cortege led by the hearse carrying his coffin
drove through the downtown area.