Religious and political leaders of many stripes joined the sports world and tens of thousands of ordinary mourners to bid farewell to Muhammad Ali, the boxing champion who jolted America with his showmanship and won worldwide admiration as a man of principle.
Ali, a once-controversial convert to Islam who lost three prime years of his boxing career for refusing U.S. military service during the Vietnam War, died a week ago at age 74 as one of the most respected men in the United States.
Fans chanting "Ali!" and throwing flowers lined the streets of Louisville, Kentucky, for a funeral procession. Ali's hearse snaked through the city, pausing for a huge crowed outside his boyhood home, en route to a cemetery for a private burial beneath a headstone reading simply "Ali."
City officials estimated 100,000 people came out to honor Ali, many traveling from across the country and across the world. Some tossed flowers atop the hearse carrying his casket as part of an 18-car procession over 37km in a memorial unlike any other in recent U.S. history.
After Ali's body was put to rest, former President Bill Clinton and celebrities such as Billy Crystal, Will Smith and Mike Tyson were among those gathered at a 20,000-seat sports arena for an interfaith memorial service that began with Muslim prayers.
The Reverend Kevin W. Cosby, a pastor at a Louisville church, likened Ali to other ground-breaking black athletes who advanced civil rights such as baseball player Jackie Robinson, boxer Joe Louis and track star Jessie Owens.
"Before James Brown said, 'I'm black and I'm proud,' Muhammad Ali said, 'I'm black and I'm pretty,'" Cosby told a crowd the arena, referring to the 1960s R&B singer. "He dared to love black people at a time when black people had a problem loving themselves."
Earlier on a hot day, some 1500 people gathered outside Ali's boyhood home in a traditionally African-American section of town. As the hearse arrived, police standing shoulder-to-shoulder cleared a path, much like a fighter's entourage clears his way to the ring.
The hearse stopped at the pink house as the people, many of whom waited in the sun for more than three hours, chanted his name.
"It was important for me to be here," said Matt Alexander, 63, who traveled from Florida. "I cried like a baby when I heard he'd died. I just didn't want to believe it because I wanted him to live forever."
Rickey Martin, 55, compared him to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. as a towering figure of the 20th century.
"Ali and MLK instilled in our generation that you didn't just have to sit back and do as you were told," Martin said. "You could go to school, you get a good job. In the years after segregation ... he was an inspiration to all of us."
Dipo Akabashorun, 51, came from Lagos, Nigeria to see off Ali. "We claim him, too, as our native son. We claim him too as a Lagotian," he said.
Some foreign dignitaries attended but Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who went to a Muslim funeral for Ali on Thursday, cut short his visit to Louisville and did not take part in Friday's event as planned.
'He stood up'
Cathy Oost, 61, a retired public school teacher who lives in Louisville, was one of several hundred people to gather under blue skies at the cemetery gates to pay their respects. She held a sign that read "Our Champ, Our Hero."
Oost said she was struck by Ali's speaking out for racial equality and his stance against the Vietnam War, plus his defense of Islam. Ali, a three-time world heavyweight champion, also paved the way for black athletes to express themselves with flair and confidence, and gave U.S. Muslims a hero they could share with mainstream America.
"He stood up for his beliefs when it was unpopular and difficult to do so. We all need to do that more," Oost said.
Bridget McKay, 45, also at the cemetery gates, said she felt drawn to witness history.
"He made me feel that it was OK to be myself, that I didn't have to be anyone else," she said.
After years of restoration to convert his childhood home into a museum, developers finally held a grand opening on May 1.
"They (Ali's family) wanted to bring Muhammad here for one last visit but his health just wasn't permitting it, unfortunately," said co-owner George Bochetto, a former Pennsylvania boxing commissioner.
Visitors this week waited up to 90 minutes to tour the modest pink house, and police estimated 1500 people lined the small residential street on Friday to see the man known as "The Greatest" come home one last time.
"This is where he started," said former heavyweight boxer and actor Randall "Tex" Cobb. "He didn't start in a gym. He didn't start as Muhammad Ali. He started in this house right here."
Willie B. Palmer, 75, said he graduated high school with Ali, who was training for the Olympics when he graduated Central High School in 1960.
Ali would train by jogging the bus route to the school.
"Sometimes he'd be there before the bus," Palmer said.
