I never have been much of a boxing fan, preferring team sports. And I don’t remember much about Cassius Clay’s early boxing exploits.

While in elementary school, however, I vaguely recall my dad admiring Clay’s prowess but not quite sure what to make of his pre-fight chatter. I also remember watching one of Clay’s conquests on TV with Dad and a couple of other men; the fight didn’t last long.

Then came the name change. “Cassius” sounded strange, but the name “Mohammed Ali” (the way I saw it spelled back then) had an exotic, mysterious ring. Why would anyone want to change his name?

And it got stranger. This Negro Mohammed was a Moslem? What’s that? Something to do with a strange religion called Islam which told him not to register for something called the draft to fight in some war in Vietnam? The only thing that cut through my disinterested fog was my dad’s dislike of this Clay-Ali character, especially confusing since I knew my parents opposed the Vietnam war and supported the work of Dr. Martin Luther King.

In sixth grade, four black kids joined the students at the small private school I was attending. This was my first exposure to black people my age, and while each had different personalities, over-all, I grew to admire and vaguely fear them. They called people out when they felt disrespected, even me despite my disability. They pushed me to respect the music of Aretha Franklin, the Temptations, Sly and the Family Stone, the Supremes, and James Brown. They rejuvenated the school’s pathetic basketball team. They were funny storytellers using colorful language that I had rarely heard before. They were sharp, street-smart people who often didn’t do their homework, which my mom didn’t appreciate when I started not doing all of mine.

And they loved Muhammad Ali. They constantly repeated his poetry, far more interesting and amusing than the poets we were reading in class. They described in vivid detail his greatest victories. And they occasionally tossed about garbled fragments of one of his more famous quotes:

“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong—no Viet Cong ever called me nigger.

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?”

I don’t remember who my father rooted for in the first Ali-Frazier fight, but I rooted for Ali.

I followed the rest of Ali’s boxing career from a distance, becoming momentarily fascinated by his victory over George Foreman, courtesy of Norman Mailer’s 1975 book “The Fight,” and saddened when age caught up with him in the ring.

Muhammad Ali was an amazing fighter; a talented trash-talker who backed up his taunts with action; a powerful, dangerous political force; an anti-establishment icon; and a devout Muslim who was generous, courteous, and courageous. Along with my African American classmates, he helped teach me how people living side by side with similar political views often view things quite differently. I now understand better how strong religious faith can influence people to take bold, courageous steps that might be otherwise impossible. I appreciate his journey from angry, black separatist to global humanitarian. And as we face a choice for the president of the United States between one who has supported wars in Iraq and Libya that have destroyed hundreds of thousands of Muslim lives, and another who shows contempt for the followers of Islam, I wonder who will have the courage and connections to lead a movement to remind us that while we have a duty to defend ourselves, Muslims are people, too.

RIP, Mr. Ali; with Allah’s help, you are the greatest.