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Racist
Researchers Trace Boxing Legend Muhammad Ali's Roots As White
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Muhammad
Ali
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DUBLIN, Feb. 9, 2002 (IslamOnline
& News Agencies) - Irish genealogists announced Friday that their research
indicates that former world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali has Irish
roots.
Researchers at the Clare Heritage
Center in southwest Ireland said they have evidence that a great-grandfather of
the three-time world champion hailed from the county town of Ennis, close to the
west coast of Ireland.
" Though this research may be
interesing , Mohammed Ali considers himself Afro_American and any reference to a
European ancestor is irrelevant and could be considered as racism .This would
not be agreeable to Mohammad Ali himself " Vada Hart , specialist on
American society , commented to Islam On Line .
Antoinette O'Brien, a genealogist
at the center, told news agencies that Ali's great grandfather, Abe Grady,
immigrated to the United States from County Clare in the 1860s, settled in
Kentucky and married an African-American woman.
Their son also married an
African-American, and one of that couple's daughters, Odessa Grady, married
Cassius Clay in the 1930s. They settled in Louisville, Kentucky, where their
son, Muhammad Ali, born as Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., was born in 1942.
After winning the world
heavyweight title against Sonny Liston in February 1964, the younger Cassius
changed his name to Muhammad Ali when he converted to Islam under the banner of
the Nation of Islam
"Birth records don't go back
far enough to confirm Abe's birth but we've established that Abe's father John -
Ali's great-great grandfather - had a house in Ennis in 1855," O'Brien
said.
The research was carried out for
an Irish television company making a program to mark the 30th anniversary of
Ali's visit to Ireland in 1972, when he fought Al "Blue" Lewis at
Dublin's Croke Park stadium.
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