Thousands join Muhammad Ali’s procession

World Today

Muhammad Ali MemorialCrowds line the route of the procession led by the hearse carrying the body of Muhammad Ali in Louisville, Ky., on Friday, June 10, 2016. Ali died last Friday at age 74 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. (Michael Clevenger/The Courier-Journal via AP)

Thousands said goodbye to boxing great Muhammad Ali on Friday, as the legend’s body was driven in a miles-long procession through his hometown.

The funeral procession is carrying Muhammad Ali’s casket through the streets of Louisville.

The 17-car motorcade is expected to take Ali’s body on a 19-mile route past his boyhood home, the gym where he first learned to box and the museum that bears his name.

Attendance for Muhammad Ali’s Muslim prayer service was smaller than anticipated.

Kentucky State Fair Board spokeswoman Amanda L. Storment said 6,000 people were scanned in to Freedom Hall and the North Wing, where the service was held. She says 15,000 tickets were given out for the service Thursday.

Storment says “a significant crowd” gathered outside the facility before and during the service but didn’t enter the building.

However, the area near Muhammad Ali’s boyhood home is crowded as people — young and old; black, white and Asian — await the processional carrying Ali’s casket.

The burial at Cave Hill Cemetery is to be followed by a grand interfaith memorial service in the afternoon.


Story by the Associated Press