Now, Ali Is Launching a New Charity Crusade

He has been on one crusade or another ever since he burst upon the scene as an 18-year-old light-heavyweight gold medalist known as Cassius Clay during the 1960 Olympics.

Since then, he has been Muhammad Ali the heavyweight champion (three times), Muhammad Ali the draft dodger and anti-war activist, Muhammad Ali the Muslim minister and Muhammad Ali the good-will ambassador.

At 43, Ali is on another crusade--despite a bout with Parkinson’s Syndrome that put him in the hospital last year. He is on medication and his speech is sometimes slurred, but he remains a driven man. Ali’s goals now are to the save world’s children from hunger, juvenile delinquency and abuse.

“Changing the world, that’s my mission,” Ali said i a recent interview. “That’s what the whole thing with the Vietnam War, Moslem religion and the name change was leading to.

“Boxing was a warmup--now the fight starts. What’s beating up a man? That ain’t nothing.

“I’m gonna have the biggest following of all time!” he said, in the sing-song voice he once used to use to predict the destruction of Joe Frazier and Sonny Liston. “I’m gonna shock the world! We’re gonna challenge hunger, war, juvenile delinquency, child abuse.”

He has turned his Deer Lake, Pa., boxing camp into a home for abused children. Ali now intends to enlist the help of his fans throughout the world by starting a fan club called “Ali’s Allies.” Members pay $5, $10 or $25 and receive a newsletter from Ali and souvenirs like Ali’s official biography, an autographed color poster, a key chain and a lapel pin. The funds go to charitable causes.

Ali is considering setting up a phone number where fans can, for a small price, call and hear “Hello, this is ‘The Greatest’,” answer live on the other end.

“Six months ago I decided to look at the mail I had been keeping for 10 years,” Ali said of the formation of his fan club. “I had 25 trunks of mail. I get over 12,000 letters a week, from as far away as Indonesia, Iran, India. When I’m home I write at least 40 letters a day.”

Home to Ali is a mansion in Los Angeles at which he says he spends about three days a month. The rest of the time he is in places like Peking, Beirut, India, Israel and Casablanca. Everywhere he goes--abroad and throughout the United States--he is recognized from the days he traveled the world as heavyweight champion.

As proud as he is of his meeting with heads of state, Ali likes to mingle with the common people. He is as comfortable walking the streets of Harlem in New York or visiting guerrilla soldiers in Lebanon as he once was in a boxing ring with people from around the world watching.

“A whole generation grew up with me, and now their children love me,” Ali said. “I can just walk the streets and get 2,000 fans around me. I know how they feel because when I was still Cassius Clay as a kid in Kentucky if Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Nat King Cole or Joe Louis came around, it would be like a dream.

“I do the things I always wanted people to do for me and never did. I always dreamed Joe Louis would walk down my street, he never did.

“I’ll never forget, Sugar Ray Robinson signed my autograph once. I said ‘Sugar Ray!’ and I always treasured it,” he said, clutching an imaginary autograph to his heart.

Ali still treasures moments spent with the world’s elite. He carries a briefcase with pictures showing him with some of the world’s most powerful men, and loves to show them off--Ali with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping . . . Ali with Pope John Paul II . . . Ali with the Queen of England . . . Ali with Indira Gandhi . . . Ali with former Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev . . . President Reagan landing a playful right to Ali’s chin.

“I don’t miss boxing,” said Ali, who fought professionally for 22 years until the age of 40.

“In five years, I can get seven million, hundred thousand addresses and phone numbers, raise $1 million worldwide.”

Even then, Ali won’t rest. There’s always another crusade to embark on.

“My next mission is religion, to preach the Muslim word of God,” said Ali, always thinking one opponent ahead.