Fighting the good fight: How Ali transcended boxing

There are so many words written and accounts told about Muhammad Ali, the heavyweight champion who died Friday at 74, and yet it's still a futile task to try and capture the whole man in one take. He was everywhere - a dancer in the ring and a symbol of defiance in turbulent times.

You didn't have to watch boxing or study its history, or even understand the way he fought, in order to know Ali.

Parkinson's disease slowed him down in his later years, robbing him of the quick-witted verbiage that haunted many of his opponents and flied in the face of the U.S. government. It made him an easier and less controversial figure to take in.

But the truth is, in the 1960s and '70s, millions hated him - for his bravado, for his religion, and for standing up for the oppressed.

Related: 10 unforgettable moments in the life of Muhammad Ali

Even after winning the gold medal at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Ali was denied service at restaurants back in Louisville, Ky. Some say he threw the medal, which he is said to have slept with, into the Ohio River. It may very well have been his first political act in a life and career that transcended the sport he dominated.

Soon afterward, he joined the radical Nation of Islam, befriended Malcolm X, and discarded his "slave name." Converting from Christianity to Islam, Ali tried to convince the political commentators and ringside journalists that his choice was purely ideological. Still, the change from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali was a source of contention in the public and the press. The New York Times continued to call him Clay over the next few years.

After he refused to be drafted into the Vietnam War, many called him a traitor. He was stripped of his title in 1967 and given a five-year prison sentence, although he appealed and never went to jail. But in the midst of his struggle, he gave hope to a disenfranchised and vilified black community, as news anchor Bryant Gumbel once noted.

"One of the reasons the civil rights movement went forward was that black people were able to overcome their fear. And I honestly believe that for many black Americans, that came from watching Muhammad Ali," Gumbel said. "He simply refused to be afraid. And being that way, he gave other people courage."

Martin Luther King Jr. referenced Ali in his speeches, and his fighting spirit inspired luminaries in other walks of life, including Billie Jean King, the 12-time Grand Slam tennis champion who waged her own battle for equal rights in women's sports.

Ali spent three-and-a-half years in exile, but he wouldn't stay still. He performed and sang in a Broadway musical, spoke at hundreds of campuses across the U.S., and became an author. He won his appeal on June 28, 1971, and vowed to end his legal battle there. He didn't say much to the media in the aftermath of the unanimous 8-0 vote that set him free, only giving praise to Allah for answering his prayers.

Although he was critical of the U.S. government during his appeal process, he was less so at the end of his exile. The responsibilities of a generation had worn on him.

"The average athlete, he's got the opposite team and that's it," he told the New York Times in Chicago. "But mine is more than just in the ring. It's hell, whew. Everybody looking to trap you and get you. You got to match wits with them. All sorts of problems. Then fighting.

"I just want to sit one day and be an ordinary citizen, go to the hardware store, cut the grass. Don't be in no more papers, don't talk to nobody, no more lectures. Just rest.

"But a man told me the other day, he said, 'You're marked.' He said, 'You'll never be free, young man, from here on out you'll be called for something.'"

He went on to wage another 28 fights, even though he had planned for just four more. He became a three-time heavyweight champion, beating Joe Frazier in an epic trilogy, before his powers slowly declined. He made two unfortunate attempts at a comeback, and finished in 1981 with the only back-to-back losses of his career.

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The next three decades changed perception, with Ali looking tamer and less of a threat. "The new, slower Ali was much loved by the same establishment that had once abused him," wrote the author Dave Zirin in "What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States."

He posed with Donald Trump, went to the White House, and threw out a ceremonial first pitch. His last public appearance came in April at a Parkinson's fundraiser in Phoenix.

But the enduring images of Ali depict him talking a suicidal black man off a ledge, or raising his arms after knocking out Cleveland Williams, or talking to a group of eager children. A fair few sports writers only ever asked for one autograph, and it was his.

He was strength. He was endurance. He was The Greatest and most important athlete to ever live. May his stories be told forever, in all of their complexities.