In 1962, Muhammad Ali attended a Nation of Islam Saviours’ Day event where the opening speaker was Malcolm X, a charismatic Nation of Islam (NOI) minister who spent the previous decade attracting new converts and establishing new temples around the US. By the next summer, Ali qualified for the 1960 Olympics in Rome, where he won the light heavyweight gold medal, catapulting him to international fame and the start of his professional career. Ali gained valuable experience in the late 1950s-in 1958, he competed in the Golden Gloves tournament at Chicago Stadium and narrowly missed attending the 1959 Pan Am Games in Chicago, losing in the trials to Amos Johnson, who eventually won gold there. He began boxing at twelve years old and rose quickly to national prominence, becoming an amateur boxing champion by the time he graduated high school. On this day in 1942, Muhammad Ali (né Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.) was born in Louisville, Kentucky.
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