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Tyler Perry Racial Profiling Encounter

Site Admin — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:35:21 +0000

A few days before President Obama was supposed to speak at my studio, I was leaving the studio, headed to the airport. Most times when I leave the studio I have an unmarked escort. Other times I constantly check in my rearview mirror to be sure that I'm not being followed. It’s a safety precaution that my security team taught me. As I got to an intersection, I made a left turn from the right lane and was pulled over by two police officers. I pulled the car over and put it in park. Then, I let the window down and sat in the car waiting for the officer. The officer came up to the driver’s door and said that I made an illegal turn. I said, "I signaled to get into the turning lane, then made the turn because I have to be sure I’m not being followed." He said, “why do you think someone would be following you?”
Before I could answer him, I heard a hard banging coming from the passenger window. I had never been in this position before so I asked the officer who was at my window what was going on and why is someone banging on the window like that. He said, “let your window down, let your window down. Your windows are tinted.” As I let down the passenger window, there was another officer standing on the passenger side of the car. He said, “what is wrong with you?” The other officer said to him, “he thinks he’s being followed.” Then, the second officer said, “why do you think someone is following you? What is wrong with you?”
Before I could answer the officer on the passenger side, the one on the driver's side had reached into the car and started pulling on the switch that turns the car on and off, saying, “put your foot on the brake, put your foot on the brake!” I was so confused as to what he was doing, or what he thought he was doing. It looked like he was trying to pull the switch out of the dashboard. I finally realized that he thought that switch was the key, so I told him that it wasn’t the key he was grabbing. I reached down into the cup holder to get the key, not realizing that the key had a black leather strap on it. As I grabbed it they both tensed up and I dropped it as I heard my mother’s voice from when I was a little boy.
My mother would always say to me, “if you get stopped by the police, especially if they are white policemen, you say ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir’, and if they want to take you in, you go with them. Don’t resist, you hear me? Don’t make any quick moves, don’t run, you just go.” My mother was born in 1945 into a segregated hotbed town in rural Louisiana. She had known of many colored men at the time who were lynched and never heard from again. Since I was her only son for ten years, growing up she was so worried about me. It wasn’t until after I heard her voice that I realized that both of these officers were white.
The officer on the driver's side continued to badger me, “why do you think someone is following you?” I then said, “I think you guys need to just write the ticket and do whatever you need to do.” It was so hostile. I was so confused. It was happening so fast that I could easily see how this situation could get out of hand very quickly. I didn’t feel safe at all. But one officer stopped his questioning and said, “we may not let you go. You think you’re being followed, what’s wrong with you?” At this point, I told him that I wanted to get out of the car. I wanted the passersby to see what was happening.
As I stepped out of the car another officer pulled up in front of my car. This officer was a black guy. He took one look at me and had that “Oh No” look on his face. He immediately took both officers to the back of my car and spoke to them in a hushed tone. After that, one of the officers stayed near his car while one came back, very apologetic.
I said all of that to say this: do you see how quickly this could have turned for the worse?
Now I know that there are many great officers, patrolmen and security guys out there. I am aware of that. But although we have made significant strides with racial profiling in this country, the world needs to know that we are still being racially profiled, and until this situation has improved greatly, I’m not sure how a murder in Florida can be protected by a “stand your ground law.”
And in another case that I have been screaming at the top of my lungs about, also in Florida, is the case of Terrance Williams and Felipe Santos, a young black man and a young Mexican man. Eight years ago, in Naples, FL, they were both put in the back of Deputy Steve Calkins' police car and never heard from again.
They were never arrested, never brought to jail. They were put into the back of Deputy Calkins' car and never heard from again. And to this day Deputy Steve Calkins is a free man.
I guess it's time to march in Naples now.
RACIAL PROFILING SHOULD BE A HATE CRIME INVESTIGATED BY THE FBI!!!
That way local government can’t make the decision on whether or not these people get punished.

Limbaugh Hate Rhetoric!

Site Admin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 04:09:06 +0000

By NBC News and msnbc

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, already under fire from Democrats over his language in discussing a Georgetown University law student who testified about contraception, ratcheted up his rhetoric on Thursday, saying the student should post an online sex video if taxpayers are forced to pay for contraception.

Limbaugh on Wednesday had referred to student Sandra Fluke as a “slut” for supporting a requirement that health insurance cover contraception. On his radio show Thursday, Limbaugh went a little further:

"So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here's the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had called on Limbaugh to apologize Thursday about the “slut” comment, made after Fluke testified recently about contraception before an unofficial Democratic committee.

Here's what Limbaugh said on Wednesday’s edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

"What does it say about the college coed Susan Fluke [sic], who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex.

"She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We're the pimps.

"The johns, that's right. We would be the johns — no! We're not the johns. Well — yeah, that's right. Pimp's not the right word."

Fluke had been turned away in February from testifying before the Republican-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the Obama administration's policy requiring that employees of religion-affiliated institutions have access to health insurance that covers birth control.

Twitter New Censorship Policy?

Site Admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:22:55 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter, a tool of choice for dissidents and activists around the world, found itself the target of global outrage Friday after unveiling plans to allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws.

It was a stunning role reversal for a youthful company that prides itself in promoting unfettered expression, 140 characters at a time. Twitter insisted its commitment to free speech remains firm, and sought to explain the nuances of its policy, while critics – in a barrage of tweets – proposed a Twitter boycott and demanded that the censorship initiative be scrapped.

"This is very bad news," tweeted Egyptian activist Mahmoud Salem, who operates under the name Sandmonkey. Later, he wrote, "Is it safe to say that (hash)Twitter is selling us out?"

In China, where activists have embraced Twitter even though it's blocked inside the country, artist and activist Ai Weiwei tweeted in response to the news: "If Twitter censors, I'll stop tweeting."

One often-relayed tweet bore the headline of a Forbes magazine technology blog item: "Twitter Commits Social Suicide"

San Francisco-based Twitter, founded in 2006, depicted the new system as a step forward. Previously, when Twitter erased a tweet, it vanished throughout the world. Under the new policy, a tweet breaking a law in one country can be taken down there and still be seen elsewhere.

Twitter said it will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed and will post the removal requests it receives from governments, companies and individuals at the website chillingeffects.org.

The critics are jumping to the wrong conclusions, said Alexander Macgilliviray, Twitter's general counsel.

"This is a good thing for freedom of expression, transparency and accountability," he said. "This launch is about us keeping content up whenever we can and to be extremely transparent with the world when we don't. I would hope people realize our philosophy hasn't changed."

Some defenders of Internet free expression came to Twitter's defense.

"Twitter is being pilloried for being honest about something that all Internet platforms have to wrestle with," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "As long as this censorship happens in a secret way, we're all losers."

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland credited Twitter with being upfront about the potential for censorship and said some other companies are not as forthright.

As for whether the new policy would be harmful, Nuland said that wouldn't be known until after it's implemented.

Reporters Without Borders, which advocates globally for press freedom, sent a letter to Twitter's executive chairman, Jack Dorsey, urging that the censorship policy be ditched immediately.

"By finally choosing to align itself with the censors, Twitter is depriving cyberdissidents in repressive countries of a crucial tool for information and organization," the letter said. "Twitter's position that freedom of expression is interpreted differently from country to country is unacceptable."

Reporters Without Borders noted that Twitter was earning praise from free-speech advocates a year ago for enabling Egyptian dissidents to continue tweeting after the Internet was disconnected.

"We are very disappointed by this U-turn now," it said.

Twitter said it has no plans to remove tweets unless it receives a request from government officials, companies or another outside party that believes the message is illegal. No message will be removed until an internal review determines there is a legal problem, according to Macgilliviray.

"It's a thing of last resort," he said. "The first thing we do is we try to make sure content doesn't get withheld anywhere. But if we feel like we have to withhold it, then we are transparent and we will withhold it narrowly."

Macgilliviray said the new policy has nothing to do with a recent $300 million investment by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Mac or any other financial contribution.

In its brief existence, Twitter has established itself as one of the world's most powerful megaphones. Streams of tweets have played pivotal roles in political protests throughout the world, including the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States and the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia and Syria.

Indeed, many of the tweets calling for a boycott of Twitter on Saturday – using the hashtag (hash)TwitterBlackout – came from the Middle East.

"This decision is really worrying," said Larbi Hilali, a pro-democracy blogger and tweeter from Morocco. "If it is applied, there will be a Twitter for democratic countries and a Twitter for the others."

In Cuba, opposition blogger Yoani Sanchez said she would protest Saturday with a one-day personal boycott of Twitter.

"Twitter will remove messages at the request of governments," she tweeted. "It is we citizens who will end up losing with these new rules … ."

In the wake of the announcement, cyberspace was abuzz with suggestions for how any future country-specific censorship could be circumvented. Some Twitter users said this could be done by employing tips from Twitter's own help center to alter one's "Country" setting. Other Twitter users were skeptical that this would work.

While Twitter has embraced its role as a catalyst for free speech, it also wants to expand its audience from about 100 million active users now to more than 1 billion. Doing so may require it to engage with more governments and possibly to face more pressure to censor tweets; if it defies a law in a country where it has employees, those people could be arrested.

Theoretically, such arrests could occur even in democracies – for example, if a tweet violated Britain's strict libel laws or the prohibitions in France and Germany against certain pro-Nazi expressions.

"It's a tough problem that a company faces once they branch out beyond one set of offices in California into that big bad world out there," said Rebecca MacKinnon of Global Voices Online, an international network of bloggers and citizen journalists. "We'll have to see how it plays out – how it is and isn't used."

MacKinnon said some other major social networks already employ geo-filtering along the lines of Twitter's new policy – blocking content in a specific jurisdiction for legal reasons while making it available elsewhere.

Many of the critics assailing the new policy suggested that it was devised as part of a long-term plan for Twitter to enter China, where its service is currently blocked.

China's Communist Party remains highly sensitive to any organized challenge to its rule and responded sharply to the Arab Spring, cracking down last year after calls for a "Jasmine Revolution" in China. Many Chinese nonetheless find ways around the so-called Great Firewall that has blocked social networking sites such as Facebook.

Google for several years agreed to censor its search results in China to gain better access to the country's vast population, but stopped that practice two years after engaging in a high-profile showdown with Chain's government. Google now routes its Chinese search results through Hong Kong, where the censorship rules are less restrictive.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt declined to comment on Twitter's action and instead limited his comments to his own company.

"I can assure you we will apply our universally tough principles against censorship on all Google products," he told reporters in Davos, Switzerland.

Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, said it was a matter of trying to adhere to different local laws.

"I think what they (Twitter officials) are wrestling with is what all of us wrestle with – and everyone wants to focus on China, but it is actually a global issue – which is laws in these different countries vary," Drummond said.

"Americans tend to think copyright is a real bad problem, so we have to regulate that on the Internet. In France and Germany, they care about Nazis' issues and so forth," he added. "In China, there are other issues that we call censorship. And so how you respect all the laws or follow all the laws to the extent you think they should be followed while still allowing people to get the content elsewhere?"

Craig Newman, a New York lawyer and former journalist who has advised Internet companies on censorship issues, said Twitter's new policy and the subsequent backlash are both understandable, given the difficult ethical issues at stake.

On one hand, he said, Twitter could put its employees in peril if it was deemed to be breaking local laws.

"On the other hand, Twitter has become this huge social force and people view it as some sort of digital town square, where people can say whatever they want," he said. "Twitter could have taken a stand and refused to enter any countries with the most restrictive laws against free speech."

Associated Press writers Paul Schemm in Rabat, Morocco; Michael Liedtke in San Francisco; Peter Orsi in Havana, Cuba; Cara Anna in New York and Ben Hubbard in Cairo contributed to this report.

Where Are the White Supremacy Groups?

Site Admin — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:30:19 +0000

Do you wonder where these groups are, when we have the first Afro-American President, the first Afro-American family in the White House, the first Hispanic Supreme Court Judge and an Afro-American Attorney General?

White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. This term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.

Have they taking a more sophisticated approach in disguising themselves? What groups you think they may have infiltrate?

Homicide Drops In The US!

Site Admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:40:32 +0000

ATLANTA (AP) — For the first time in almost half a century, homicide has fallen off the list of the nation's top 15 causes of death, bumped by a lung illness that often develops in elderly people who have choked on their food.

The 2010 list, released by the government Wednesday, reflects at least two major trends: Murders are down, and deaths from certain diseases are on the rise as the population ages, health authorities said.

Homicide was overtaken at No. 15 by pneumonitis, seen mainly in people 75 and older. It happens when food or vomit goes down the windpipe and causes deadly damage to the lungs.

This is the first time since 1965 that homicide failed to make the list, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC's latest annual report on deaths contained several nuggets of good news:

-The infant mortality rate dropped to an all-time low of 6.14 deaths per 1,000 births in 2010. It was 6.39 the year before.

-U.S. life expectancy for a child born in 2010 was about 78 years and 8 months, up about a little more than one month from life expectancy for 2009.

-Heart disease and cancer remain the top killers, accounting for nearly half the nation's more than 2.4 million deaths in 2010. But the death rates from them continued to decline.

- Death rates for five other leading causes of death also dropped in 2010, including stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, accidents, flu/pneumonia and blood infections.

But death rates increased for Alzheimer's disease, which is the nation's sixth-leading killer, kidney disease (No. 8), chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (No. 12), Parkinson's disease (No. 14) and pneumonitis.

The report is drawn from a review of at least 98 percent of the death certificates filed in the U.S. in 2010.

The government has been keeping a list of the top causes of death since 1949. Homicide has historically ranked fairly low. It was as high as 10th in 1989 and in 1991 through 1993, when the nation saw a surge in youth homicides related to the crack epidemic.

In the past decade, homicide's highest ranking was 13th. That was in 2001 and was due in part to the 9/11 attacks.

Murders have been declining nationally since 2006, according to FBI statistics. Falling homicide rates have been celebrated in several major cities, including New York City, Detroit and Washington.

Criminologists have debated the reasons but believe several factors may be at work. Among them: Abusive relationships don't end in murder as often as they once did, thanks to increased incarcerations and better, earlier support for victims.

"We've taken the home out of homicide," said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminologist who studies murder data.

Some also credit better police work and public health programs aimed at reducing violence.

Demographics are an important factor, too, as the largest segment of the population is now 50 and older. Younger people – who are most likely to commit or fall victim to murder – are making up a smaller share of the population.

That ties in to the changes in the CDC's list of causes of death.

"The risk of homicide declines with age, and the risk of death by disease increases," Fox said.

However, some causes of death associated with old age are giving way to others, noted Robert Anderson, the CDC official who oversaw the report. Doctors have been getting better at preventing and treating heart disease and cancer, which allows something else to become the cause of death.

"In previous years, someone with both heart disease and Parkinson's would have been more likely to have died from heart disease. Now with better treatment, they die from Parkinson's instead," Anderson said in an email.

Pneumonitis is another example. Despite its name, pneumonitis is not related to pneumonia. It occurs in people who have lost the ability to swallow or protect their airway.

Marines urinating on dead corpses

Site Admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:05:46 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta phoned Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai Thursday and promised full investigation of a video that purports to depict four U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters – a video both men condemned as deplorable.

In a separate public statement, Panetta said such behavior is "entirely inappropriate for members of the United States military" and that those responsible will be held accountable.

The video, posted on the Internet, shows men in Marine combat gear standing in a semi-circle over three bodies. It's not clear whether the dead were Taliban or civilians or someone else. The title on the posting called them Taliban insurgents and said the men were from Camp Lejeune, N.C., but officials would not immediately confirm it.

Officials said they had not yet verified the video's origin or authenticity, but had no evidence to doubt what it was.

"It clearly appears to be to us what it appears to be to you – troops urinating on corpses," Pentagon spokesman Capt. John Kirby told reporters Thursday morning,

The video was roundly denounced in the U.S. and Afghanistan alike.

Karzai called it "completely inhumane." The Afghan Defense Ministry called it "shocking." And the Taliban issued a statement accusing U.S. forces of committing numerous "indignities" against the Afghan people.

"First they killed the Afghans with mortars, and they then urinated on their bodies," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said of what is shown in the video. "We strongly condemn this inhumane action by the wild American soldiers."

Panetta said the actions, if confirmed, were inexcusable.

"I have seen the footage, and I find the behavior depicted in it utterly deplorable. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms," Panetta's statement said. "Those found to have engaged in such conduct will be held accountable to the fullest extent."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed "total dismay" at the video and said it was "absolutely inconsistent with the standards of behavior that the vast majority of Marines hold themselves to."

The video came to light at a delicate time in relations among the United States, Afghanistan's elected government and the Taliban insurgency fighting for both territorial control and cultural and religious preeminence in Afghanistan. The U.S. is trying to foster peace talks between the Karzai government and the Pakistan-based Taliban high command, and has made unprecedented offers to build trust with the insurgents, including the planned opening of a Taliban political office to oversee talks.

One of the largest obstacles to peace discussions has been widespread Afghan contempt for U.S. military tactics often criticized as heavy-handed. Opposition to the U.S. and NATO military presence in Afghanistan usually centers on civilian casualties from military engagement, although the vast majority of those deaths are caused by the insurgents.

Although the urination video purports to show Taliban fighters, not civilians, it is likely to resonate with those opposed to the U.S. presence and to peace with the U.S.-backed Karzai government.

U.S. officials seemed to have ordered a variety of investigations:

–Panetta said he had ordered the Marine Corps and Marine Gen. John Allen, the top commander of the NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, to fully investigate.

–In a written statement, the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Amos, said he requested on Wednesday evening that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigate, and that the Marines would, separately, do their own internal investigation.

"The Marine Corps will not rest until the allegations and the events surrounding them have been resolved. We remain fully committed to upholding the Geneva Convention, the Laws of War, and our own core values," Amos said.

The NATO-led security force in Afghanistan released a statement Thursday saying, "This disrespectful act is inexplicable and not in keeping with the high moral standards we expect of coalition forces."

The actions "appear to have been conducted by a small group of U.S. individuals, who apparently are no longer serving in Afghanistan," the International Security Assistance Force said. The statement did not identify the personnel or explain why the ISAF thought they had left the country.

A spokesman at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina would not confirm reports that the Marines were based there. "We have had elements of that unit that have deployed to Afghanistan and have returned. However, we have not yet confirmed if anyone in the video is from that unit, or whether they are attached to a unit from Lejeune," said Capt. Scott Sasser.

Pentagon officials said the criminal investigation would likely look into whether the Marines violated laws of war, which include prohibitions against photographing bodies and detainees and a range of other rules.

Mujahid urged the U.N. and other international groups to end such actions by U.S. troops.

On Wednesday, the Council on Islamic-American Relations, a prominent Muslim civil rights and advocacy group based in Washington, protested the video in a letter to Panetta.

"We condemn this apparent desecration of the dead as a violation of our nation's military regulations and of international laws of war prohibiting such disgusting and immoral actions," the group wrote.

"If verified as authentic, the video shows behavior that is totally unbecoming of American military personnel and that could ultimately endanger other soldiers and civilians," the letter said.

Michelle Obama & White House Staff

Site Admin — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:12:42 +0000

WASHINGTON — U.S. first lady Michelle Obama shot down any notion of infighting between her and the president's top aides in a television interview on Wednesday, downplaying her role and influence in the White House.

Michelle Obama defended her role as one of dozens of advisers to President Barack Obama after the publication of "The Obamas," a new book by New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor that paints the popular first lady as a tough political player.

"That's been an image that people have tried to paint of me since, you know, the day Barack announced (he was running for president in 2008), that I'm some angry black woman," Obama told CBS's "This Morning," adding that she hasn't read the book.

She said she rarely steps into the West Wing, which houses the president's office, and never sparred with either her husband's former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel or former Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

"I don't have conversations with my husband's staff," she said. "I don't go to meetings."

According to Kantor's book there was tension between the first lady and Gibbs, who worried about public missteps and reportedly cursed at her and spoke in less than flattering terms about her.

Obama said Gibbs was a trusted adviser and remained a good friend.

"I'm sure that we could go day to day and find things people wish they didn't say to each other," she told CBS. "People stumble, people make mistakes, people every day – in families, in churches, in schools all over the country – they say things they don't mean sometimes."

Kantor has drawn some criticism for her book, which cites numerous sources but not any interviews with the Obamas themselves.

The question is why people keep passing judgment on Michelle Obama when on November 6, 1963 Laura Weich (Laura Wich Bush) President George W. Bush wife killed her xboyfriend (Michael Dtton Douglas). and no one wrote a book are question Laura Bush when she was the first lady? What you think is the motive of people who keep bringing up the subject about First Lady Michele Obama?

70th birthday for Muhammad Ali

Site Admin — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:22:10 +0000

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Long before his dazzling footwork and punching prowess made him a three-time world heavyweight boxing champion known as Muhammad Ali, a young Cassius Clay honed his skills by sparring with neighborhood friends and running alongside the bus on the way to school.

The man who became the world's most recognizable athlete was a baby sitter, a jokester and a dreamer in the predominantly black West End neighborhood of Louisville where he grew up and forged lasting friendships while beginning his ascent toward greatness.

Now, as the iconic boxer slowed by Parkinson's disease prepares to turn 70 next week, he's coming home for a birthday bash at the downtown cultural center and museum that bears his name. The private party Saturday night will double as a fundraiser for the 6-year-old Muhammad Ali Center, which promotes ideals of tolerance, respect and individual achievement. The birthday party will highlight a weeklong extended tribute to the city's favorite son whose name and face emblazon buildings and street signs.

Ali turns 70 on Jan. 17, three days after the party.

Those who knew him before he developed his famous ringside persona – the brash predictions followed by rapid-fire punches that backed up his taunts – remember a happy-go-lucky kid with a ready smile who had a serious side, aspiring to show his mettle as a fighter.

Ali's boyhood neighbor, Lawrence Montgomery Sr., 78, was one of the first to feel the sting of the young boxer's jabs. At the teenage boy's request, Montgomery held up his hands and Ali popped them with punch after punch.

Montgomery saw early glimpses of the boxing legend's bravado that earned him the "Louisville Lip" nickname.

"He told me then that he was going to be the heavyweight champion of the world, and I didn't believe him," Montgomery told The Associated Press. "I told him, `Man, you better get that out of your mind.' But he succeeded. He followed through."

Early on, Ali's neighbors and classmates saw the work ethic that enabled him to defeat the likes of Joe Frazier, George Foreman and Sonny Liston in epic bouts that sealed his reputation as an all-time great.

Instead of riding a bus to school, Ali raced it in early-morning workouts that stretched for miles.

"He would jog and of course we'd pass him up," said Shirlee Smith, 69, who graduated with Ali from Louisville Central High School in 1960. "Then we'd stop at every corner to pick somebody up and he'd pass us up. And he'd laugh and wave at us all the way to school."

Ali and the bus usually arrived at school about the same time, she said, but Ali never seemed winded.

"It didn't faze him in the least," Smith said.

Some early mornings, when Montgomery arrived home from his overnight shift at the postal service, he would see Ali running in heavy boots toward a neighborhood park and back – a 5-mile roundtrip.

Ali's introduction to boxing was spurred by a theft.

His new bicycle was stolen when Ali was 12. He rode the bike to a community event to get free popcorn and candy. When it was time to go home, the bike was gone. Wanting to report the crime, the shaken boy was introduced to Joe Martin, a police officer who doubled as a boxing coach at a local gym. Ali told Martin he wanted to whip the culprit. The thief was never found, nor was the bike, but soon the feisty Ali was a regular in Martin's gym.

Victor Bender was an aspiring boxer when he and Ali began a lasting friendship when both were 12. The two became sparring partners as Ali slowly began turning his raw natural abilities into boxing skills.

"He was developing punches back then," Bender said.

While Bender shifted his attention to basketball and football, becoming a standout at Central High, Ali developed into a top amateur boxer, winning two national Golden Gloves championships by the age of 18.

Even in his early days, friends say, the gangly Ali aspired to become a heavyweight. The summer after graduating from high school, Ali won a gold medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

Away from the gym and ring, though, Ali was known for his fun-loving side and loyalty as a friend.

Smith recalls times when Ali opened doors to a courtyard to let the cold air in while classmates stood in a hallway during lunch break.

"We'd just stand there and freeze and he'd just laugh," she said. "He thought it was funny. He was just a jokester."

Unlike the brash boxer whose face become a fixture on television years later, Ali was a bit shy in school, Smith said.

"He wasn't a lady's man," she recalled.

Ali's self-confidence soared as his career took off, but much of the brashness was aimed at garnering attention, said Gordon Davidson, the attorney for the group of Louisville businessmen who sponsored Ali in the early years of his professional career.

"As far as this "I'm The Greatest,' all of that was what I'll call sideshow," he said. "He could turn it on and turn it off when he wanted to."

Montgomery's daughter, Karen Montgomery Williams, 56, remembers Ali as her first baby sitter. The easygoing teenager would turn serious during those Saturday night babysitting sessions when a local boxing show came on television, she said.

"I just remember having to sit down and be quiet," she recalled.

Montgomery's father said Ali refused to charge him for babysitting his children.

"The only thing he'd require was having bologna sandwiches in our refrigerator," he said.

Ali moved to Miami in the early 1960s, but he never forgot his Louisville roots. He would return to the neighborhood, smartly dressed and driving a Cadillac convertible, Montgomery said. In later years, Ali would entertain local children with magic tricks, a favorite pastime.

Ali's boyhood home – a small, single-story frame house – still stands in the working-class neighborhood. In the front yard there once grew a tree that Ali used to spar with as a boy. Now only a stump remains.

Ali and his wife, Lonnie, now have homes in Michigan, Arizona and Louisville.

His boyhood friends stuck with Ali, who was raised as a Baptist, after he converted to the Muslim faith, changed his name and refused to be drafted for military service during the Vietnam War. Those decisions alienated him from many in America during those turbulent times. Ali was stripped of his heavyweight crown in 1967 for refusing to fight in the war.

Bender was drafted into the Army at the same time as Ali.

"At the time, I kind of believed like he did, but I didn't fight it," Bender said. "I went on and did my time. And if he had gone in, he would have been successful with his time, too."

Bender, who is a Baptist, said he respects Ali's faithfulness to his adopted religion: "He's been a very spiritual individual who you would love having as a friend who you could count on being in your corner."

Davidson, a confidant to Ali during those years, warned the champ that skipping the draft would badly damage his career. Ali listened respectfully but wouldn't budge.

"He said he appreciated that but his religion was more important to him," Davidson said.

Montgomery said Ali has always been admired in the neighborhood for sticking to his principles.

"He was a role model for all of us in the neighborhood," he said.