S ERVICE T O O T HE RS 06 In her book, Muhammad Ali: Through the Eyes of the World, Maya Angelou wrote that his steadfast commitment to morality was the ultimate testament to his greatness: “Muhammad Ali can be compared to any great man or woman. He can be compared to anybody in the world and not be found wanting. He can be compared to Mahatma Gandhi and to Marie Curie because he belonged to everybody. It would’ve been nice, I think, if he belonged only to African Americans, but it was never so with him. As a practicing Muslim, he also belonged to the Baptists, and so Baptist preachers would preach about him. So, of course, he could be compared to Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, or Mr. Mandela because he is a person of such confidence in his morality. Other people will say that he had this expertise, that he was agile and wonderful, physically, but I think of the moral man. A moral person can be compared to any moral person in the world.” MAYA ANGELOU