A rose lays next to an image of Muhammad Ali at a makeshift memorial at the Muhammad Ali Center, June 5, 2016, in Louisville, Kentucky. Ali, the heavyweight champion whose fast fists and irrepressible personality transcended sports and captivated the world, die
The body of legendary U.S. world boxing champion Muhammad Ali arrived back in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, on Sunday.
Ali died late Friday at the age of 74 of complications from Parkinson's disease. A motorcade to the funeral home was led by a hearse that had met the chartered plane carrying Ali's body back from Arizona, where he passed away.
Louisville will honor him with a procession through the city Friday followed by a public funeral at a sports arena. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is among the luminaries scheduled to deliver eulogies.
Ali's spokesman said Ali was "a citizen of the world" and that he wanted people of all walks of life to be able to attend. Accordingly, the service will be held at Louisville's KFC Yum! Center, a multi-purpose sports arena that seats 22,000 people. It will be open to the public and streamed on the Internet.
A mourner carries flowers to leave at the childhood home of Muhammad Ali, rear, June 5, 2016, in Louisville, Kentucky. The revered heavyweight champion who died Friday at the age of 74, is to be buried on June 10.
Sports fans and admirers of Ali remembered and mourned their hero Saturday in the hours after it was announced that the former world heavyweight boxing champion, 1960 Olympic light heavyweight gold medalist and social activist had died. A memorial service was held in Louisville where the man then known as Cassius Marcellus Clay grew up and learned much of his boxing skills.
Later, after he won the world heavyweight title for the first time as a professional fighter, Clay announced that he had embraced Islam, discarded his forebears' "slave name" and became Muhammad Ali.
An American boxing legend who transcended the sport, Ali was both beloved and controversial. He so dominated professional boxing that Sports Illustrated magazine named him Sportsman of the 20th Century. Known for his boastful, passionate, outspoken style, Ali dubbed himself "The Greatest," and explained his boxing style in just a few words: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."
Muhammad Ali, or Cassius Clay at the time, strikes a familiar pose as he shouts "I am the greatest," as he leaves the ring, arms raised, following his defeat of former heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston in Miami Beach, Fla., February 25, 1964.
Controversy
Apart from the world of sports, Ali became the center of a firestorm of controversy three years after his name change and conversion, when he refused to be drafted into the U.S. Army, based on his religious beliefs and his opposition to the Vietnam War.
He was charged and convicted of draft evasion and stripped of his boxing title and license. That action kept Ali out of the boxing ring for more than three years - a time when his career should have been at its peak - until the Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1970.
Ali took up boxing as a boy, advised by a policeman to learn how to defend himself after neighborhood bullies stole his bicycle. His trainer said the young Cassius Clay mixed raw talent with determination, and his skills rapidly increased. After the Rome Olympics, when victory made him a national hero, the young boxer turned pro and moved up through the ranks quickly.
FILE - Spray flies from the head of challenger Joe Frazier as heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali connects with a right in the ninth round of their title fight in Manila, Philippines, Oct. 1, 1974.
Career highlights
In 1964, Ali overwhelmed fellow American Sonny Liston in a major upset and became world heavyweight champion for the first time. He stayed undefeated until legal problems sidelined him, but suffered his first loss soon after returning to the ring in a 15-round match against compatriot Joe Frazier, also undefeated at the time and who had become heavyweight champion in Ali's absence. Their 1971 bout was known at the time as "the fight of the century."
In many ways, Ali's most spectacular fight was in 1974, when time had begun to slow his pace and take the edge off his boxing skills. Ali faced an undefeated heavyweight champion, George Foreman, who was seven years younger and physically bigger.
Muhammad Ali: A Legend And A Cultural Icon Dead at 74
1/21Boxing legend Muhammad Ali stands with his wife Yolanda as he is introduced before the welterweight fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Shane Mosley at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada in this May 1, 2010 file photo.
2/21FILE - Muhammad Ali, world heavyweight champion, punches speed bag at the Folk Art Center in Manila, Philippines, Sept. 29, 1975, as he prepares his title fight on October 1 with Joe Frazier.
3/21FILE - Muhammad Ali speaks to Muslims holding a book called "Towards Understanding Islam" written by Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi in London, Britain, May 1966. Ali died late Friday in Phoenix, Arizona, June 3, 2016.
4/21FILE - The Beatles, from left, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison take a fake blow from Cassius Clay, who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali, while visiting the heavyweight contender in Miami Beach, Fla., Feb. 18, 1964.
5/21FILE - Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali is escorted from the Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station in Houston by Lt. Col. J. Edwin McKee, after Ali refused Army induction, April 28, 1967. Ali died at age 74, June 3, 2016.
6/21FILE - Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali exclaims "Why me?" when informed his draft board in Louisville, Ky., had reclassified him 1-A in the draft, Feb. 17, 1966. Ali surrounded himself with youngsters from his neighborhood as he told of his feelings in
7/21FILE - U.S. boxing great Muhammad Ali poses during the Crystal Award ceremony at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 28, 2006.
8/21FILE - Spray flies from the head of challenger Joe Frazier as heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali connects with a right in the ninth round of their title fight in Manila, Philippines, Oct. 1, 1974. Ali has died, his family said, June 3, 2016. He was 74.
9/21A visitor is interviewed in reaction to the death of heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali at the "I Am The Greatest, Muhammad Ali" exhibition at the O2 arena, which hosts high profile boxing fights in London, Saturday, June 4, 2016.
10/21Former boxing great Muhammad Ali is given the Courage Award by singer Whitney Houston at the GQ Men of the Year awards show in New York in this October 21, 1998 file photo.
12/21World heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali visited the pyramids area, rode a horse and a camel and shook hands with the Bedouins who guard the huge monuments there, May 30, 1966.
14/21FILE - President George W. Bush presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to boxer Muhammad Ali in the East Room of the White House, Nov. 9, 2005.
15/21Retired boxing champion Muhammad Ali waves after he received the Liberty Medal for his humanitarian work, during a ceremony at the National Constitution Center, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
16/21FILE - Heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali stands over fallen challenger Sonny Liston, shouting and gesturing shortly after dropping Liston with a short hard right to the jaw, in Lewiston, Maine, May 25, 1965.
17/21FILE - Young heavyweight boxer Cassius Clay, who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali, points to a sign he wrote on a chalk board in his dressing room before his fight against Archie Moore in Los Angeles, predicting he'd knock Moore out in the fourth ro
18/21FILE - World heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, right, and Black Muslim leader Malcolm X in New York City, March 1, 1964. Ali died Friday in Phoenix, Arizona, at age 74.
19/21FILE - Muhammad Ali, former world heavyweight boxing champion, toys with the finely combed hair of television sports commentators Howard Cosell before the start of the Olympic boxing trials, in West Point, N.Y., Aug. 7, 1972.
20/21FILE - An Oct. 30, 1974 file photo shows Challenger Muhammad Ali watching as defending world champion George Foreman goes down to the canvas in the eighth round of their WBA/WBC championship match in Kinshasa, Zaire.
21/21Boxing great Muhammad Ali waves to the crowd during the opening ceremony of the World Equestrian Games in Lexington, Kentucky, in this September 25, 2010 file photo.
The Americans' fight took place in the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and was hyped as "the Rumble in the Jungle" by publicists. Again, Ali was seen as the underdog, but he used superior tactics to weaken and tire out Foreman, and eventually knocked him out in the eighth round.
After the match, Ali said proudly: "I have wrestled with an alligator. I have tussled with a whale, handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail. Bad, ain't I? Only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I'm so mean I make medicine sick. Bad, fast!"
Ali then met Frazier in 1975 in the Philippines, a bout dubbed "the Thrilla in Manila." Ali endured 14 brutal rounds but emerged victorious.
Laila Ali, left, poses with her father, boxing great Muhammad Ali, after her win against Erin Toughill, June 11, 2005.
Retirement and illness
He retired from boxing in 1981 with a 56-5 record, several years before the diagnosis that he suffered from Parkinson's Disease, likely triggered by the thousands of punches he took during his career.
As he weakened, Ali kept a low profile in public in recent years. He won huge cheers when he carried the Olympic torch at the Atlanta Games in 1996, and again in London in 2012, when he escorted the Olympic flag into the stadium during a spectacular opening ceremony.
In 2005, former President George W. Bush presented Ali with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian honor.
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