Floats like a butterfly

I spent most of Wednesday afternoon in the Muhammad Ali Center, a multimedia centre that is part biographical museum of Ali's life, and part education centre promoting the core values of: respect, conviction, confidence, dedication, giving and spirituality.

It is a phenomenally well put together exhibition, with a great balance of Ali's own life story and the history of the America he grew up in, fought for and sometimes fought against.

The exhibits themselves, whilst engaging and accessible to a school aged audience, are equally compelling and intriguing to adults. I entered at the same time as three men, each from different parts of the US, and it was fascinating for me to hear from each of them about what brought them to the centre, and what their "connection" to Ali was. One older man was from Birmingham, Alabama and he remembers the divisions from his childhood quite vividly. He said there are divisions still, they're just harder to see these days. But he remembers hearing Muhammad Ali on the radio, and thinking how it wasn't possible that that cheeky, irepressible and defiant voice could have been "a colored like me", quickly, proudly, clarifying: "a black man". The other men, smiled when he said that. One is a boxing coach working in some of the toughest areas of Chicago. He said he was looking at a way of bringing some of the kids he works with to the centre, but he added, he's not sure he's yet up to the challenge of a road trip with the kids he's working with at the moment. The third, a preacher in the area came into his own at that point: "that's why you gotta". As I walked around the rest of the exhibit. I found myself hoping that he would.

I'm meeting with the some of the Ali Center staff an trustees next week, so I'll find out more then. But it struck me that this might well be one of the few places where class, colour and identity are openly displayed for debate. Though for an exhibition that (excuse the pun) pulls no punches elsewhere, I was surprised that possibly Ali's second most famous quote was mysteriously absent in the section about his conscription: "No VietCong ever called me n****r". I wonder if that it just a step too far in Kentucky, even for a place that is pushing the boundaries on intercultural understanding.