KY-made film introduces the magic of Muhammad Ali to a new generation | Opinion

Growing up in Lexington, I knew very little about Muhammad Ali’s impact on people in Kentucky, or the world and certainly could never have imagined the unlikely connection we’d have, even though he would never know my name.

I was a fifth-grader at Northern Elementary when Ali fought his last boxing match in 1981 and remember my parents speaking of him in reverent tones, but never explaining why, at least not in terms that I fully understood. Something about courage and charisma. Something about Vietnam and civil rights. I did like that he had grown up in Kentucky, born and raised as Cassius Clay in Louisville.

But the truth is that when you’re young, parental reverence isn’t always a selling point; sometimes it’s a disincentive. I largely assigned Ali and his story to history. I wanted to be a writer focused on the present and the future.

After graduating from the University of Kentucky, I moved around, and scarcely thought about Ali until 2016. My wife and I settled in Louisville where I had taken a job writing speeches for then-Mayor Greg Fischer. That’s when Muhammad Ali passed away at the age of 74. The Ali family announced that he would be buried in his hometown a few days later, and they encouraged Ali fans around the world to join in the celebration.

Celebrities, athletes, heads of state and people of all faiths, races and nationalities came together in Louisville in common purpose to pay their respects, and in doing so, demonstrated how much Ali mattered to so many. Ali converted to Islam in 1964 and spoke out against the Vietnam war and America’s treatment of Black citizens, both of which were controversial at the time, yet resonated near and far.

As Louisville Baptist minister Kevin Cosby said at Ali’s memorial service in the KFC Yum! Center, “Before James Brown said, ‘I’m black and I’m proud,’ Muhammad Ali said ‘I’m black and I’m pretty’…. Our brother Muhammad Ali was a product of a difficult time and he dared to love black people at a time when black people had a problem loving themselves.”

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the late Reverend Jesse Jackson were among the thousands who attended the city’s janazah, an Islamic funeral prayer service. Originally planned for the Muhammad Ali Center, demand dictated a move to larger facility, in this case the same building that annually hosts the Kentucky State Fair. There, Jackson told a reporter, “Muslims and Jews and Buddhists under one roof — this is the real dream.”

Moments like that inspired the creation of the documentary “City of Ali,” which tells the story of that moment in Louisville and of the connection between Ali’s Kentucky roots and his global impact. The film began as a Mayor’s Office project that I was somehow assigned to direct.

Nearly 10 years later, and with a great deal of help, I’ve had the surprising honor of sharing that film with audiences in various countries through partnerships with the U.S. State Department and other institutions.

I’ve stood on stages and in classrooms in France, Germany, the UK and the UAE and shared the film virtually with audiences in more than 20 other countries, giving many of them their first glimpses of Kentucky.

I didn’t know what to expect but here’s what I keep seeing: Gen Z gets Ali. At these screenings, young people laugh and cry sometimes. They respond to his humor, his conviction, his confidence and his respect for other people. I share some of the many stories I’ve heard, in which Ali meets someone, as a brief interaction and leaves them feeling really good, not just about him, but about themselves.

We end our in-person screenings with a photo – students gathering in a pose designed to serve as a tribute to the world’s most famous Kentuckian: fists raised because yes, we’re tough and ready to fight, but we have big playful smiles on our faces.

“City of Ali” will have its Lexington premiere on Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 5 p.m. at the Worsham Theater at the University of Kentucky. The screening is free and open to the public.

Graham Shelby is a graduate of Bryan Station High School and the University of Kentucky. He can be reached through his website, grahamshelby.com.