Cassius Clay, the white slaveowner of Muhammad Ali's family and whom he was named after, had a promising career himself.
"Two of his slaves, named Jonathan and Sallie, who took the name Clay, were the great-grandparents of the man who would become the heavyweight champion of the world.
The [white] emancipationist Cassius Clay had set up an anti-slavery newspaper in Louisville and endured the
horror of his son being killed by an angry mob. He withstood attempts on his own life. Two of his
daughters were persistent champions of women's rights, and in 1855 he provided land and symbolic
support for Berea College, which was specifically designed for the purpose of providing both white and
black students with a chance to be educated. Its motto is still ‘God Has Made Of One Blood All Peoples
Of The Earth’.
Cassius Clay fought and survived being captured in the Mexican War of the 1840s, was Abraham Lincoln's ambassador to Moscow and was involved in the negotiations to bring Alaska into the United States of America....
At the age of ninety-three, he killed two burglars, shooting one and knifing the other. He died in his bed of old age."
(Source: Ali and Liston, the boy who would be king and the ugly bear by Bob Mee, P 16, 2011)