LOUISVILLE, Ky., Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Muhammad Ali is returning to his roots in Louisville, Ky., where the former three-time world heavyweight boxing champion was born 65 years ago.
Ali is moving back to a city where resentment over his refusal to be drafted during the Vietnam war still lingers, the International Herald Tribune said Friday. Racial tensions still flare occasionally, as they did recently over a proposal to rename a Louisville street in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.
It has been 40 years since a draft board rejected Ali's bid for conscientious objector status. Times have changed and so has Ali, slowed by degenerative Parkinson's disease.
The champ, his wife, Lonnie, and their teenage son are moving into a $1.8 million house this spring in the East End, one of Louisville's wealthiest and whitest areas.
