The final funeral service for "the Greatest," Muhammad Ali, will be held Friday at 2 p.m. EDT, and former President Bill Clinton, comedian Billy Crystal and journalist Bryant Gumbel will present eulogies, PBS Newshour reports.
Pallbearers for the service will include former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis and actor Will Smith, who played Ali in the 2001 biopic.
In the morning, there will be a funeral motorcade, which will pass by Ali’s childhood home before the public ceremony at the Yum! Center. His burial, which will take place at a local cemetery, will follow afterward and will be for family only.
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin has also ordered flags to fly at half-staff in honor of the champ.
President Barack Obama will not be attending the funeral because it conflicts with the high school graduation of his elder daughter, Malia, but according to Newshour, he intends to send along a statement with White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, and he has extended condolences to Ali's wife, Lonnie, by phone.
On Thursday an estimated 14,000 people paid their respects to Ali during a Muslim funeral, where mourners prayed over his body, Reuters reports.
“The passing of Muhammad Ali has made us all feel a little more alone in the world,” Sherman Jackson, a Muslim scholar at the University of Southern California, said, according to the newswire. At the service, called a Jenazah in Arabic, many remembered Ali as the man who gave U.S. Muslims a hero they could share with mainstream America, Reuters notes.
Also on The Root:
“Dear White People, Muhammad Ali Didn”t 'Transcend Race'”
“That Time Muhammad Ali Beat Superman”
“3 Things You Didn’t Know About Muhammad Ali’s Politics”
“Watch: 10 Entertaining Moments With ‘The Champ,’ Muhammad Ali”
Read more at PBS Newshour and Reuters.