Muhammed Ali
When I lived in Michigan, I had a store in a town called Farmington, which was a suburb of Detroit.I belonged to a service club there and one of the things we sponsored was an organization called The Rainbow Connection. They sponsored fulfilling the wishes of terminal children at All Children's Hospital. One little boy wanted to meet Muhammed Ali. His people were contacted and we raised enough money to send for him first class and several of his enterage. He accepted. Up until then, I never though of Ali one way or another, but I changed my mind. Why? Because he refused to accept the transportation money. Then he spent the morning visiting the kid that brought him there. Then he spent the afternoon visiting every child who was visitable in the hospital. I thought about him a lot after that. When encountering a truly good person,one's outlook on humanity is refreshed in a way that nothing else can compare to. My experience was that of encountering a very good man.
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As a way to highlight just how rare Ali was in comparison, here is another story.
Some years ago, I made my first trip to Europe. I was enjoying a visit to the Louvre museum in Paris when there was a minor commotion as a celebrity and his manager were escorted through the museum by museum security. I told my friend who it was and she walked up to the manager and introduced herself. He was cordial and friendly but in the few seconds that they talked the "celebrity" had raced ahead (apparently ignoring the works of the master artists surrounding him) and the manager had to cut short the conversation and try to catch up.
Moments later, the unescorted "celebrity" had broken the nose (and camera) of a Parisian man at the exit from the museum.
The friendly, cordial manager was Don King.
The thug celebrity-bully was Mike Tyson.