It’s no secret that fighting legend Muhammad Ali had deep ties to this city, but Atlantans looking back on the boxer’s legacy may remember the frightening time of the Atlanta Child Murders, when dozens of children were abducted and murdered over the course of two years.
Some may remember how Ali stepped up, back then, to try to help the hurting families, and help the city crack the case.
11Alive’s Jon Shirek remembers.
It was a time when Atlanta was seemingly held hostage by a serial killer who was targeting mostly African-American boys -- mostly pre-teen children – the killer abducting and murdering one after another and getting away with it. Overall, there were more than two-dozen victims from 1979 to 1981.
And Muhammad Ali, who loved Atlanta for what the city had done to revive his boxing career a decade earlier, found a big way to love Atlanta back -- by donating big money toward the reward fund in the case.
Angelo Fuster was communications director for then-mayor Maynard Jackson, and on Tuesday Fuster recalled Ali’s generosity then.
“To have somebody like Muhammad Ali take note and do this very significant gesture – I want to help – meant a lot,” Fuster said.
Fuster said Ali had seen Mayor Jackson’s dramatic and desperate news conference, offering a reward of $100,000, cash, spreading it out on a table in front of him. Jackson hoped someone would respond to the reward, call in a tip, and help crack the case and stop the murders. But it did not crack the case.
"There was not enough information coming from the streets," Fuster said. "Nothing was happening."
And Ali noticed.
“The mayor got a phone call from Muhammad Ali" at home in the middle of the night, Fuster said. “And Ali said things like, ‘You know, $100,000 -- no that’s disgraceful. You can’t buy a decent car, you can’t buy a house for that.’ And he committed $400,000 to make it at least a half-a-million bucks.”
Current mayor Kasim Reed also remembers those two years. Reed was then 10 and 11 years old, turning 12 in mid-1981. He remembers locking himself in the house after school to stay safe. He remembers participating in the community searches for the missing children -- and the children were his age -- hoping to find them safe and sound; they never did.
He remembers Muhammad Ali caring for the families of the victims, for the city.
"Ali had a special affection for Atlanta," Mayor Reed said Tuesday.
And it is Ali’s photo that hangs on the wall of Mayor Reed’s private office, showing Ali standing in the ring, victorious. Reed sees in Ali someone who never stopped striving to become a better man, for others, including Atlantans, as he matured -- from the brash boxer of his youth, to the role model for youth he tried to be as he battled declining health .
“I think that’s what Muhammad Ali’s life was all about,” Reed said. “What he showed is that you don’t have to be perfect to be great. Life is about direction. And for Muhammad Ali, his life was always moving in a direction of being better.... He really had a heart and a deep affection for people. He was somebody that wanted to be where the real people were.”
In June, 1981, a month after Ali pledged the reward, Atlanta police cracked the case on their own, and arrested a suspect, Wayne Williams, who was convicted in February, 1982 of two of the murders -- of adults -- and police subsequently tied him to 22 of the child murders. Williams never stood trial on any of the other murders. Williams continues fighting his two convictions from inside a Georgia state prison.
But Ali’s gesture -- to help heal a hurting city he loved -- is one that those who were there will always remember with gratitude.
"That was sort of characteristic [of Ali], I think," Fuster said. "He learned about the fund, he knew that nothing was happening, and he figured that he would help. To have a figure like Muhammad Ali know about it, it was important. The families really wanted the world to know what was happening, in their own grief, their individual grief, and the collective grief of the city.... It meant a lot to the city. It meant a lot to the families of those children."
PHOTOS | Muhammad Ali
