Muhammad Ali that year, before converting to Islam after 1961. At age 22, in 1964, he won the world heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston in a major upset. He then changed his name from Cassius Clay, which he called his "slave name", to Muhammad Ali. He set an example of racial pride for African Americans and resistance to white domination during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1966, two years after winning the heavyweight title, Ali further antagonized the white establishment by refusing to be drafted into the U.S. military, citing his religious beliefs, and opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Muhammed Yusuf Khan surviving there as the people there were kindly disposed towards Yusuf Khan; he had once saved Alwarthirunagari, a few years previously, from a Dutch invasion. As per Maasa's last wish, and to maintain secrecy, Srinivasa Rao named the boy Mathuranayagam (which was the original Hindu name of Yusuf Khan) and brought him up in the Christian faith (Maasa was a Christian). Yusuf Khan's descendants later moved to Palayamkottai. The recorded history on Muhammed Yusuf Khan seem to end with the incident of his hanging and there is no or only sketchy data on what happened to his family, after that.