Odessa Grady Clay

Odessa Lee Clay (née Grady) (February 12, 1917 – August 20, 1994) was the mother of three-time World Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali and Rudolph Valentino Clay, now Rahman Ali and grandmother of Laila Ali. She married Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr. in the 1930s and worked for some time as a household domestic to help support her young children. She was born in Hopkins County, Kentucky, one of six children of John Lewis Grady and Birdie B. Morehead. Her paternal grandfather was a white Irishman named Abe Grady, who emigrated to the United States from Ennis, County Clare, Ireland, soon after the Civil War and married a daughter of Lewis and Amanda J. "Mandy" Walker of Todd County, Kentucky. Her maternal grandfather, Tom Morehead, was the...