The process to make it happen could be as long as three years. A citizens’ advisory panel will look at a person’s credentials and make a recommendation to the Postmaster General. The postal service chooses people who made “extraordinary and enduring individual contributions to American society, history, and culture, or environment” and who have achieved “widespread national appeal or significance.”
Ali fits all of that criteria. The social media campaign will help push public awareness of the effort and to solicit images of Ali that may be appropriate for the stamp.
“If Muhammad were alive to see this, he’d be absolutely thrilled,” Lonnie Ali told Yahoo Sports. “I think this would be significant in many ways. It would be inspirational to so many to see Muhammad, who came from meager and humble beginnings to become a national and even an international icon, to be given this recognition of being put on a U.S. postage stamp.
“That culminates a career and a life of meaning and purpose that not everybody can achieve. But it shows what anyone can achieve if they put their mind to it if they have the passion and the heart and determination, as Muhammad did.”