This Tour Guide Keeps Muhammad Ali’s Legacy Alive by Sharing His Lessons of Racial Justice
Photo Credit: Educational programming director and tour guide Erin Herbert poses in front of a Muhammad Ali mural at the Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky. Skift / Photo courtesy of Erin Herbert/Ali Center
Skift Take
The foundation for positive change laid down by Muhammad Ali's character and conviction rings as true today as the day his gold medal story came to life in the 1960s. Erin Herbert says she is grateful to be able to impart his messages to tourists at the Louisville museum created to honor The Greatest.
Even before she was born, Erin Herbert's professional fate seemed to be tied to one day working for the greatest boxer the world has seen in this lifetime. As Herbert retells it, her mother and young brothers were walking on the streets of New York one day when they met the man who famously said he could "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." Muhammad Ali not only met them, but shadowboxed with her brothers too, an example of the simplicity of this complex and globally renowned man.
It's this memory along with her love for education, social justice, and humanitarian causes that led her to the Ali Center in Louisville, where chose a job over working in academia. As well as her great respect for Ali and the incredibly large and important platform the center in his hometown offers, Herbert said can really bring about change, make a difference in the community that Ali loved so much and allows engagement on a globally powerful platform.
Born in Long Island, New York, and raised
