Cassius Clay and Cat Stevens

Our brief encounter with the restoration of sanity is fading away like so many other tokens of our youth, such as birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan. We still meet a few people and get to describe what we saw and heard. When I mention that Yusuf Islam performed his song Peace Train, my listener usually offers a blank expression.
"Oh," says the other, "Cat Stevens."
The singer, born Steven Giorgiou, embraced Islam and changed his name in 1978.
Thirty-two years is a long time, about 10 times as long as it took for the public to accept Cassius Clay's profession of faith.

"Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn't choose it, and I didn't want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name. It means beloved of God, and I insist people use it when speaking to me and of me."

via Sports Illustrated The best of Muhammad Ali quotes - SI.com

Public acceptance of Ali's new identity wouldn't have happened as quickly, if at all, without Howard Cosell.
I don't remember exactly how long it took, but it seemed that within a small number of months that Cosell started addressing the boxer as Muhammad in interviews. Now, it was all virtue and inclusion that led the sportscaster to embrace Ali. Cosell knew that his fame was tied to the fighter's career. Ali knew it, too. It wasn't all self-promotion, either. As Dave Kindred notes in Sound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful Friendship, Cosell, a lawyer, may not have agreed with all or any of Ali's positions, but he was wiling to defend Ali's right to hold those positions.^[1].
For all kinds of reasons, no one has championed Islam's case in the same way.  For all kinds of reasons, we don't remember the guy's name.