After a Koran reading, local Protestant minister Kevin Cosby set the tone of the event, saying that Muhammad Ali had "infused in Africans a sense of somebodiness".
"Before James Brown said 'I'm black and I'm proud', Muhammad Ali said 'I'm black and I'm pretty'," he said.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of a progressive Jewish magazine, used his speech to launch a blistering attack on injustice against black people and Muslims.
"The way to honour Muhammad Ali is to be Muhammad Ali today," he said. "Speak out and refuse to follow the path of conformity."
Later Valerie Jarrett, an aide to President Obama who knew the boxer personally, read a letter from the president describing Ali as "bigger, brighter and more influential than just about anyone in his era".
"You couldn't have made him up, and yes, he was pretty too," Mr Obama wrote.
"Muhammad Ali was America. Muhammad Ali will always be America. What a man."
The president was not there, as he was attending his eldest daughter Malia's graduation.
Former US President Bill Clinton described Ali as "a free man of faith".
He said: "I think he decided very young to write his own life story. I think he decided that he would not be ever disempowered. Not his race, not his place, not the expectations of others whether positive or negative would strip from him the power to write his own story."
Ali's wife Lonnie paid tribute to her husband. She told the crowd: "If Muhammad didn't like the rules, he rewrote them. His religion, his beliefs, his name were his to fashion, no matter what the cost.
"Muhammad wants young people of every background to see his life as proof that adversity can make you stronger. It cannot rob you of the power to dream, and to reach your dreams."
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