On this date (Aug 3), in 1936, a couple of young African American men from the South showed the world that Adolf Hitler’s Aryan idealism was worth about as much as the penny we talked about yesterday.
Exactly 76 years ago today, the medal race for the men’s 100m sprint was run. Jesse Owens won the gold medal, and Ralph Metcalfe won silver. Jesse went on to win three more gold medals in that Olympics – for the long jump, the 200m sprint, and the 4X100m relay.
The race was groundbreaking in more ways than one: just before the 100m race, Owens received a visitor in the Olympic village. Adi Dassler, the founder of Adidas shoes, persuaded Owens to wear Adidas shoes in his races. It was the first sports sponsorship for a male African-American athlete.
The story isn’t all happy…
When Owens was in Germany, there weren’t any restrictions on his travel or accomodations. He even stayed in the same hotels as his white teammates. But when he returned, things hadn’t changed. There was a ticker-tape parade along Fifth Avenue in New York City in his honor, but in order to get to the reception held in his honor at the Waldorf-Astoria, he still had to take the freight elevator.
It’s a bit hard to believe, but he was never invited to the White House. Neither President Roosevelt nor his successor Truman bestowed any honors upon him at all. When members of the press asked Owens what it felt like to be snubbed by Adolf Hitler, he replied, “Hitler didn’t snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.” Hitler’s gift was a bit scary (a commemorative inscribed photo of himself), but it was at least an acknowledgement. Finally, in 1955, President Eisenhower made him an “Ambassador of Sports.” And eventually, in 1976, President Ford awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
There is no doubt that race relations have improved in this county. But it is important to recognize that we are nowhere near done. Just this last month we heard about a Baptist church in Mississipi that told Charles and Te’Andrea Wilson that they couldn’t marry in their church because they were black. In March of this year, almost 30% of GOP voters in the Deep South said that interracial marriage should be illegal.
So the struggle continues, but thanks to people like Jesse Owens, I have hope.
I know this post isn’t as funny as my normal fare, but sometimes even I can get a little serious… apparently!