The 1968 US Olympic track and field team is considered one of the greatest ever assembled
to represent the US in the Olympics.
They won 28 medals and set 8 world records at the games in Mexico City.
The team included some of the fastest runners in the world at the time.
Like sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who made history when they accepted their
medals and then raised their fists during the playing of the US national anthem, in
a protest full of symbolism.
And they almost didn’t even show up that year.
Members of the team threatened to stay home, in protest of racist treatment of Black athletes
in America.
The story of this silent protest, and the boycott that almost was, starts with the buttons
all three medal winners wore that day:
The Olympic Project for Human Rights.
The Olympic Project for Human Rights, or OPHR, was founded in 1967 by sociologist, educator,
and former star athlete Dr. Harry Edwards.
It was a coalition of prominent Olympic athletes that threatened to derail American Olympic
glory by opting out of the games.
To protest the racism in sports that had for decades gone unaddressed.
In the mid-20th century, sports seemed to be a leading example of improved racial equality
in the United States.
Black athletes like football player Kenny Washington and baseball player Jackie Robinson
broke racial barriers by joining professional leagues in 1946 and 1947.
Which until that point, had been whites only.
College and professional sports teams gradually integrated from there –
– years ahead of racial segregation legally ending in the United States.
So the media began to promote the Black athlete as a symbol that racial democracy existed
in the United States.
And so it was kind of a factor that was used to dismiss the question of institutionalized
racism.
But in the 1960s, the myth of racial progress in America began to dissolve.
The Civil Rights Act ended legal segregation in 1964, but Black Americans continued to
face institutionalized racism and police brutality.
Integration simply wasn’t successful in improving Black people’s lives, and you
needed to force further change.
Years of frustration ultimately erupted in widespread violent riots.
I think the further we get away from it, we underestimate the influence of the riots.
The riots happened in a lot of urban cities across America.
Black people still live in terrible socioeconomic conditions in the cities.
And that was just as much a problem as Jim Crow laws.
So how do you attract attention to that?
A growing Black Power movement and Black student movement in the 1960s emboldened Black athletes
to speak up about the racial injustices they endured off
the field.
But with the 1968 Olympics coming up, black athletes saw an opportunity to push for change.
The the idea of a black Olympic boycott had been around since 1959.
And it went through various fits and stops until you get to the first Black Power Conference
in 1967.
And the Black Power Conference basically argued that you should use any means possible to
force the government to pay attention to institutionalized racism.
For Harry Edwards, that meant organizing the Olympic Project for Human Rights.
He realized that he could use Black sports participation as a way to attract attention
to the problem. The OPHR had 5 key demands, among them being
to disinvite South Africa and Rhodesia, two countries practicing apartheid, from competing
in the games,
the removal of openly racist International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage,
and hiring Black coaches to US teams.
The potential boycott became a hot topic in the news –
– and of debate among athletes.
In the months leading up to the games in Mexico City, the OPHR kept members of the press guessing
whether they would attend or not.
Ultimately, it came down to a vote.
The decision was made that if there wasn’t a kind of unified or the majority of Black
athletes would participate, the boycott would be called off.
Because those who did boycott, like Tommie Smith, would have been boycotting in vain.
Another Black person simply would have taken their place.
Even though most of the OPHR’s demands remained unmet, the athletes headed to Mexico City,
with plans to make their own demonstration if the opportunity arose.
Which it did – on October 16th, following the men’s 200 meter final.
OPHR members Tommie Smith and John Carlos won gold and bronze, respectively, and Smith
set a new world record.
After the race, they solemnly approached the medal stand –
shoeless, wearing black socks...
...accepted their medals....
...and, just as the US National Anthem began to play, did this:
[Star-Spangled Banner playing]
For the full duration of the Star-Spangled Banner, Smith and Carlos bowed their heads
and each raised a black-gloved fist in the air – to protest the racial injustice in
their home country, and show solidarity with those fighting for equality.
[Star-Spangled Banner playing]
The fists are not the only symbolic gesture in this image, as Tommie Smith explained later:
The right glove signified the power within Black America.
The left glove signified Black unity.
The scarf that was worn around my neck signified Blackness.
John Carlos and me wore black socks without shoes to also signify our poverty.
Additionally, John Carlos wore his jacket unzipped – a violation of Olympic etiquette
– to show solidarity with working class Americans.
He also wore black beads – to honor victims of lynching.
And finally, all three medal winners, including silver medalist Peter Norman of Australia,
wore…
Buttons reading Olympic Project for Human Rights. The were some boos in the stadium
last night.
This moment was the ultimate manifestation of the work of Harry Edwards and the OPHR
to intersect outspoken political activism with sport.
And it ended Smith and Carlos’ Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee suspended them Friday, their credentials were taken
away, and they were told they could not stay in Mexico.
They were dropped from the US Olympic team...
...and given 48 hours to leave Mexico.
Sports journalist Howard Cosell criticized the US Olympic Committee’s decision in this
fiery broadcast from Mexico City.
But the Black athlete says he is a human being before he is an athlete.
That he wants equality everywhere, not just within the arena.
Tommie Smith and John Carlos were saying, “Black athletes don’t have it made in
American society.”
“We may be famous, but we face the same discrimination that other Black people do.
And we don’t appreciate being used as a way to counter the Black struggle coming out
of Black communities.”
Black athletes are Black.
People have multiple identities.
I think Colin Kaepernick is representing a voice in the Black community which is the
same thing I think that Carlos and Smith were saying.
That the Black struggle is more than just about integration and assimilation, it’s
also about empowering this particular community.
And people like Tommie Smith, Harry Edwards, John Carlos, came from poor Black communities.
Which is why this protest on the Olympic medal stand wasn’t just about sports.
As Tommie Smith explained to Howard Cosell the next day.
Do you think you represented all Black athletes in doing this?
I can say I represented Black America.
I’m very proud to be a Black man, and also to have won a gold medal.
And this, I thought, I could represent my people by letting them know that I’m proud
to be a Black man.