Protest at the 1968 Olympic Games

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The protest at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City was carried out by Afro-American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos during the award ceremony for the men's 200-meter race .

The protest captured photographically by John Dominis is one of the most famous political protests of the 20th century.

The protest

On the morning of October 16, 1968, sprinter Tommie Smith (USA) set a new world record with 19.83 seconds and won the Olympic gold medal in the 200-meter run. The Australian Peter Norman came second and John Carlos from the USA came third. The American national anthem was played for Smith at the award ceremony. Carlos and Smith bowed their heads and each raised a black gloved fist . Smith wore a black scarf around his neck to symbolize black pride , Carlos wore his training jacket open to symbolize his solidarity with the "blue collar workers". He also wore a necklace to remember “those who were lynched or otherwise murdered, those who were never prayed for, those who were never thought of. For those who were thrown overboard on the way to America ”. All three, Smith, Carlos and also Norman wore pins from the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR). Norman was an opponent of Australia's racist White Australia Policy and wanted to show his solidarity. It was Norman who suggested that Smith and Carlos share their black gloves to protest after Carlos forgot his pair. The sociologist Harry Edwards , founder of the OPHR, had called on black athletes to boycott the Olympics. The athletes were booed as they left the podium. Smith later said:

“If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight. "

“If I win, I'll be American, not a black American. But when I do something bad, they say I'm a negro. We are black and we are proud of it. Black America understands what we did today "

- Tommie Smith

The photo of the athletes, taken by photojournalist John Dominis , was featured on numerous front pages and is still considered an icon of the American civil rights movement, which was then at its height .

In his autobiography Silent Gesture , Smith wrote that the greeting was not the "black power" greeting, but a greeting for universal human rights.

Response from the International Olympic Committee

The President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the American Avery Brundage , classified the behavior as a "nasty demonstration against the American flag by negroes". In an immediate response to the protest, he ordered Smith and Carlos to be removed from the US team and to leave the Olympic village. The USA team initially refused. After Brundage threatened to expel the entire US athletics team, the two athletes were removed from the team.

An IOC spokesman said it was "a willful and violent breach of the fundamental principles of the Olympic Idea". Brundage, who was President of the US Olympic Committee in 1936, had no objection to showing the Hitler salute, as it was a national German salute at the time. The IOC website said today about the incident: "Tommie Smith and John Carlos staged a silent protest [...] against the treatment of black Americans." (Translated: "Tommie Smith and John Carlos quietly protested [...] against the treatment of black Americans.")

aftermath

On October 18, 1968, three African American athletes ( Lee Evans , Larry James and Ron Freeman ) won the first three places in the 400-meter run. When they stepped onto the dais, they wore black berets - identifying marks of the Black Panthers . When the national anthem was played, they took off their berets. This action had no negative consequences for the three. Smith and Carlos were largely ostracized by the American sports scene in the years that followed. They were widely criticized for their action. The Time magazine showed the five Olympic rings and captioned the picture with "angrier, Nastier, Uglier" ( "Angry, disgusting, Ugly") instead of "higher, farther, faster." Once home, they were the target of hostility and their families received death threats.

Smith later played in the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals before becoming an junior professor at Oberlin College . In 1999 he received the "California Black Sportsman of the Millennium Award".

Carlos continued to play sports and in 1969 set a world record over 100 yards. He later played football for the Philadelphia Eagles . In 1977 his wife took her own life and he fell into depression. In 1982 Carlos was hired by the Organizing Committee for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. His job was also to create acceptance for the black population for the games. In 1985 he became an athletics coach at Palm Springs High School , a position he has held since then.

Peter Norman was not nominated by the Australian Federation at the 1972 Olympic Games. Norman had stayed below the required qualification norm several times, but the association had set the result of the Australian Championships as the basis for the Olympic qualification. Norman himself and several journalists suspect a political campaign behind the non-nomination. At his funeral in 2006, Smith and Carlos paid his final respects and were among his pallbearers.

In 2005, San José State University erected a 22-foot statue in honor of their former students, Smith and Carlos, to capture the famous scene. The student Erik Grotz was the initiator of this project.

Smith and Carlos later received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award (2008).

Cultural reception

A film entitled Salute was shown at the Sydney Film Festival in mid-2008 . The film was written, produced and directed by Matt Norman, Peter Norman's nephew.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Lewis: Caught in Time: Black Power salute, Mexico, 1968 , The Sunday Times . October 8, 2006. Retrieved October 16, 2018. 
  2. ↑ 1968: Black athletes make silent protest . SJSU . Archived from the original on December 18, 2008. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 9, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.as.sjsu.edu
  3. ↑ a b 1968: Black athletes make silent protest , BBC. October 17, 1968. Archived from the original on January 17, 2010. Retrieved on November 9, 2008. 
  4. ↑ Dean Lucas: Black Power . Famous Pictures: The Magazine. February 11, 2007. Retrieved November 9, 2008.
  5. ↑ Peter Norman
  6. ↑ The Invisible Second · DRadio Knowledge. Retrieved August 10, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Art Spander: A Moment In Time: Remembering to Olympic protest , CSTV . February 24, 2006. Retrieved November 9, 2008. 
  8. ^ John Carlos (PDF) Freedom Weekend. Archived from the original on December 18, 2008. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 9, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.freedomweekend.info
  9. ↑ Stefan Locke: The spontaneous gesture of a giant . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 41/2018 of February 17, 2018, p. 7.
  10. ^ "The Olympic Story", editor James E. Churchill, Jr., published in 1983 by Grolier Enterprises Inc.
  11. ^ Mexico 1968 (official website of the International Olympic Committee ). Retrieved September 9, 2010.
  12. ↑ nndb.com
  13. ^ Tommie Smith 1968 Olympic Gold Medalist . Tommie Smith. Retrieved November 9, 2008.
  14. ↑ Neil Amdur: Olympic Protester Maintains Passion . In: New York Times , October 10, 2011. 
  15. ^ Athletic Australia: Peter Norman. Retrieved October 16, 2018 .
  16. ↑ Rupert Cornwell: Great Olympic Friendships: John Carlos, Peter Norman and Tommie Smith - divided by their color, united by the cause. Retrieved October 16, 2018 .
  17. ↑ Florian Riesewieck: Ten stories behind the fists of Mexico City. October 16, 2018, accessed October 16, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Martin Flanagan : Olympic protest heroes praise Norman's courage , The Sydney Morning Herald . October 6, 2006. Retrieved November 9, 2008. 
  19. ^ Speed ​​City: From Civil Rights to Black Power . History San José. July 28, 2005. Archived from the original on December 6, 2008. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 9, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / historysanjose.org
  20. ↑ Salute at ESPYs - Smith and Carlos to receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award . espn.go.com. May 29, 2008. Archived from the original on April 5, 2008. Retrieved January 17, 2009.
  21. ↑ 2008 Program Revealed! . May 8, 2008. Archived from the original on January 25, 2009. Retrieved January 17, 2009.