An Olympic Story They Don't Tell

I remember when this happened. I don't remember learning the bowdlerized version in school, nor the real story in the streets. It should be Olympic lore.

 

Dave Zirin at The Nation:

It has been almost 44 years since Tommie Smith and John Carlos took the medal stand following the 200-meter dash at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City and created what must be considered the most enduring, riveting image in the history of either sports or protest. But while the image has stood the test of time, the struggle that led to that moment has been cast aside. When mentioned at all in U.S. history textbooks, the famous photo appears with almost no context. For example, Pearson/Prentice Hall’s United States History places the photo opposite a short three-paragraph section, “Young Leaders Call for Black Power.” The photo’s caption says simply that “…U.S. athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised gloved fists in protest against discrimination.”

The media—and school curricula—fail to address the context that produced Smith and Carlos’ famous gesture of resistance: It was the product of what was called “The Revolt of the Black Athlete.” Amateur black athletes formed OPHR, the Olympic Project for Human Rights, to organize an African American boycott of the 1968 Olympic Games. OPHR, its lead organizer, Dr. Harry Edwards, and its primary athletic spokespeople, Smith and the 400-meter sprinter Lee Evans, were deeply influenced by the black freedom struggle. Their goal was nothing less than to expose how the United States used black athletes to project a lie about race relations both at home and internationally.

Read the whole thing.

And follow Zirin's unique Olympic coverage:

Nation readers —Over the next several weeks, I’ll be writing about the 2012 London Olympics. I’m going to try to write about the stories not just on the field but off: the Counter Olympics demonstrators, the workers behind the scenes, the athletes with personal stories that speak less to their desire for athletic success than a desire for human rights. It seemed fitting to start by looking back at perhaps the most political, controversial, inspiring moment in Olympics, if not sports, history: the medal stand black gloved salute of 200 meter runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos. I origincally wrote this article for GOOD magazine online (July 23, 2012) as part of the Zinn Education Project series called “If We Knew Our History.”