WEBVTT - Hitler’s Olympics, Part 7: Long Jump, Tall Tale 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:06.160 On a warm day in August nineteen fifty one, a 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:10.400 helicopter appeared in the sky above the brilliant Olympic Stadium. 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:14.160 Seventy five thousand people had gathered there to watch a 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:19.079 Harlem globetrotter's basketball game. The crowd looked up. The chopper, 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:21.960 circled three times and landed on the field. 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.000 The loudspeaker announcer called out attention, attention. 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.280 A black man in a white suit stepped out onto 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:30.280 the red cinder track. 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.440 Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest run on the world returned. 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:34.680 Mister Burland. 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.760 Jesse Owens was back in Germany to take a victory lap. 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:44.040 I had many thoughts as I made the symbolic run 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.559 of victory around the same red sender track that had 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:50.440 run so many years before. As I passed each section, 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:53.520 there was a bridge to the pass. 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.360 The Second World War had ended only six years earlier, 0:00:57.720 --> 0:00:59.880 and Germany, along with the rest of the world, was 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:02.720 still reckoning with it all. Whatever was left of the 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.440 Nazi leadership had been grilled at the Nuremberg trials. Berlin 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:10.360 was rebuilding after Allied bombing campaigns. About eighty percent of 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.480 the city center had been flattened. Yet the stadium the 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:17.280 Nazis had built for the Olympics was still standing, and 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:20.920 that day at the Globetrotters game, Jesse Owens was back 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.360 to take his victory lab and to give a speech. 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:29.520 Words often fail on occasions like this, he told the 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:33.200 German crowd, But I remember the good that happened here. 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.800 I remember the fighting spirit and sportsmanship shown by German 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:42.720 athletes on this field. And here we reached the important part, 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:50.000 he says, especially by Lutslog of Germany, the man I 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.360 managed to be in the broad jump. 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:00.320 The crowd came forth with a tremendous role, and the 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:01.880 cheers are with me today. 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:07.120 Owens stood for an ovation that one of the globetrotters 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:11.320 said lasted a full fifteen minutes. And I think maybe 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:15.320 it was then, standing there watching how hungry that crowd 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.919 was for even this mention of a good German that 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:23.160 he decided to tell an even bigger story about what 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:28.080 happened between him and Luteslog at the nineteen thirty six Olympics. 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.800 It was the start of the great long jump tall tale. 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:40.040 H'm Malcolm Gladwell. Welcome to Revisionist History, my show about 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:44.400 things overlooked and misunderstood. Throughout this series, Who've been looking 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:48.679 at how people tried to rationalize their participation in Hitner's Olympics, 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:52.519 And in this episode we've reached the most enduring and 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:57.639 I think heartbreaking rationalization of all. Jesse Owens his story 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:02.840 about befriending a Nazi, the story that it seems Owen's 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:07.440 made up. But why why did Owens need to tell 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:07.880 a lie? 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:23.160 Our home was in Alabama and my parents were sharecroppers 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:24.440 on this particular place. 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.800 In nineteen sixty one, Jesse Owens sat down with an 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.200 interviewer to record in oral history. She a white woman 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.880 in cat's eye glasses and pearls Owens or a suit. 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.880 The two sat in mid century modern armchairs so close 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.440 their knees were almost touching. The curtains were drawn, the 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:47.480 room was filled with smoke. They spoke for six hours, 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.800 starting at the very beginning, What. 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.600 About the people that owned the big house where your 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:57.960 father was a shared dropper? Was this a Negro individual? 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:03.280 Light? The first tape is mostly about Owens's early life, 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:06.720 growing up one of the youngest of ten brothers and 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:09.840 sisters in Alabama. He was a sickly kid with a 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.920 sunny disposition. His parents had him late, called him their 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.000 gift child. It can be hard to know things for 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:21.279 certain about Jesse Owens's life. His biographer William J. Baker 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:25.280 once wrote of him, Jesse Owens was always strong on imagination, 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:30.440 weak on literal truth. But whatever the facts, I believe 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.760 his tone of voice in this tape, its warmth and 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.640 its weariness. You hear about the setbacks, the time he 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.200 saw his mother crying while folding the laundry because she 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.080 couldn't afford clothes for him, and then you hear about 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:45.560 the triumphs Now. 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:49.239 That's where it all began. Junior heights reveal or Character 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:50.520 of the Basketball team. 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:53.800 Chapterin of the Track Team, Captain of the baseball team, 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.480 I was President of the student council, Captain about cards. 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:02.320 I was impressed the first time I heard him list 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.479 all those accomplishments. He was obviously great from the start. 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.200 But the second time I listened, I noticed just how 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:13.919 worn out he sounds going through that list. That tone 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:15.880 has a lot to do with how I came to 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.479 understand Jesse Owens. He's telling the story of his life 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:23.320 in this oral history, but really he just keeps talking 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:24.520 about one idea. 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.120 She get tired of this sometimes, Oh yes, you get 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.560 tired of living in a glass bowl, living in a 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:32.320 glass bowl. 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:34.400 But it's a. 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:40.680 It's a wonderful thing to help people to recognize you, 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:45.920 people to admire you for your ability, but sometimes people 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.880 forget your human being. People were looking, everybody's eyes were 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:52.920 upon you, and they would scrutinize everything that you did. 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:55.560 And so therefore you had to be very, very careful 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:57.880 of what other things that you did. And it's a 0:05:59.640 --> 0:05:59.960 tough thing. 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.600 Sometime, by the time he taped this interview, people had 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:07.480 been telling stories about Jesse Owens, mythologizing him for decades. 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:09.720 You can even hear the interviewer doing it. 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:11.839 How did all this make you feel? 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:12.040 Now? 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:16.800 Remember you you're a youngster from the cotton fields of Alabama, 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:20.320 and this is all relatively new to you, and and 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:23.120 suddenly you're you're you're the captain of so many things, 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:26.400 and you're all a suit and people like you. 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.240 And when you felt like you were somebody you know. 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.280 And that I think is of the heart of why 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:36.560 Jesse Owens made up that story about Luteslong helping him 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.600 during the broad jump qualifying rounds and about their friendship 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:44.520 all those years afterwards. First being an athlete made him somebody. 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.240 Then when that was done, telling stories about it kept 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:52.600 him with somebody. But he was black in early twentieth 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:55.880 century America, which meant that as soon as he started 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:58.640 to be somebody, he had to play the two crowds, 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.799 the white people giving him opportunities and the black people 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.039 who wanted him to use his status to change things. 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.480 If you're the first to come along, you're a pioneer. 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.040 You represent not just yourself, which you represent your category. 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.160 And he's being asked to represent his category in a 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.840 way that no obviously, no white athlete is being asked 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:18.800 to represent a category. 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.040 Yeah, And I actually think what's striking looking at Jesse 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:24.840 Owens's life is how early that starts for him. I mean, 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.800 it's really he's sort of a superlative athlete from a 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:30.760 very young age, and then this just keeps happening to him. 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.200 It was the same when people started boycotting the nineteen 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:38.440 thirty six Olympics, wondering if he would too. He's at 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:41.360 the time, how old I think he's twenty two. So 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:43.160 we have this kid who is. 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:47.880 Being asked to parse one of the most complicated kind 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:53.440 of moral and political questions of the time, and he's 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:54.800 being torn in two directions. 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.560 At first, Jesse Owens seemed to see the situation in 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:03.040 Germany clearly, the violence and the discrimination, and he supported 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.720 the boycott. He knew what it was like living in 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.520 the United States under Jim Crow in segregation. He said 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.480 in a radio interview that quote, if there is discrimination 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.160 against minorities in Germany, then we must withdraw from the Olympics, 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:21.960 to which his white coach, Larry Snyder responded, basically, suit yourself. 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:24.840 But if you skip the Olympics, you're going to be, 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:29.880 and this is his exact phrase, a forgotten man, the 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:35.400 opposite of a somebody. In the end, eighteen black athletes 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:37.679 went to Berlin with the US Olympic team that year. 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.439 Each of them had to wrestle privately with the question 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.839 of whether or not to participate, but because of the 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.400 Glass Bowl, Jesse Owens had to do it in public. 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:52.720 There were endless opinions about what he should do. Even 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:56.480 the secretary of the NAACP Walter White, had an opinion 0:08:56.920 --> 0:08:59.640 best represented in a letter to Owens that he drafted 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:05.200 but which now sits in the archives. I fully realize 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.839 how great a sacrifice it will be for you to 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:09.760 give up the trip to Europe and to forego the 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:14.240 acclaim which your athletic prowess will unquestionably bring you. On 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.040 the other hand, it is my firm conviction that the 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:20.240 issue of participation in the nineteen thirty six Olympics, if 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:24.880 held in Germany under the present regime, transcends all other issues. 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:28.560 Participation by American athletes, and especially by those of our 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.000 own race, which has suffered more than any other from 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:36.240 American race hatred, would I firmly believe, do irreparable harm. 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:38.040 The very pre. 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:42.000 Eminence of American Negro athletes gives them an unparalleled opportunity 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:44.920 to strike a blow at racial bigotry and to make 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.120 other minority groups conscious of the sameness of their problem 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.600 with ours. If the Hitlers and Mussolini's of the world 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:57.160 are successful, it is inevitable that dictatorships based upon prejudice 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:01.880 will spread throughout the world. White never sent that letter, 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.280 but it captured how a lot of people understood the 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:07.760 stakes of the choice that Jesse Owens had to make 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.000 deny his Olympic dreams for the good of Black America 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.520 or go to the games at their expense. 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:18.880 But you could have given up at this point. We 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:23.040 didn't have to go on with it. If the recognition 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:27.040 and the status hadn't been as important to you as 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.680 it was, he could have sat on through with this nonsense. 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:31.679 I'm going to finish my education and the one and 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:34.960 become a lawyer or something else. 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:41.120 Well, this you could have done. But yet and still 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.679 you feel that here you are, where people have made 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:49.160 it possible for you to start, Why at this point 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:55.560 become See you're not any greater. Then the people will 0:10:55.600 --> 0:11:00.439 make you. You can do a number of things. But 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.880 if the people are not with you, then who knows about? 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:11.320 Leave the glass bowl, become a forgotten man. So Jesse 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:15.319 Owens went to the Olympics with everyone watching, and he 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:16.520 made a miracle happen. 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.720 Capa conic second up on it na makes the others 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:21.560 look as if they're working. 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.040 He won gold medals in each of his events, the 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.839 one hundred and two hundred meter dashes, the one hundred 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.520 meter relay, in that legendary broad jump, and for a 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:33.959 lot of people, all those medals seemed to validate his 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.640 choice to go. He'd proven Hitler wrong with every step, 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:43.800 so much Farian supremacy. That's where the story of Jesse 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.679 Owens usually ends, but there's so much more to it. 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:52.320 After the track and field events in nineteen thirty six, 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.480 the athletes toured Europe for a series of track meets. 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:59.360 Avery Brandage, Newly, a member of the International Olympic Committee, 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:03.079 had organized it with the Amateur Athletic Union. The organizations 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.880 would pocket their cut of the ticket sales, but the 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.720 athletes couldn't make money from the meets. Remember, the games 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:13.960 were for amateurs, no money for sport. Jesse Owens once said, 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.280 all we athletes get out of this Olympic business is 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.120 a view out of a train or airplane window. It 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:25.040 gets tiresome, it really does, staring out those windows. I 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.480 think he had started to contemplate his future, and I 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.520 don't think he liked what he saw. They were expected 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.200 to keep training, compete for a few more years until 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.040 their bodies started to fall apart. Maybe there'd be another 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:41.640 Olympic Games. But then what Owens didn't come from a 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.240 rich family. He'd barely had the time to get an 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.400 education with all his training, What kind of job could 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.640 he do once his athletic career was over. After the 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:55.599 Berlin Games. He was really famous. Offers had started to 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:58.600 come in. Twenty five grand for two weeks with an 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:02.520 orchestra in California, forty grand for ten weeks of shows 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.079 with the entertainer Eddie Canter. Now that serious money. In 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.959 nineteen thirty six, that was a fortune. He began to 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.600 think about leaving the tour and going home. He could 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:18.280 be rich, but going professional would be violating Olympic rules 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:21.920 and missing the rest of the tour would too. He 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.680 could never compete at the Olympics. Again. Those were the rules, 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:34.120 rules enforced by Avery Brandage, who took amateurism extremely seriously. 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:38.640 After the Berlin Games, a reporter asked him about rumors 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.280 that Owens was going to quit the post Olympics tour. 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:45.439 And I'd understand the Bondage that the received information that 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.520 Owns will not go to the stop, but Doc Holmley 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:50.679 will not appear, and I hope that Owen will be 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:53.800 build engagements when one of the finest boys we've had, 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:58.319 and we hope that there will be nothing tom this record. 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:02.000 These were crocked dial tears. By the time he gave 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.199 that interview, averybrend had already knew that Jesse Owens had 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:07.680 a ticket for a steamer back to the United States, 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:10.440 leaving before the end of that tour. 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.199 No, I just hope that all these are just rumored. 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.800 Jesse Owens was banned for life from amateur sport. The 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.120 nineteen thirty six Games would be the last act and 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:25.520 the pinnacle of his athletic career. He went to the 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.560 press with a rare complaint. I came over to Europe 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:32.000 with only ten dollars in my pocket. To make matters worse, 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:35.680 I've lost six pounds being pushed around and circused all 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:38.520 over Europe. They sent me to Prague from Cologne without 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:40.160 a cent and I had to run a race in 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:42.960 Prague without having had an ounce of food for ten hours. 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.400 I am turning professional because I'm busted and know the 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:50.640 difficulties encountered by any member of my race and getting 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:54.800 financial security. I want to get some money while I'm 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:57.640 in the spotlight. He tried to make the most of it. 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:01.920 He became an entertainer, even try tap dancing, and along 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.320 the way he was working to keep up with sports too, 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.200 But it was like everything had gone a little sour. 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.200 He was supposed to race against another amateur in Cuba, 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:14.440 a sprinter until Avery Brundage caught win and said he'd 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.400 banned that sprinter from American amateur sport if he went 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.760 through with the race. So they replaced the guy with 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:22.560 a horse Cuba. 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:26.640 Jesse Owens, the Ebonistic of Olympic Games, celebrates turning professional 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:27.960 by racing against a horse. 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.040 Jesse had a start at forty yards and one hundred 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:31.400 and he won by inches. 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:32.240 And I ought a lot. 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:40.560 So when Jesse Owens went professional, that essentially was the 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.960 choice he made to spend the rest of his life 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:48.840 reliving those two weeks in August nineteen thirty six. He 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:52.160 was trapped as if he'd jumped into that broad jump 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:57.920 pit and sunk to his knees in quicksand which is 0:15:58.000 --> 0:15:59.960 not to say that it wasn't also a good life. 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.480 He had three daughters, He was involved in presidential campaigning. 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:06.800 He ran a fitness program during the war for the 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.440 US Office of Civilian Defense. He led a big life, 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:13.800 but in order to do all the other stuff, he 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.000 had to keep the dream of those two weeks alive. 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.160 You can even hear this in that oral history when 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:21.440 they start on that third tape. Jesse Owens is in 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:24.040 the middle of talking about his actual life. Now in 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.440 the nineteen sixties, he's complaining about some business deal that 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:28.040 went south. 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:29.800 THEO for me and I got to sing over to 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.000 the bank and I made a mistake by not having 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:33.000 two sources, you know. 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:36.280 So again this was a guy with a life. But 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.040 the interviewer is like, yeah, sure, sure, what about the Olympics? 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:44.280 Though, what else is new? Jesse, Let's go way back 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:51.320 now to nineteen thirty six and reminisce about the Olympics. 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:53.560 I'm sure that you have told this story how many 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.680 hundreds of times to how many papers and miners using 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:02.080 this person, and this has been broadcast, certainly known many times. 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.119 But for the Historical Library would like to have a 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:09.280 record of for the Olympics, in your own words, the 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:10.119 feeling that you. 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:14.080 Had when you know his job was telling the story 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.520 of the Olympics. And once she asks, he gets right 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:17.760 to it. 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:22.720 I remember it was in July July the fourth of 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:26.680 nineteen thirty six when we had the final tryouts for 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:31.000 the Olympics at Rados Island, and that was the fourth But. 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:34.200 The thing about telling one story for your entire life 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:37.000 is that the meaning of that story has to keep 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.000 changing with the times, to stay marketable, to keep enough 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:43.440 eyes on that glass bowl. And in nineteen fifty one, 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.480 at that halftime speech during the Harlem Globetrotter's game, he 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:54.720 discovered its most powerful edition, Loots Long. We'll be right back. 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:08.000 I guess first, can you tell me about that Globetrotters 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.840 game in the Berlin Stadium in nineteen fifty one. Sure, 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:16.119 I'm talking to Damian L. Thomas, Curator of Sports at 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.960 the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.800 He's the author of the book Globe Trotting, African American 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:25.879 Athletes and Cold War Politics. 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:32.600 The Harlem Globetrotters were just starting to travel internationally and 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.879 they had played a game in Frankfurt a couple of 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:40.000 days before, and one American official had asked them to 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:45.000 play this game in West Berlin because at the time, 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.280 the Soviets were doing a lot of festivals, a lot 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:53.920 of exchanges, and they wanted to ensure that the US 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.760 and the West was able to tell their own story. 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.200 In the Cold War, the US and the USSR were 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:02.200 fighting for the hearts and minds of the rest of 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:06.440 the world, which led them bizarrely straight to the Harlem Globetrotters. 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:12.200 The Harlem Globetrotters basketball Wizard's extraordinary. They are patent that 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:14.720 plan them, bring and play, and Sandy Capers had made 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:16.879 them the most popular team in the history. 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:17.119 Of the sport. 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.760 Before the NBA was a big deal, before black people 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.440 played even college basketball, and any great numbers, the Harlem 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:29.000 Globetrotters were kind of traveling basketball circus. True to the name, 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:30.199 they were all over the. 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:34.679 Place persona Harlem grouptore. 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.760 It was a major operation run by one of the 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:41.440 most infamous and ruthless sports promoters of all time, a 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.800 white guy named Abe Sapperstein. I'm MASAKOWI twelve. 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:47.240 Come on, let's push again, for. 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:50.359 You've probably seen footage of them playing a lot of 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:55.439 fake passes, improbable shots, and goofing around. Except they're totally 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:57.719 incredible at basketball. 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:01.560 Even in slow motion. Their magical hands pool you. 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.080 I was talking to Damian Thomas though, because underneath the 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.240 goofiness there was something more sinister going on. 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:15.520 The Harlem Blobetrotters were also so deeply tied to mins 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:19.080 pro se, which was the dominant form of entertainment in 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:26.639 America from the eighteen eighties through the nineteen early nineteen fifties. 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:30.240 The players, almost all black Americans, were often referred to 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:31.320 as clowns. 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:34.800 Meet the most colorful comedy acting in present day spot 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:37.000 purists say they make a mockery of the game. 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:38.880 They clown, they juggle, they fool. 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:42.159 But where some people might see a kind of basketball circus, 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:45.800 the State Department saw the perfect propaganda weapon. 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:51.040 People often didn't think of sports as having ideological content, 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:57.639 and so whereas other forms of American culture would be resisting, 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:02.399 sometimes Coca cola, sometimes blue jeans, rock and roll, and 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:07.639 American movies were shunt people often welcomed basketball because they 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:13.760 didn't think of it as as had been a propagandistic function. 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:16.280 But it did, and it's one of the things that 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:20.119 made it very important is that people didn't see it 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:23.160 as containing hidden messages. 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:28.040 A lot of Soviet propaganda during the Cold War called 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.520 out the lie of American equality. The US might talk 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:34.959 about all people being equal, but the country was segregated, 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:37.960 and really only white people had a shot at a 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:41.919 decent quality of life. It was true and a particularly 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:45.399 useful message for the USSR trying to get African and 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:48.520 Asian countries to align with them instead of the US. 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:53.280 So the United States responded with a big hidden message 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:58.720 about the globetrotters, a message with two parts, first part, hey, 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:01.639 look we have wealthy black peace in this country. And 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:05.880 the second, much more sinister part, look at these clowns. 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:09.040 Don't you see why we're segregating them. 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:12.800 Number fifty is Goose Tatum, clown with the longest arms 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:15.560 in the spot with his seven foot overall reachie raks 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:17.640 in seven thousand a year from a team which grows 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:18.680 to a million last season. 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:25.160 You would see these situations where maybe Goost Tatum, who 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:29.000 was the lead clown, which lay on the floor and 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:33.000 read read the newspaper while the game was going on 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:37.040 on the other end of the floor, designed to stress 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:43.120 that African Americans were lazy and then we were unresponsible 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:47.080 or weren't mentally engaged in the game. And so you 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:50.840 saw all of these various ways where the stereotypes played 0:22:50.960 --> 0:22:55.280 out in some of the comedic routines of the low tribes. 0:22:57.000 --> 0:23:00.720 It allows the State Department to make the argument that 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:04.520 African Americans don't have full e quality, don't have all 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:09.840 of the opportunities that are available to white Americans because 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:16.040 they are lazy, they're not as intelligent, they are not 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:20.639 ready to occupy a space of full equality. 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:25.400 The State Department needed black success stories that also made 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:33.000 segregation look okay. Enter the Globetrotters and Jesse Owens. And 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:35.720 how did Jesse Owens become involved in all this? 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:41.520 All throughout the nineteen forties, Jesse Owens had traveled sporadically 0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:44.640 with the Harlem Globetrotters and he would serve a variety 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:47.840 of functions. He would serve as the press secretary, the 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:53.159 announcer during the game, and also as halftime entertainment. And 0:23:53.320 --> 0:23:57.639 typically when he performed during halftime, they would set up 0:23:58.160 --> 0:24:02.520 hurdles around the core and Jesse Owens would jump over 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:07.080 the hurdles around the core as they have time entertain 0:24:07.240 --> 0:24:08.280 a spectacle. 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:11.840 At one of the Globetrotter's promoters events, he ran a 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:15.399 race against another black athlete on his hands and knees 0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:17.920 even worse than that horse race in Cuba. 0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:21.920 He writes about that, and he writes about how he 0:24:22.160 --> 0:24:28.640 felt humiliated and felt as if he was being treated 0:24:28.880 --> 0:24:32.080 less than But then he also writes, well, what else. 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:33.080 Was I supposed to do? 0:24:33.600 --> 0:24:33.800 Yeah? 0:24:33.880 --> 0:24:36.000