WEBVTT - Long Jump, Tall Tale 0:00:16.155 --> 0:00:31.435 Pushkin. Hey, last dark, I've listeners. Here's part two of 0:00:31.475 --> 0:00:34.235 my look at Jesse Owens's famous long jump in the 0:00:34.355 --> 0:00:38.235 nineteen thirty six Nazi Olympic Games. If you missed part one, 0:00:38.435 --> 0:00:40.755 maybe give that a listen first. It should be in 0:00:40.795 --> 0:00:43.475 your feed. To hear the rest of our nine part 0:00:43.555 --> 0:00:47.275 Revision's history series on the nineteen thirty six Olympics, head 0:00:47.315 --> 0:00:50.515 over to Revisionist Histories show page and look for the 0:00:50.515 --> 0:01:00.315 episodes titled Hitler's Olympics. Here's the episode. On a warm 0:01:00.395 --> 0:01:03.915 day in August nineteen fifty one, a helicopter appeared in 0:01:03.955 --> 0:01:08.435 the sky above the Berlin Olympics stadium. Seventy five thousand 0:01:08.515 --> 0:01:12.435 people had gathered there to watch a Harlem globetrotter's basketball game. 0:01:13.155 --> 0:01:17.315 The crowd looked up. The chopper circled three times and 0:01:17.435 --> 0:01:18.355 landed on the field. 0:01:18.955 --> 0:01:22.395 The loudspeaker announcer called out attention, attention. 0:01:23.155 --> 0:01:25.675 A black man in a white suit stepped out onto 0:01:25.675 --> 0:01:26.675 the red cinder track. 0:01:26.995 --> 0:01:29.475 Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest run on the world, it 0:01:29.635 --> 0:01:31.075 turned mister Burland. 0:01:33.555 --> 0:01:37.155 Jesse Owens was back in Germany to take a victory lap. 0:01:38.195 --> 0:01:40.435 I had many thoughts as I made the symbolic run 0:01:40.475 --> 0:01:42.915 of victory around the same Red Center track that had 0:01:42.995 --> 0:01:46.875 run so many years before. As I passed each section, 0:01:48.475 --> 0:01:49.955 there was a bridge to the pass. 0:01:51.035 --> 0:01:53.835 The Second World War had ended only six years earlier, 0:01:54.075 --> 0:01:56.315 and Germany, along with the rest of the world, was 0:01:56.355 --> 0:01:59.115 still reckoning with it all. Whatever was left of the 0:01:59.195 --> 0:02:02.835 Nazi leadership had been grilled at the Nuremberg Trials. Berlin 0:02:02.955 --> 0:02:06.795 was rebuilding after Allied bombing campaigns. About eighty percent of 0:02:06.835 --> 0:02:09.915 the city center had been flattened, Yet the stadium the 0:02:09.995 --> 0:02:13.675 Nazis had built for the Olympics was still standing, and 0:02:13.795 --> 0:02:17.355 that day at the Globetrotter's game, Jesse Owens was back 0:02:17.875 --> 0:02:20.755 to take his victory lab and to give a speech. 0:02:23.035 --> 0:02:25.955 Words often fail on occasions like this, he told the 0:02:25.955 --> 0:02:29.675 German crowd, But I remember the good that happened here. 0:02:30.355 --> 0:02:34.195 I remember the fighting spirit and sportsmanship shown by German 0:02:34.235 --> 0:02:39.155 athletes on this field, and here we reached the important part, 0:02:40.475 --> 0:02:46.435 he says, especially by Lutslang of Germany, the man I 0:02:46.515 --> 0:02:48.715 managed to be in the broad jump. 0:02:53.315 --> 0:02:56.715 The crowd came forth with a tremendous role, and the 0:02:56.795 --> 0:02:58.275 cheers are with me today. 0:03:00.395 --> 0:03:03.795 Owens stood for an ovation that one of the globetrotters said, 0:03:03.875 --> 0:03:07.835 lasted a full fifteen minutes. And I think maybe it 0:03:07.915 --> 0:03:12.035 was then standing there watching how hungry that crowd was 0:03:12.075 --> 0:03:15.515 for even this mention of a good German that he 0:03:15.595 --> 0:03:20.235 decided to tell an even bigger story about what happened 0:03:20.475 --> 0:03:25.035 between him and Luteslog at the nineteen thirty six Olympics. 0:03:25.555 --> 0:03:32.395 It was the start of the great long jump tall Tale. 0:03:32.915 --> 0:03:36.475 Hi'm Malcolm Gladwell. Welcome to Revisionist History, my show about 0:03:36.475 --> 0:03:40.795 things overlooked and misunderstood. Throughout this series, we've been looking 0:03:40.795 --> 0:03:45.115 at how people tried to rationalize their participation in Hitno's Olympics, 0:03:45.755 --> 0:03:48.955 and in this episode we've reached the most enduring and 0:03:49.035 --> 0:03:54.115 I think heartbreaking rationalization of all. Jesse Owens his story 0:03:54.475 --> 0:03:59.235 about befriending a Nazi, the story that it seems Owen's 0:03:59.275 --> 0:04:03.875 made up. But why why did Owens need to tell 0:04:03.875 --> 0:04:09.915 a lie? 0:04:13.515 --> 0:04:19.595 Our home was in Alabama and my parents were sharecroppers 0:04:19.595 --> 0:04:20.875 on this particular place. 0:04:22.155 --> 0:04:25.195 In nineteen sixty one, Jesse Owens sat down with an 0:04:25.195 --> 0:04:28.635 interviewer to record in oral History. She a white woman 0:04:28.715 --> 0:04:32.275 in cat's eye glasses and pearls Owens or a suit 0:04:33.235 --> 0:04:36.435 The two sat in midcentury modern armchairs so close their 0:04:36.515 --> 0:04:40.195 knees were almost touching. The curtains were drawn, the room 0:04:40.355 --> 0:04:45.075 was filled with smoke. They spoke for six hours, starting 0:04:45.395 --> 0:04:46.355 at the very beginning. 0:04:48.075 --> 0:04:50.835 What about the people that owned the big house where 0:04:50.835 --> 0:04:52.395 your father was a shared dropper? 0:04:52.835 --> 0:04:54.355 Was this a Negro individual? 0:04:55.155 --> 0:04:55.275 Light? 0:04:57.195 --> 0:05:01.355 The first tape is mostly about Owens's early life, growing 0:05:01.395 --> 0:05:03.595 up one of the youngest of ten brothers and sisters 0:05:03.595 --> 0:05:07.235 in Alabama. He was a sickly kid with a sunny disposition. 0:05:07.875 --> 0:05:12.035 His parents had him late, him their gift child. It 0:05:12.075 --> 0:05:15.395 can be hard to know things for certain about Jesse Owens' life. 0:05:15.755 --> 0:05:19.395 His biographer William J. Baker once wrote of him, Jesse 0:05:19.475 --> 0:05:23.635 Owens was always strong on imagination, weak on literal truth. 0:05:24.635 --> 0:05:27.795 But whatever the facts, I believe his tone of voice 0:05:27.795 --> 0:05:32.035 in this tape, its warmth and its weariness. You hear 0:05:32.075 --> 0:05:35.155 about the setbacks, the time he saw his mother crying 0:05:35.155 --> 0:05:38.355 while folding the laundry because she couldn't afford clothes for him, 0:05:38.915 --> 0:05:40.635 And then you hear about the. 0:05:40.635 --> 0:05:42.915 Triumphs Now, that's where it all began. 0:05:43.955 --> 0:05:46.915 Junior Heins rebala I spoke chapter with the basketball team. 0:05:47.395 --> 0:05:50.195 Chapter in of the track team, captain of the baseball team, 0:05:50.915 --> 0:05:54.835 I was president of the student council, captain about cards. 0:05:56.755 --> 0:05:58.715 I was impressed the first time I heard him list 0:05:58.755 --> 0:06:01.875 all those accomplishments. He was obviously great from the start. 0:06:02.595 --> 0:06:05.635 But the second time I listened, I noticed just how 0:06:05.875 --> 0:06:10.355 worn out he sounds going through that list. That tone 0:06:10.475 --> 0:06:12.315 has a lot to do with how I came to 0:06:12.395 --> 0:06:15.915 understand Jesse Owens. He's telling the story of his life 0:06:15.915 --> 0:06:19.795 in this oral history, but really he just keeps talking 0:06:19.835 --> 0:06:20.955 about one idea. 0:06:21.635 --> 0:06:24.515 She get tired of this sometimes, Oh yes, you get 0:06:24.555 --> 0:06:25.955 tired of living in a glass bowl. 0:06:26.955 --> 0:06:30.835 Living in a glass bowl. But it's a. 0:06:32.915 --> 0:06:37.115 It's a wonderful thing to help people to recognize you, 0:06:37.355 --> 0:06:42.275 people to admire you for your ability, but sometimes people 0:06:42.355 --> 0:06:46.275 forget your human being. People were looking, everybody's eyes were 0:06:46.355 --> 0:06:49.355 upon you, and it would scrutinize everything that you did, 0:06:50.195 --> 0:06:51.955 and so therefore you had to be very, very careful 0:06:51.995 --> 0:06:54.275 of what of the things that you did, and it's. 0:06:55.915 --> 0:06:56.515 A tough thing. 0:06:56.595 --> 0:06:59.995 Sometimes. By the time he taped this interview, people had 0:06:59.995 --> 0:07:03.875 been telling stories about Jesse Owens, mythologizing him for decades. 0:07:04.275 --> 0:07:06.195 You can even hear of the interview we're doing it. 0:07:06.715 --> 0:07:08.195 How did all this make you feel? 0:07:08.315 --> 0:07:11.395 Now, Remember, you're a you're you're a youngster from the 0:07:11.435 --> 0:07:15.315 cotton fields of Alabama, and this is all relatively new 0:07:15.395 --> 0:07:18.675 to you. And suddenly you're you're you're the captain of 0:07:18.715 --> 0:07:21.595 so many things, and you're a well, a good suit 0:07:21.795 --> 0:07:22.915 and people like you. 0:07:23.155 --> 0:07:26.115 And when you felt like you were somebody, you know? 0:07:26.715 --> 0:07:29.675 And that, I think is that the heart of why 0:07:29.755 --> 0:07:32.915 Jesse Owens made up that story about Lutslog helping him 0:07:32.995 --> 0:07:36.035 during the broad jump qualifying rounds and about their friendship 0:07:36.075 --> 0:07:41.435 all those years afterwards. First being an athlete made him somebody, 0:07:41.635 --> 0:07:44.635 then when that was done, telling stories about it kept 0:07:44.675 --> 0:07:48.995 him with somebody. But he was black in early twentieth 0:07:49.035 --> 0:07:52.275 century America, which meant that as soon as he started 0:07:52.275 --> 0:07:55.035 to be somebody, he had to play the two crowds, 0:07:55.715 --> 0:07:59.235 the white people giving him opportunities and the black people 0:07:59.395 --> 0:08:02.475 who wanted him to use his status to change things. 0:08:03.395 --> 0:08:05.995 If you're the first to come along, you're a pioneer. 0:08:06.355 --> 0:08:09.395 You represent not just yourself, which you represent your category. 0:08:09.475 --> 0:08:11.555 And he's being asked to represent his category in a 0:08:11.555 --> 0:08:14.195 way that no obviously, no white athlete is being asked 0:08:14.235 --> 0:08:15.195 to represent a category. 0:08:15.275 --> 0:08:18.475 Yeah, And I actually think what's striking looking at Jesse 0:08:18.475 --> 0:08:21.235 Owens's life is how really that starts for him. I mean, 0:08:21.275 --> 0:08:24.235 it's really he's sort of a superlative athlete from a 0:08:24.315 --> 0:08:27.675 very young age, and then this just keeps happening to him. 0:08:27.915 --> 0:08:30.595 It was the same when people started boycotting the nineteen 0:08:30.675 --> 0:08:33.715 thirty six Olympics, wondering if he would too. 0:08:34.395 --> 0:08:35.715 He's at the time, how old. 0:08:36.355 --> 0:08:37.355 I think he's twenty two. 0:08:37.675 --> 0:08:40.235 So we have this kid who is being asked to 0:08:40.315 --> 0:08:45.515 parse one of the most complicated kind of moral and 0:08:46.555 --> 0:08:50.435 political questions of the time, and he's being torn in 0:08:50.475 --> 0:08:51.835 two directions. 0:08:52.395 --> 0:08:54.995 At first, Jesse Owens seemed to see the situation in 0:08:55.035 --> 0:08:59.435 Germany clearly, the violence and the discrimination, and he supported 0:08:59.435 --> 0:09:02.155 the boycott. He knew what it was like living in 0:09:02.155 --> 0:09:05.955 the United States under Jim Crow and segregation. He said 0:09:06.035 --> 0:09:09.955 in a radio interview that quote, if there is discrimination 0:09:10.075 --> 0:09:13.595 against minorities in Germany, then we must withdraw from the Olympics, 0:09:14.155 --> 0:09:18.435 to which his white coach, Larry Snyder responded, basically, suit yourself, 0:09:18.515 --> 0:09:21.355 but if you skip the Olympics, you're going to be 0:09:21.595 --> 0:09:26.315 and this is his exact phrase, A forgotten man. The 0:09:26.355 --> 0:09:31.795 opposite of a somebody. In the end, eighteen black athletes 0:09:31.835 --> 0:09:34.115 went to Berlin with the US Olympic team that year. 0:09:35.115 --> 0:09:37.875 Each of them had to wrestle privately with the question 0:09:37.995 --> 0:09:41.275 of whether or not to participate, but because of the 0:09:41.275 --> 0:09:44.795 Glass Bowl, Jesse Owens had to do it in public. 0:09:46.155 --> 0:09:49.115 There were endless opinions about what he should do. Even 0:09:49.115 --> 0:09:52.915 the secretary of the NAACP, Walter White, had an opinion 0:09:53.275 --> 0:09:56.115 best represented in a letter to Owens that he drafted 0:09:56.155 --> 0:10:00.635 but never sent, which now sits in the archives. I 0:10:00.755 --> 0:10:03.955 fully realize how great a sacrifice it will be for 0:10:03.995 --> 0:10:05.635 you to give up the trip to Europe and to 0:10:05.675 --> 0:10:09.795 forego the acclaim which your athletic prowess will unquestionably bring you. 0:10:10.595 --> 0:10:13.315 On the other hand, it is my firm conviction that 0:10:13.355 --> 0:10:16.435 the issue of participation in the nineteen thirty six Olympics, 0:10:16.475 --> 0:10:20.515 if held in Germany under the present regime, transcends all 0:10:20.595 --> 0:10:24.675 other issues. Participation by American athletes, and especially by those 0:10:24.755 --> 0:10:26.995 of our own race, which has suffered more than any 0:10:27.035 --> 0:10:31.315 other from American race hatred, would I firmly believe, do 0:10:31.555 --> 0:10:36.555 irreparable harm the very pre eminence of American negro athletes. 0:10:36.595 --> 0:10:39.755 Gives them an unparalleled opportunity to strike a blow at 0:10:39.875 --> 0:10:42.995 racial bigotry and to make other minority groups conscious of 0:10:43.035 --> 0:10:46.675 the sameness of their problem with ours. If the Hitlers 0:10:46.715 --> 0:10:51.195 and Mussolini's of the world are successful, it is inevitable 0:10:51.275 --> 0:10:56.075 that dictatorships based upon prejudice will spread throughout the world. 0:10:56.955 --> 0:11:00.115 White never sent that letter, but it captured how a 0:11:00.115 --> 0:11:02.835 lot of people understood the stakes of the choice that 0:11:02.955 --> 0:11:07.115 Jesse Owens had to make deny his Olympic dreams for 0:11:07.195 --> 0:11:10.475 the good of Black America or go to the games 0:11:11.115 --> 0:11:11.915 at their expense. 0:11:13.475 --> 0:11:15.275 But you could have given up at this point. You 0:11:15.355 --> 0:11:19.475 didn't have to go on with it. If the recognition 0:11:19.555 --> 0:11:23.475 and the status hadn't been as important to you as 0:11:23.475 --> 0:11:26.075 it was, you could have sat un through with this nonsense. 0:11:26.075 --> 0:11:28.075 I'm going to finish my education and the one and 0:11:28.155 --> 0:11:31.395 become a lawyer or something else. 0:11:32.435 --> 0:11:37.515 Well, this you could have done. But yet and still 0:11:37.595 --> 0:11:42.115 you feel that here you are, where people have made 0:11:42.115 --> 0:11:46.035 it possible for you to start. Why at this point 0:11:46.795 --> 0:11:51.955 become See you're not any greater, then the people will 0:11:51.995 --> 0:11:56.875 make you. You can do a number of things. But 0:11:56.995 --> 0:12:01.195 if the people are not with you, then who knows about. 0:12:01.475 --> 0:12:08.235 Leave the gospel, become a forgotten man. So Jesse Owens 0:12:08.475 --> 0:12:11.995 went to the Olympics with everyone watching, and he made 0:12:12.035 --> 0:12:15.515 a miracle athleteca coming second up on it. 0:12:16.635 --> 0:12:17.955 Makes the others look as if they're working. 0:12:18.555 --> 0:12:21.475 He won gold medals in each of his events, the 0:12:21.515 --> 0:12:24.275 one hundred and two hundred meters dashes, the one hundred 0:12:24.275 --> 0:12:27.955 meter relay, in that legendary broad jump, and for a 0:12:27.955 --> 0:12:30.355 lot of people, all those medals seemed to validate his 0:12:30.475 --> 0:12:34.035 choice to go. He'd proven Hitler wrong with every step, 0:12:34.355 --> 0:12:40.195 so much Farian supremacy. That's where the story of Jesse 0:12:40.275 --> 0:12:44.155 Owens usually ends, but there's so much more to it. 0:12:46.315 --> 0:12:48.715 After the track and field events, in nineteen thirty six, 0:12:49.035 --> 0:12:51.875 the athletes toured Europe for a series of track meets. 0:12:52.435 --> 0:12:55.795 Avery Brandage, Newly, a member of the International Olympic Committee, 0:12:55.795 --> 0:12:59.475 had organized it with the Amateur Athletic Union. The organizations 0:12:59.515 --> 0:13:02.355 would pocket their cut of the ticket sales, but the 0:13:02.395 --> 0:13:06.155 athletes couldn't make money from the meets. Remember the games 0:13:06.195 --> 0:13:09.875 were for amateurs, no money for sport. Jesse Owens, this 0:13:09.915 --> 0:13:12.875 one said. All we athletes get out of this Olympic 0:13:12.955 --> 0:13:15.955 business is a view out of a train or airplane window. 0:13:16.475 --> 0:13:21.115 It gets tiresome, it really does, staring out those windows. 0:13:21.395 --> 0:13:24.755 I think he had started to contemplate his future, and 0:13:24.835 --> 0:13:27.355 I don't think he liked what he saw. They were 0:13:27.435 --> 0:13:30.275 expected to keep training, compete for a few more years 0:13:30.315 --> 0:13:33.155 until their bodies started to fall apart. Maybe there'd be 0:13:33.155 --> 0:13:37.955 another Olympic Games. But then what Owens didn't come from 0:13:37.995 --> 0:13:40.475 a rich family. He'd barely had the time to get 0:13:40.515 --> 0:13:43.555 an education with all his training. What kind of job 0:13:43.595 --> 0:13:46.955 could he do once his athletic career was over. After 0:13:46.955 --> 0:13:51.915 the Berlin Games, he was really famous. Offers had started 0:13:51.915 --> 0:13:54.835 to come in. Twenty five grand for two weeks with 0:13:54.875 --> 0:13:58.595 an orchestra in California, forty grand for ten weeks of 0:13:58.595 --> 0:14:02.275 shows with the entertainer Eddie Canter. Now that's serious money. 0:14:02.435 --> 0:14:06.235 In nineteen thirty six, that was a fortune. He began 0:14:06.315 --> 0:14:10.035 to think about leaving the tour and going home. Could 0:14:10.035 --> 0:14:14.715 be rich, but going professional would be violating Olympic rules 0:14:15.315 --> 0:14:18.315 and missing the rest of the tour would too. He 0:14:18.315 --> 0:14:22.115 could never compete at the Olympics again. Those were the rules, 0:14:23.715 --> 0:14:30.515 rules enforced by Avery Brandage, who took amateurism extremely seriously. 0:14:31.555 --> 0:14:35.035 After the Berlin Games, a reporter asked him about rumors 0:14:35.115 --> 0:14:38.195 that Owens was going to quit the post Olympics tour, and. 0:14:38.275 --> 0:14:42.155 I'd understand the Bandage that the received information that Owen 0:14:42.275 --> 0:14:43.995 will not go to the top. 0:14:44.275 --> 0:14:45.595 Doc Colney will not appear. 0:14:45.755 --> 0:14:48.915 I hope that Owen will be build engagement when one 0:14:48.915 --> 0:14:51.075 of the Pinot boys we've had, and we hope that 0:14:51.155 --> 0:14:54.715 there will be nothing to mar this record. 0:14:55.635 --> 0:14:59.035 These were crocodile tears. By the time he gave that interview, 0:14:59.235 --> 0:15:02.075 Avery Brandage already knew that Jesse Owens had a ticket 0:15:02.275 --> 0:15:05.995 for a steamer back to the United States leaving before 0:15:06.035 --> 0:15:06.835 the end of that tour. 0:15:07.555 --> 0:15:10.595 Well, I just hope that all these up the room mud. 0:15:11.275 --> 0:15:15.195 Jesse Owens was banned for life from amateur sport. The 0:15:15.315 --> 0:15:18.555 nineteen thirty six Games would be the last act and 0:15:18.595 --> 0:15:21.915 the pinnacle of his athletic career. He went to the 0:15:21.955 --> 0:15:24.995 press with a rare complaint. I came over to Europe 0:15:24.995 --> 0:15:28.435 with only ten dollars in my pocket. To make matters worse, 0:15:28.555 --> 0:15:32.115 I've lost six pounds being pushed around and circused all 0:15:32.155 --> 0:15:34.915 over Europe. They sent me to Prague from Cologne without 0:15:34.915 --> 0:15:36.595 a cent and I had to run a race in 0:15:36.635 --> 0:15:39.395 Prague without having had an ounce of food for ten hours. 0:15:40.235 --> 0:15:43.835 I am turning professional because I'm busted and know the 0:15:43.875 --> 0:15:47.035 difficulties encountered by any member of my race in getting 0:15:47.075 --> 0:15:51.195 financial security. I want to get some money while I'm 0:15:51.195 --> 0:15:54.115 in the spotlight. He tried to make the most of it. 0:15:54.435 --> 0:15:58.315 He became an entertainer, even tried tap dancing, and along 0:15:58.355 --> 0:16:00.755 the way he was working to keep up with sports too, 0:16:01.475 --> 0:16:03.635 But it was like everything had gone a little sour. 0:16:04.035 --> 0:16:06.635 He was supposed to race against another amateur in Cuba, 0:16:06.755 --> 0:16:11.195 a sprinter, until Avery brundagecaw wind and said he'd banned 0:16:11.235 --> 0:16:14.035 that sprinter from American amateur sport if he went through 0:16:14.075 --> 0:16:17.355 with the race, so they replaced the guy with a 0:16:17.395 --> 0:16:18.995 horse Cuba. 0:16:19.435 --> 0:16:23.075 Jesse Owens, the Ebonistrick of Olympic Games, celebrates turning professional 0:16:23.075 --> 0:16:24.355 by racing against a horse. 0:16:24.555 --> 0:16:26.195 Jesse had a start at forty yards and one. 0:16:26.155 --> 0:16:29.435 Hundred and he won by injes and oh a lot. 0:16:33.075 --> 0:16:36.955 So when Jesse Owens went professional, that essentially was the 0:16:37.035 --> 0:16:40.395 choice he made to spend the rest of his life 0:16:40.875 --> 0:16:45.235 reliving those two weeks. In August nineteen thirty six, he 0:16:45.395 --> 0:16:48.555 was trapped as if he jumped into that broad jump 0:16:48.635 --> 0:16:54.355 pit and sunk to his knees in quicksand which is 0:16:54.355 --> 0:16:57.195 not to say that it wasn't also a good life. 0:16:57.315 --> 0:17:00.835 He had three daughters, He was involved in presidential campaigning. 0:17:01.115 --> 0:17:03.235 He ran a fitness program during the war for the 0:17:03.315 --> 0:17:06.875 US Office of Civilian Defense. He led a big life, 0:17:07.675 --> 0:17:10.235 but in order to do all the other stuff, he 0:17:10.275 --> 0:17:12.435 had to keep the dream of those two weeks alive. 0:17:12.995 --> 0:17:15.555 You can even hear this in that oral history when 0:17:15.595 --> 0:17:17.835 they start on that third tape, Jesse Owens is in 0:17:17.875 --> 0:17:20.435 the middle of talking about his actual life now in 0:17:20.475 --> 0:17:23.835 the nineteen sixties. He's complaining about some business deal that 0:17:23.915 --> 0:17:24.435 went south. 0:17:24.555 --> 0:17:26.235 Deal for me and I got to sing over to 0:17:26.275 --> 0:17:28.395 the bank and I made a mistake by not having 0:17:28.435 --> 0:17:30.275 two sources, you know. 0:17:30.435 --> 0:17:32.755 So again this was a guy with a life. But 0:17:32.915 --> 0:17:36.435 the interviewer is like, yeah, sure, sure, what about the Olympics? 0:17:36.475 --> 0:17:40.675 Though, what else is new? Jesse, Let's go way back 0:17:40.795 --> 0:17:47.715 now to nineteen thirty six and reminisce about the Olympics. 0:17:47.755 --> 0:17:49.955 I'm sure that you have told this story how many 0:17:50.035 --> 0:17:53.075 hundreds of times to how many papers and magners using 0:17:53.115 --> 0:17:58.475 this person, and this has been broadcast certainly then many times, 0:17:58.515 --> 0:18:01.515 but for the Historical Library would like to have a 0:18:01.555 --> 0:18:06.475 record of the Olympics in your own words, the feeling. 0:18:06.195 --> 0:18:10.115 That you had when you His job was telling the 0:18:10.155 --> 0:18:13.675 story of the Olympics. And once she asks, he gets 0:18:13.755 --> 0:18:14.235 right to it. 0:18:14.515 --> 0:18:19.075 I remember it was in July July the fourth of 0:18:19.315 --> 0:18:23.035 nineteen thirty six when we had the final tryouts for 0:18:23.235 --> 0:18:27.235 the Olympics at Randos Island, and that was the fourth. 0:18:27.315 --> 0:18:30.235 But the thing about telling one story for your entire 0:18:30.315 --> 0:18:33.155 life is that the meaning of that story has to 0:18:33.235 --> 0:18:36.155 keep changing with the times, to stay marketable, to keep 0:18:36.235 --> 0:18:39.795 enough eyes on that glass bowl. And in nineteen fifty one, 0:18:40.435 --> 0:18:43.195 at that halftime speech during the Harlem Globe Trotter's game, 0:18:43.835 --> 0:18:50.635 he discovered its most powerful edition, Loots Long. We'll be 0:18:50.755 --> 0:19:02.995 right back. I guess first, can you tell me about 0:19:03.475 --> 0:19:06.435 that Globe Trotter's game in the Berlin Stadium in nineteen 0:19:06.515 --> 0:19:11.755 fifty one. Sure, I'm talking to Damien L. Thomas, Curator 0:19:11.795 --> 0:19:15.355 of Sports at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American 0:19:15.395 --> 0:19:19.035 History and Culture. He's the author of the book Globe Trotting, 0:19:19.395 --> 0:19:22.275 African American Athletes and Cold War Politics. 0:19:23.435 --> 0:19:29.075 The Harlem Globetrotters were just starting to travel internationally, and 0:19:29.115 --> 0:19:32.315 they had played a game in Frankfurt a couple of 0:19:32.395 --> 0:19:36.515 days before, and one American official had asked them to 0:19:36.555 --> 0:19:41.395 play this game in West Berlin because at the time, 0:19:42.075 --> 0:19:45.715 the Soviets were doing a lot of festivals, a lot 0:19:45.715 --> 0:19:50.355 of exchanges, and they wanted to ensure that the US 0:19:50.435 --> 0:19:53.155 and the West was able to tell their own story. 0:19:54.115 --> 0:19:56.595 In the Cold War, the US and the USSR were 0:19:56.595 --> 0:19:58.595 fighting for the hearts and minds of the rest of 0:19:58.635 --> 0:20:03.275 the world, which led them bizarrely straight to the Harlem Globetrotters. 0:20:03.955 --> 0:20:09.035 The Harlem Globetrotters basketball Wizard's extraordinary their patents planned them 0:20:09.075 --> 0:20:11.595 bring in play sandy capers that made them the most 0:20:11.635 --> 0:20:13.795 popular team in the history of the sport. 0:20:14.395 --> 0:20:17.195 Before the NBA was a big deal, before black people 0:20:17.275 --> 0:20:20.875 played even college basketball and any great numbers, the Heartlem 0:20:20.875 --> 0:20:25.395 Globetrotterers were kind of traveling basketball circus. True to the name, 0:20:25.835 --> 0:20:26.475 they were all. 0:20:26.315 --> 0:20:31.035 Over the place, Harlem Groctore. 0:20:31.355 --> 0:20:34.195 It was a major operation run by one of the 0:20:34.195 --> 0:20:37.875 most infamous and ruthless sports promoters of all time, a 0:20:37.875 --> 0:20:39.955 white guy named Abe Sapperstein. 0:20:40.275 --> 0:20:43.515 I'm gooi twelve, Come on, let's push again. 0:20:44.595 --> 0:20:46.755 You've probably seen footage of them playing a lot of 0:20:46.795 --> 0:20:51.875 fake passes, improbable shots, and goofing around, except they're totally 0:20:51.915 --> 0:20:57.555 incredible at basketball, even in slow motion. They're magical hands 0:20:57.595 --> 0:21:02.875 fool you. I was talking to Damian Thomas though, because 0:21:02.915 --> 0:21:06.715 underneath the goofiness there was something more sinister going on. 0:21:07.275 --> 0:21:11.475 The Harlem Lowe Trotters were also so deeply tied to 0:21:11.675 --> 0:21:15.515 minstro se, which was the dominant form of entertainment in 0:21:15.555 --> 0:21:22.595 America from the eighteen eighties through the nineteen early nineteen fifties. 0:21:23.075 --> 0:21:26.675 The players, almost all black Americans, were often referred to 0:21:26.915 --> 0:21:28.715 as clowns. 0:21:28.835 --> 0:21:31.195 Meet the most colorful comedy acting in present day. Spot 0:21:31.515 --> 0:21:34.115 Purists say they make a mockery of the game. They clown, 0:21:34.235 --> 0:21:35.275 they juggle, they fool. 0:21:35.995 --> 0:21:38.635 But where some people might see a kind of basketball circus, 0:21:39.155 --> 0:21:42.195 the State Department saw the perfect propaganda weapon. 0:21:43.235 --> 0:21:47.435 People often didn't think of sports as having ideological content, 0:21:48.155 --> 0:21:53.355 and so whereas other forms of American culture would be 0:21:53.435 --> 0:21:58.595 resisting sometimes Coca cola, sometimes blue jeans, rock and roll, 0:21:58.755 --> 0:22:03.915 and American movies were shunt people often welcomed basketball because 0:22:03.915 --> 0:22:07.635 they didn't think of it as as had been in 0:22:07.715 --> 0:22:12.115 a propagandistic function. But it did, and it's one of 0:22:12.155 --> 0:22:15.515 the things that made it very important is that people 0:22:15.595 --> 0:22:19.595 didn't see it as containing hidden messages. 0:22:21.675 --> 0:22:24.435 A lot of Soviet propaganda during the Cold War called 0:22:24.435 --> 0:22:27.915 out the lie of American equality. The US might talk 0:22:27.955 --> 0:22:31.355 about all people being equal, but the country was segregated 0:22:31.715 --> 0:22:34.355 and really only white people had a shot at a 0:22:34.395 --> 0:22:38.355 decent quality of life. It was true and a particularly 0:22:38.475 --> 0:22:41.795 useful message for the USSR trying to get African and 0:22:41.875 --> 0:22:45.355 Asian countries to align with them instead of the US. 0:22:46.395 --> 0:22:49.715 So the United States responded with a big hidden message 0:22:49.795 --> 0:22:55.115 about the globetrotters, a message with two parts. First part, hey, 0:22:55.155 --> 0:22:58.035 look we have wealthy black people in this country, and 0:22:58.115 --> 0:23:02.315 the second, much more sinister part, look at these clowns. 0:23:02.915 --> 0:23:05.475 Don't you see why we're segregating them. 0:23:05.955 --> 0:23:09.195 Number fifty is Goose Tato, clown with the longest arms 0:23:09.195 --> 0:23:11.915 in the spot with his seven foot overall reachie rakes 0:23:11.995 --> 0:23:14.035 in seven thousand a year from a team which grows 0:23:14.075 --> 0:23:15.075 a million last season. 0:23:15.795 --> 0:23:21.595 You would see these situations where maybe Goose Tatum, who 0:23:21.675 --> 0:23:25.555 was the lead clown, which lay on the floor and 0:23:25.675 --> 0:23:29.675 read read the newspaper while the game was going on 0:23:29.675 --> 0:23:33.435 on the other end of the floor, designed to stress 0:23:33.475 --> 0:23:39.515 that African Americans were lazy and then we were unresponsible 0:23:39.915 --> 0:23:43.515 or weren't mentally engaged in the game. And so you 0:23:43.595 --> 0:23:47.275 saw all of these various ways where the stereotypes played 0:23:47.315 --> 0:23:51.635 out in some of the comedic routines of the low tribes. 0:23:52.635 --> 0:23:57.235 It allows the State Department to make the argument that 0:23:57.355 --> 0:24:01.115 African Americans don't have full quality, don't have all the 0:24:01.235 --> 0:24:08.915 opportunities that are available to white Americans because they are lazy, 0:24:09.395 --> 0:24:15.555 they're as intelligent, they are not ready to occupy a 0:24:15.635 --> 0:24:17.035 space of full equality. 0:24:17.995 --> 0:24:21.835 The State Department needed black success stories that also made 0:24:21.835 --> 0:24:29.515 segregation look okay. Enter the Globetrotters and Jesse Owens And 0:24:29.875 --> 0:24:32.195 how did Jesse Owens become involved in all this? 0:24:32.875 --> 0:24:37.955 All throughout the nineteen forties, Jesse Owens had traveled sporadically 0:24:37.995 --> 0:24:40.515 with the Harlem Globe Trotters and he would serve a 0:24:40.595 --> 0:24:43.795 variety of functions. He would serve as the press secretary, 0:24:44.195 --> 0:24:48.555 the announcer during the game, and also as halftime entertainment. 0:24:49.515 --> 0:24:53.835 And typically when he performed during halftime, they would set 0:24:53.955 --> 0:24:58.675 up hurdles around the court and Jesse Owens would jump 0:24:58.715 --> 0:25:04.715 over the hurdles around the core as a halftime entertainment spectacle. 0:25:05.395 --> 0:25:08.235 At one of the Globetrotters promoters events, he ran a 0:25:08.315 --> 0:25:11.355 race against another Black Castle fleet on his hands and 0:25:11.435 --> 0:25:14.635 knees even worse than that horse race in Cuba. 0:25:14.795 --> 0:25:18.315 He writes about that, and he writes about how he 0:25:18.515 --> 0:25:25.075