Speaker 1: Oh, lessons from the world's top professors anytime, any place,
Speaker 1: world history examined and science explained. This is one day
Speaker 1: university Welcome. Then we're back on the untold history of
Speaker 1: sports in America. I'm your host, Mike Coscarelli. Last time
Speaker 1: we discussed the greatest Mohammed Ali. Today we shift our
Speaker 1: focus to the expansion of civil rights protests by athletes
Speaker 1: onto the Olympic stage. In Black American athletes exercise their
Speaker 1: right to protest, some by boycotting and some by attending
Speaker 1: and making another kind of statement. Here's Matt with more So,
Speaker 1: Muhammad Ali was the catalyst for the revolt of the
Speaker 1: black athletes, and the big year of this revolt was
Speaker 1: the eight. The nineteen sixties were a tumultuous decade, and
Speaker 1: in that tumultuous decade, Night was the most tumultuous year
Speaker 1: of all. Ninety eight was a year of national unrest.
Speaker 1: It was the year of the Revolt of the Black Athlete,
Speaker 1: or as I like to call it, it was the
Speaker 1: year of Black Fists. Here's a quick rundown nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 1: It began with the tet Offensive in Vietnam, when Vietnamese
Speaker 1: Communist forces briefly overran the American military in South Vietnam.
Speaker 1: And this was the moment when Americans back home began
Speaker 1: to seriously distrust their political leaders. When it came to Vietnam,
Speaker 1: Americans were being told that they were easily winning this war,
Speaker 1: the victory was in sight, and the shock of the
Speaker 1: tet offensive demonstrated this was not true. You know. Suddenly
Speaker 1: in early nineteen sixty eight, more Americans were against the
Speaker 1: war than were for the war. And this was the
Speaker 1: first time in American street that had ever happened. There
Speaker 1: were political assassinations at home. In April, the civil rights
Speaker 1: figure Martin Luther King Jr. He was shot and killed
Speaker 1: in Memphis. More on this at a moment. In June,
Speaker 1: the Democratic presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. He was gunned down
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles on the night of his victory in
Speaker 1: the California Democratic primary. Kennedy was the candidate who was
Speaker 1: talking about the problem of black poverty in this nation,
Speaker 1: and now he was gone. Then, in the late summer,
Speaker 1: at the Democratic convention in Chicago, youthful protesters converged in
Speaker 1: the city to protest the war in Vietnam, and the
Speaker 1: Chicago police moved in on them and beat the protesters
Speaker 1: day and night. Chicago was a war zone. Americans were
Speaker 1: angry and defiant. This defiance reared its head in the
Speaker 1: world of sports, particularly among black athletes and American universities.
Speaker 1: Just a few quick examples. In nine at the University
Speaker 1: of California at Berkeley, black football players revolted against their coach,
Speaker 1: who demanded that they trimmed their beards and afros. That
Speaker 1: the black athletes refused to play, and their revolt eventually
Speaker 1: led to the dismissal of both the coach and the
Speaker 1: athletic director. At the University of Kansas, black football players
Speaker 1: boycotted practice until the cheerleading squad was integrated. Black athletes
Speaker 1: in Western colleges protested the fact that their university's scheduled
Speaker 1: games and meets against Brigham Young University b y U
Speaker 1: is a Mormon school, and at that time, Mormon Church
Speaker 1: doctrine explicitly denied blacks full membership. African Americans were prohibited
Speaker 1: from the priesthood, and black athletes they took a stand,
Speaker 1: and they protested, and then they were punished. Eight members
Speaker 1: of the Texas Western track team they announced they would
Speaker 1: boycott their upcoming meet against b y U, and their
Speaker 1: coach immediately dismissed all eight of them, including their star
Speaker 1: long jumper Bob Beamon, who will do something very remarkable
Speaker 1: at the Summer Olympics. In just a moment, fourteen members
Speaker 1: of the University of Wyoming football team they were not
Speaker 1: going to boycott their upcoming game against b y U.
Speaker 1: They just told their coach, We're going to wear black
Speaker 1: arm bands in protest of Mormon doctrine. Their coach said,
Speaker 1: not only will you not wear those arm bands, you
Speaker 1: are no longer on the team known as the Black fourteen.
Speaker 1: These fourteen players had revolted, and there was swift retribution.
Speaker 1: Let me briefly point out something here. In three, the
Speaker 1: n ci A changed one of its rules. Before seventy three,
Speaker 1: college athletes were always given four year athletics scholarships. Now
Speaker 1: these scholarships would be on a one year, year to
Speaker 1: year basis. Why do you think this change happened. This
Speaker 1: policy was changed so coaches and administrators could control their athletes.
Speaker 1: They wanted the power to threaten players and kick them
Speaker 1: out of the university for speaking about issues of civil
Speaker 1: rights or or protesting the war In Vietnam, so in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, athletes were part of the rebellion of
Speaker 1: the era. They were insisting that they'd be heard. They
Speaker 1: were saying that sports would no longer be divorced from
Speaker 1: the political issues of the times. But the big bang
Speaker 1: of these nineteen sixty eight protests was the proposed boycott
Speaker 1: among black athletes of the Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
Speaker 1: The idea of black Americans boycotting the Olympics had first
Speaker 1: been proposed four years earlier, in nineteen sixty four. Mal
Speaker 1: Whitfield was a former Olympic medallist. He had won gold
Speaker 1: in the eight hundred meters back in London in ninety eight,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen sixty four, Matt Whitfield wrote an article
Speaker 1: for Ebony magazine and the title was Let's boycott the Olympics.
Speaker 1: He was referring to the nineteen sixty four Olympic Games
Speaker 1: in Tokyo. Whitfield had been one of those athletes we
Speaker 1: talked about last time, who in the nineteen fifties had
Speaker 1: toured the world espousing the wonderfulness of the United States.
Speaker 1: But by nineteen sixty four he was disenchanted with the
Speaker 1: slow pace of change in this country, and he wanted
Speaker 1: white Americans to know his displeasure. The best way to
Speaker 1: get the attention of white Americans, Whitfield believed, was to
Speaker 1: refuse to represent them in the Olympics. You want to
Speaker 1: win the medal count against the Soviet Union, well, good
Speaker 1: luck without us. Whitfield suggestion actually brought little response in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, but four years later, amid all the
Speaker 1: unrest of nineteen sixty eight and the more general revolt
Speaker 1: of the black athletes, the idea was resurrected for the
Speaker 1: Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and this time the proposal
Speaker 1: came from a sociology professor at San Jose State College,
Speaker 1: Dr Harry Edwards. Harry Edwards had been a collegiate discus
Speaker 1: thrower and a basketball player at San Jose State, but
Speaker 1: instead of pursuing an athletic career, he pursued a PhD
Speaker 1: in sociology. He studied and wrote about race, and Edwards
Speaker 1: is the one who most passionately came to articulate the
Speaker 1: idea that black athletes were being used. Specifically, he said
Speaker 1: that they were wrongly being held up by American propagandists
Speaker 1: as proof that all black Americans could succeed in American life.
Speaker 1: In other words, he argued that the success of black athletes,
Speaker 1: these successes were being used to cover up a problematic
Speaker 1: racist system. And Harry Edwards is the guy who said
Speaker 1: no more, No longer will black athletes be held up
Speaker 1: as proof that the system is working, because the system
Speaker 1: is not working. Here is exactly how Edwards put it.
Speaker 1: Here's a quote. We must no longer allow this country
Speaker 1: to use black athletes to rationalize its treatment of the
Speaker 1: black masses, to use a few negroes to point out
Speaker 1: to the world how much progress has been made solving
Speaker 1: racial problems. We must no longer allow the sports world
Speaker 1: to pat itself on the back as a citadel of
Speaker 1: racial justice when the racial injustices of the sports industry
Speaker 1: are legendary. Any black person who allows himself to be
Speaker 1: used in the above manner is not only a chump,
Speaker 1: but he is a traitor to his race because he
Speaker 1: allows racist whites the luxury of resting assured that those
Speaker 1: black people in the ghettos are there because that is
Speaker 1: where they belong or want to be. So, as you
Speaker 1: see here, Edwards is not only saying that the American
Speaker 1: sport its world as racist. He is calling out every
Speaker 1: single black athlete in America and saying you are either
Speaker 1: with us and speaking out against this problem, or you
Speaker 1: are the problem. You either stand with us and speak out,
Speaker 1: or you are a traitor to the race. Definite, hard
Speaker 1: battle lines are being drawn here. It was Dr Edwards
Speaker 1: who came up with the phrase the revolt of the
Speaker 1: Black athlete, and Edwards was very strategic. He very consciously
Speaker 1: played with the idea that this was a revolt, that
Speaker 1: this was a political rebellion. In fact, he himself he
Speaker 1: adopted the uniform of the of the militaristic Black American.
Speaker 1: And he admitted why he did it. He said, you know,
Speaker 1: when he wore his tweed blazer and spectacles, nobody paid
Speaker 1: attention to him. But when he donned his black beret
Speaker 1: and sunglasses, his his black leather jacket. You know, when
Speaker 1: he donned the uniform of the rebel, suddenly Pete Bill
Speaker 1: paid attention. Suddenly they listened. Harry Edwards was reviled among
Speaker 1: the white press, who saw him as an instigator, a troublemaker.
Speaker 1: The hate mail Harry Edwards received it made those threatening
Speaker 1: messages sent to Jackie Robinson look like love letters. Here's
Speaker 1: how much some people hated Harry Edwards. Someone broke into
Speaker 1: his apartment in San Jose, took a decorative machete that
Speaker 1: he had on his wall, and they butchered his two
Speaker 1: Cocker Spaniels. To give organizational bite to this revolt, Harry
Speaker 1: Edwards formed an organization, the Olympic Project for Human Rights.
Speaker 1: So let's say it again, the Olympic Project for Human
Speaker 1: Rights the o p h R. The o p HR
Speaker 1: consisted of Edwards and elite black athletes, and they held
Speaker 1: a press conference in which they outlined their demands and
Speaker 1: if these demands were not met, Edwards said that black
Speaker 1: athletes would refuse to represent the United States at the
Speaker 1: Summer Games. And here's what they wanted. First, they demanded
Speaker 1: the restoration of Muhammad Ali's boxing title and his boxing license.
Speaker 1: That was their very first demand, and I think that
Speaker 1: gives us a sense of how meaningful Ali was to
Speaker 1: this generation. They wanted the dismissal of Avery Brundage, who
Speaker 1: was the American who ran the International Olympic Committee. Avery
Speaker 1: Brundage was was famously anti Semitic, and he showed a
Speaker 1: general disdain for the concerns of black American athletes. In fact,
Speaker 1: Harry Edwards called him slavery Brundage, and the o p HR.
Speaker 1: They wanted him to step down. They demanded that the
Speaker 1: US Olympic team have more black coaches, and they demanded
Speaker 1: that the International Olympic Committee banned the all white Olympic
Speaker 1: Big teams from South Africa and Rhodesia. These were two
Speaker 1: African nations that practiced apartheid and whose governments they're they're
Speaker 1: all white governments. They refused to let black African athletes
Speaker 1: compete under their flags. So their demands were not just
Speaker 1: about racial injustice in the United States. They had a
Speaker 1: global or pan African agenda. In April nineteen sixty, black
Speaker 1: Americans were jolted when Martin Luther King Jr. Was assassinated
Speaker 1: in Memphis, Tennessee. And King's assassin was James Earl Ray,
Speaker 1: who quickly escaped the United States and went to Rhodesia,
Speaker 1: that white controlled African nation I just told you about
Speaker 1: that did not allow black athletes to compete under their flag.
Speaker 1: And it was the murder of Dr King that really
Speaker 1: led many black athletes to seriously considered the boycott, and
Speaker 1: someone who decided in the wake of King's assassination that
Speaker 1: he was going to boy cut was lu al Cinder
Speaker 1: of U c l A, the greatest college basketball player
Speaker 1: ever and someone soon to change his name to Kareem
Speaker 1: Abdul Jabbar. It was in the wake of King's assassination
Speaker 1: that Lou al Cinder said, I cannot represent this country
Speaker 1: at the Olympic Games. After the break, Tommy Smith and
Speaker 1: John Carlos raised their fists at the Olympic medal ceremony.
Speaker 1: In the end, the athletes who did boycott these games
Speaker 1: were basketball players, and I'm not downplaying their decision, but
Speaker 1: I do want to point out that basketball players had
Speaker 1: the NBA ahead of them. There was still another level
Speaker 1: for them, the professional level. But for most of the
Speaker 1: black athletes, the Olympics was their ultimate goal. You know.
Speaker 1: There was no professional track and field career waiting for them.
Speaker 1: So a massive or or general boycott never happened, and
Speaker 1: the plan instead became let's think about ways of using
Speaker 1: the Olympic Games as a stage for protests, and track
Speaker 1: and field seemed to be the best venue for the
Speaker 1: protest and and members of the Olympic Project for human rights.
Speaker 1: These black athletes, they came up with some very interesting ideas.
Speaker 1: For example, someone suggested that after the starting gun sounded,
Speaker 1: black athletes should drop to their knees and crawl, symbolizing
Speaker 1: how black Americans have been hobbled by racism at home.
Speaker 1: Others said, no, no, no, we want to compete. So
Speaker 1: what if we run as hard as we can and
Speaker 1: then we'll stop and we'll sit down right before we
Speaker 1: reached the finish line, a symbolic suggestion that black Americans
Speaker 1: have yet to cross the finish line back at home.
Speaker 1: I think about how dramatic either of those moments would
Speaker 1: have been. Ultimately, these ideas were dismissed. It was unclear
Speaker 1: if anything would happen at all. At the Mexico City
Speaker 1: Summer Olympics. The United States had one of its strongest
Speaker 1: Olympic teams ever. In fact, after years of losing to
Speaker 1: the Soviets in the metal count in the United States
Speaker 1: was back on top, and the US was especially strong
Speaker 1: in track and field. And here are a few of
Speaker 1: the highlights for the Americans. There was the high jumper
Speaker 1: Dick Fosbury, who unleashed a brand new style of jumping
Speaker 1: in these Games. Previously, high jumpers leapt over the bar
Speaker 1: with a face down technique with their with their chest
Speaker 1: facing the ground. This was a technique known as the straddle.
Speaker 1: But Fassbury just never felt comfortable doing the straddle, and
Speaker 1: in a in a moment of desperation, had a track
Speaker 1: meet one year earlier. He had just done something radical.
Speaker 1: He had gone over the bar with his back to
Speaker 1: the ground and his face into the sky. It became
Speaker 1: known as the Fausbury flop. And in these Olympic Games
Speaker 1: Dick Fosbury a different type of athletic rebel. He flopped
Speaker 1: his way to the gold medal. There was Wyoming Attias.
Speaker 1: Tias was the latest of the blazing fast Tennessee State
Speaker 1: Tiger Bells, that school that gave us Wilma Rudolph. At
Speaker 1: these games, Wyoming Attias won gold in the one and
Speaker 1: she had done the same thing four years earlier in
Speaker 1: so Wyoming Attias is the first athlete male or female
Speaker 1: to win the one MS in two consecutive Olympics. And
Speaker 1: then there was the long jumper Bob Beamon, who made
Speaker 1: an incomprehensible leap. If you doubt that man can fly,
Speaker 1: I give you Bob Beeman in the thin air of
Speaker 1: Mexico City. When Beamon took off down the runway, the
Speaker 1: Olympic record in the long jump was twenty seven feet
Speaker 1: four inches. Beamon jumped, he soared, he landed, and the
Speaker 1: officials started to measure his jump, but their measuring tape
Speaker 1: wasn't long enough. They had to find a second tape.
Speaker 1: It took them nearly thirty minutes before they were satisfied
Speaker 1: with their measurement. Twenty nine feet two inches. Beamon had
Speaker 1: obliterated the world record by almost two feet relative to
Speaker 1: the existing record. It's got to be the most remarkable
Speaker 1: performance in Olympic history. So amazing feats all of them.
Speaker 1: But if you say nine Olympics, what most people think
Speaker 1: of is the protest. The men's two sprint featured two
Speaker 1: African Americans, Tommy Smith and John Carlos. They were from
Speaker 1: San Jose State College, where ha Edwards taught. In this event,
Speaker 1: Tommy Smith won gold, John Carlos one bronze, and Peter
Speaker 1: Norman and Australian He finished right in between them in
Speaker 1: second place. At the metal ceremony, all three stood on
Speaker 1: the podium. They received their medals and when the star
Speaker 1: spangled banner began to play. American sport history changed forever.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen photographs of this moment. Tommy Smith
Speaker 1: and John Carlos, they raised their arms and clenched their fists.
Speaker 1: They were wearing black gloves. This, they said, stood for
Speaker 1: the power in the unity of Black America. They were
Speaker 1: not wearing shoes, they had removed them and were standing
Speaker 1: in their socks. This symbolized the material poverty of Black America.
Speaker 1: John Carlos wore beads around his neck. He said this
Speaker 1: signified the black Americans who had been lynched in American history.
Speaker 1: And they were both bow their heads. This was a
Speaker 1: remembrance of Malcolm X and Dr King. King had been
Speaker 1: assassinated just a few months earlier. All three of the athletes,
Speaker 1: including the white athlete Peter Norman of Australia, the silver medalist,
Speaker 1: all three war buttons that said Olympic Project for Human Rights.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the reaction to this moment. When the
Speaker 1: anthem stopped, the booze from the crowd, which was heavily American.
Speaker 1: The booze poured out and as they walked off the track.
Speaker 1: People who were there they reported that the n word
Speaker 1: was yelled multiple times, and Smith and Carlos looked into
Speaker 1: the crowd and they raised their fists once again as
Speaker 1: they walk off the track. Tommy Smith was immediately asked
Speaker 1: by reporters what it meant, and he called it a
Speaker 1: gesture of frustration. He was frustrated with the persistence of
Speaker 1: racism in the United States. Sports writers tried to figure
Speaker 1: out what it all meant. Robert Lipsite was a fairly
Speaker 1: liberal sports writer for the New York Times. He wasn't
Speaker 1: sure what he had just witnessed. He wrote, after all,
Speaker 1: we'd come through this year and this is it. This
Speaker 1: is the mildest, most civil demonstration of the year. What
Speaker 1: does it even mean? Now? I'm not sure what Lipsite
Speaker 1: was expecting. I suppose they could have burned the metal
Speaker 1: stand to the ground Jimmy Hendrick style, but that's what
Speaker 1: he wrote. Other sports writers thought they knew exactly what
Speaker 1: it meant. Jim Graham of the Denver Post called the
Speaker 1: gesture a deliberate, calculated insult to the white people of
Speaker 1: the United States. A reporter for the Los Angeles Times
Speaker 1: called it a Nazi like salute. There was a young
Speaker 1: sportswriter named Brent Musburger. Now he announced his college football games,
Speaker 1: and he was covering the Olympics for a Chicago newspaper,
Speaker 1: and he also aid reference to the Nazis. He called
Speaker 1: Tommy Smith and John Carlos a pair of dark skinned stormtroopers,
Speaker 1: in other words, black Nazis, and then he wrote this
Speaker 1: one gets a little tired of having the United States
Speaker 1: run down by athletes who are enjoying themselves at the
Speaker 1: expense of their country. Protesting and working constructively against racism
Speaker 1: in the United States is one thing, but airing one's
Speaker 1: dirty clothing before the entire world during a fun and
Speaker 1: games tournament was no more than a juvenile gesture by
Speaker 1: a couple of athletes who should have known better. The
Speaker 1: man who was most angry of all was Avery Brundage,
Speaker 1: the head of the IOC, and he gave the United
Speaker 1: States Olympic Committee an ultimatum. Avery Brundage said that Tommy
Speaker 1: Smith and John Carlos had deliberately violated the spirit of
Speaker 1: the Games by bringing politics onto the metal stand. So
Speaker 1: Brundage said that Smith and Carlos had to go. Either
Speaker 1: send Smith and Carlos back to the United States or
Speaker 1: the entire US team would be barred from further competition,
Speaker 1: and so Smith and Carlos were removed from the Olympic village,
Speaker 1: put on a plane, and sent back to the United States.
Speaker 1: The United States Olympic Committee they went into crisis mode.
Speaker 1: They quickly met with all the black athletes and they
Speaker 1: begged them, please don't make any more metal stand gestures.
Speaker 1: And there was a very interesting collision between past and
Speaker 1: present here. The United States Olympic Committee brought in Jesse Owens,
Speaker 1: the hero from n to speak with the present day
Speaker 1: black athletes. Jesse Owens implored the Black Olympians to cool it.
Speaker 1: He begged them not to embarrass their country. He made
Speaker 1: some weird promise that they would all be taken care
Speaker 1: of after the Olympics, and the athletes just laughed at him.
Speaker 1: They said, well, we to be taken care of just
Speaker 1: like you were taken care of, Jesse. Will we get
Speaker 1: to run against horses for a living too. The athletes
Speaker 1: called Jesse Owens a traitor, they called him an uncle Tom,
Speaker 1: and they told him to get out of their face.
Speaker 1: It's a tough moment that illuminates the stark, unflinching generational
Speaker 1: divide in this era. Here was Jesse Owens, the man
Speaker 1: who had raced against Hitler and paved the way in
Speaker 1: some ways for these black athletes, but now here he
Speaker 1: was telling them to just keep quiet and run, and
Speaker 1: in their mind, now he was part of the problem.
Speaker 1: In their mind, Jesse Owens was an apologist for the
Speaker 1: status quo. The divisions of the nineteen sixties, they ran deep.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if there was a moment that illuminates
Speaker 1: those divisions, a moment that illuminates the political passions and
Speaker 1: the divisions of the entire decade more than the reaction
Speaker 1: to Tommy Smith and John Carlos raising their fist on
Speaker 1: the metal stand. For almost a quarter century, ever since
Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson desegregated Major League Baseball, sports had been celebrated
Speaker 1: as being the venue where racial progress was most evident.
Speaker 1: And now these two black American athletes were saying, in
Speaker 1: front of the whole world, it's not true. It's a lie.
Speaker 1: That's all for now. Next time on the Untold History
Speaker 1: of Sports in America, presented by One Day University. Joe
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