If you ask pretty much anyone to name the most
iconic moment where sports and political ideology
clashed, you're going to get one answer. Jesse
Owens. Jesse Owens. The 1936 Berlin Olympics
and those four gold medals. Right. It's a story
that we've all heard. It's been told and retold.
But that standard narrative, you know, the simple
story of a man humiliating Hitler. That's only
half of it. Exactly. It's maybe not even half
the equation. It's the complex, painful and often
unbelievable story of what happened after he
defeated the Nazi myth that really, I think,
defines his legacy. That's the core paradox we
really need to explore today. We've got a mountain
of sources detailing James Cleveland Owens' life
articles, biographies, his own words, which,
you know, shift over time. And they all present
this man who achieved something impossible on
the world stage only to be, well, rejected and
marginalized the second he got home. So for you,
the Larder, we're looking beyond the finish line
of the 100 -meter dash. Way beyond. We're examining
the scale of the societal failure that was just
waiting for him back in the United States. Our
mission in this deep dive is to really connect
the dots. We're going to connect his unparalleled
collegiate dominance, I mean the feats that made
him a legend before he ever stepped foot in Germany,
to the very complex truth of that so -called
Hitler snub. Most crucially, we're going to detail
the frustrating reality of segregation and the
financial desperation he faced. The desperation
that led him to say that famous line. I had four
gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals.
And that single line, I mean, the contrast between
being this global icon and essentially personal
starvation, it's just devastating. We are talking
about a man who on one single day pulled off
what is still considered. The greatest 45 minutes
ever in sport. Setting or tying sixth world record.
In 45 minutes. Then years later, he's literally
racing against animals for pocket change. Understanding
that journey from that miraculous day in 1935
to the harsh economic reality of the 1940s is
just, well, it's essential for grasping the full
depth of his story. Okay, let's unpack this incredible
trajectory, starting with the origins of James
Cleveland Owens, the sharecropper's son, and
how he even became known. as jesse the foundation
of his story is uh it's deep in the american
south he was born james cleveland owens or jc
as his family called him in oakville alabama
back in 1913. youngest of 10 children yeah youngest
of 10 born into a family that was just defined
by the cycle of poverty that was inherent in
the sharecropping system and the historical weight
on that family is immense we're not talking about
some distant history here his grandfather had
been enslaved precisely That wasn't something
you read about in a book for them. It was the
lived reality of his family's economic and social
standing. I mean, the sharecropping system, while
technically post -slavery, was still so economically
binding, often oppressive. to try and break out
of that cycle. When J .C. was nine years old,
his family did what millions of others were doing.
They joined the Great Migration. Got a massive
demographic shift. Right. Millions of African
-Americans leaving the segregated, economically
suppressed rural South, all looking for opportunity
in the industrial urban North. So the Owens family
moves to Cleveland, Ohio. They were looking for
something better. And that move to Cleveland
is actually where the name we all know him by
today came from. It's a simple story really he
gets to his new school his teacher asks for his
name and he says jc he says jc but with his strong
southern accent it must have sounded like jesse
to the teacher and that's it that simple linguistic
misunderstanding that became the name that would
travel the world it stuck for life wow but the
north you know while it offered more economic
opportunities than alabama it was far from easy.
The family still had to fight constantly for
economic stability. And Owens's success as an
athlete, it wasn't some leisure activity. It
was developed around intense labor. He was loading
freight cars, delivering groceries, working in
shoe repair. All of these menial jobs just to
help his family stay afloat while his father
and older brother were at the steel mill. And
that meant his access to training time was incredibly
restricted. Which is where this key figure comes
in. This is where we introduce Charles Riley.
his junior high track coach at Fairmount Junior
High School, who, you could argue, truly altered
the course of history. Because Owens couldn't
practice after school. He couldn't. He had to
go stroke to work. And Riley, this coach, he
recognized this unique dedication, this raw potential.
So instead of forcing Owens to conform to a normal
schedule, Riley made this, I mean, a radical
accommodation that was just critical to his development.
It really was. Riley allowed Owens to practice
before school started. He opened the track for
him, gave him access to facilities, personalized
coaching, all before his workday began. He was
running in the quiet morning hours. That kind
of mentorship, a coach who is willing to bend
the institutional structure for the talent, that's
so often the hinge point in these underdog stories,
isn't it? It absolutely is. It cultivated not
just his skill, but his discipline. And outside
of track, this is also where he met the woman
who would become his lifelong partner. Minnie
Ruth Solomon, right there at Fairmount. They
established their family unit very early, which
speaks to a remarkable stability in a life that
was about to become full of global turbulence.
Yeah, that's a great point. They had their first
daughter, Gloria, in 1932, and then they married
three years later in 35. They went on to have
two more daughters, and their marriage lasted
right until his death in 1980. So that stability,
that was the anchor he needed. Unnecessary anchor,
especially when the rest of his life became so
erratic and frankly, financially stressful. Hashtag
tag 1 .2 high school and collegiate dominance.
The Buckeye bullet. OK, so by the time he gets
to East Technical High School. Owens is already
a national phenomenon. He wasn't just, you know,
good for a high schooler. No, no. He was competing
at what was essentially a professional level
by the early 1930s. The national press was already
following him. By 1933, absolutely. He achieved
feats that just sound impossible for a high school
track star. He equaled the world record in the
100 yards dash. Talking 9 .4 seconds. As a high
school kid, he also set national high school
records in the 220 yards and the long jump. And
I think we need to pause on that 100 -yard record.
It's easy to just drop the number 9 .4, but how
long did that specific high school record stand?
His 100 -yard dash record stood for 34 years.
34 years. Until 1967. Just think of all the changes
in shoe technology, in track surface improvements,
training methodology, all of that evolving over
three and a half decades. And his mark remained
untouched. It's this absolute dominance that
got him recruited to Ohio State University. Where
he earned the moniker the Buckeye Bullet. And
this is where that American paradox, the one
you mentioned earlier, becomes just acutely painful.
The most dominant track athlete in the nation
arrives at a major university. He's generating
immense prestige for them. And yet he was denied
the basic financial support he needed. He attended
OSU without a scholarship. That is a crucial
detail that underpins so much of his later post
-Olympic struggles, isn't it? It's everything.
He was running world record times, but he was
forced to keep working those part time jobs.
Janitor, dry cleaner, gas station attendant.
just to pay his tuition and living expenses.
He was a champion athlete performing for the
school, but he was treated like a second -class,
unpaid laborer. And the segregation he faced
while bringing all this glory to Ohio State was,
I mean, it was just unrelenting, systemic. It
was institutionalized disrespect. Despite being
famous, he was required to live off -campus with
the other African -American athletes. And on
the road. When traveling with the team, he couldn't
stay in the same hotels as his white teammates.
He was restricted to eating carryout or dining
at blacks -only restaurants. The gold standard
athlete was still subject to Jim Crow humiliations
every single day. So his success on the track
didn't grant him any social access. None at all.
So under this incredible pressure, constant work,
constant travel, racial bias, you might expect
his performance to dip, but instead it just,
it peaked. It peaked in a way that is still considered
historically unmatched. He won a record eight
individual NCAA championships. Four in 1935 and
another four in 1936. An achievement that remains
unparalleled in NCAA history. And what's more,
in his junior year, 1936, leading up to the Olympics,
he was completely undefeated. In every event.
In every single one of the 42 events he entered.
This wasn't a flash in the pan. This was sustained,
flawless, collegiate domination. And this level
of dominance, it all culminates in one single
afternoon that has become legendary. May 25,
1935. At the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. We have to dissect this day because
the sheer logistical and athletic impossibility
of what he did in 45 minutes is just mind -boggling.
And before we get to the times, we have to note
the context. Owens was nursing a lower back injury
that day. He wasn't at 100%. Not even close.
The conventional wisdom would have been to save
himself, scratch a few events, focus on the high
-priority ones. But instead... Instead, he pulls
off what historians call... The greatest 45 minutes
ever in sport. A burst of activity between 3
.55 p .m. and 4 p .m. An unbelievable burst.
The pace of the competition itself seems nearly
impossible. I mean, was there any controversy
at the time about the logistical feat of lining
him up for four different events, some requiring
different equipment, in less than an hour? That's
a brilliant point. The logistics alone suggest
an administrative scramble. He had to be checked
in, warmed up, run, recover slightly, change
shoes for the long jump, compete, change again,
and then run two hurdles events. It speaks to
the efficiency and maybe the chaos of track events
back then? It really does. Yeah. But the results,
they were just indisputable. So let's detail
the six record performances. In rapid succession.
First, at 3 .15, he equaled the 100 -yard dash
world record at 9 .4 seconds. Okay. Then, maybe
most staggering of all, at 3 .25, he set the
new long jump world record. The distance was
26 feet, 8 and a quarter inches, or 8 .13 meters.
And that record, 8 .13 meters, it stood for a
quarter of a century. So why? Why did it last
so long? What made that jump so revolutionary?
Its longevity proves its statistical impossibility.
In track and field, records are typically broken
by centimeters, sometimes fractions of a centimeter.
Owens shattered the previous mark by nearly six
inches. Wow. In a sport that relies on physics,
momentum, and tiny technical gains, setting a
record that remains untouched for 25 years, it
implies a massive generational leap. It took
until 1960 for Ralph Boston to finally surpass
it. Exactly. And he wasn't done. He immediately
had to move into the longer sprints. At 3 .45,
he set the world record in the 220 -yard sprint
at 20 .3 seconds. And then at 4 p .m., just minutes
later, he set the world record in the 220 -yard
low hurdles at 22 .6 seconds. And that hurdle
time was particularly significant, right? It
was. He became the first person in history to
break the 23 -second barrier in that event. So
that's four distinct world records or ties right
there. Where do the other two come from? They're
metric equivalents. See, track records at the
time were often recognized simultaneously for
both imperial yards and metric meters. So his
220 -yard flat time. also counted as the world
record for the 200 meter flat sprint and his
220 yard hurdles time also counted as the world
record for the 200 meter hurdles six world records
or ties verified while injured and all within
45 minutes yeah when you lay it out like that
the event wasn't just impressive it was a statistical
anomaly it confirmed that owens was not just
a great athlete but arguably one of the most
uniquely gifted physical specimens the sport
had ever seen. Absolutely. The sources confirm
this single -day achievement was a defining moment
of 20th century athletics. It was selected in
2005 as the most impressive athletic achievement
since 1850. So the Buckeye Bullet was now the
world's most talked about amateur athlete, and
his path was set for Berlin. The world stage
was waiting. OK, let's follow him to Germany
and dissect the complex political theater of
1936. The 1936 games were they were never just
about sports. They were explicitly designed by
Adolf Hitler to be this grand propaganda showcase
for the Nazi regime's ideology, particularly
the myth of Aryan racial supremacy. And the whole
world knew this, which just ratcheted up the
tension enormously before the first race was
even run. And this knowledge, it fueled a significant
and influential boycott movement right here in
the United States. A lot of Americans, especially
civil rights leaders, argued that participating
was, well, it was tacitly endorsing the Nazi
regime. Right. Why go? The NAACP secretary, Walter
Francis White, he strongly urged Owens and other
African -American athletes to withdraw. The argument
was pretty simple. Why should black athletes
who faced rampant discrimination at home go and
lend credibility to a regime built on explicit
racial hatred? And Owens, at first he agreed
with that sentiment. He did. He initially said
that if there was discrimination in Germany,
the U .S. should pull out. So what swung the
decision toward participation? What was the tipping
point? It really came down to political pressure
from the American Olympic establishment, primarily
led by Avery Brundage. We'll be hearing his name
again. Oh, yes. Brundage was the president of
the American Olympic Committee and he was adamantly
opposed to the boycott. He dismissed the boycotters
as un -American agitators. He argued that politics
should be entirely separate from the games. Which
is, of course, a highly ironic stance considering
the host nation was explicitly using the games
for political ends. Right. The sources suggest
that Owens and the others ultimately decided
to compete because, well, for an athlete, the
Olympics are the absolute pinnacle. It's a once
in a lifetime opportunity. So they decided the
best way to confront the Nazi ideology was not
through absence. But through absolute visible
victory. And his inevitable global visibility.
led to a fascinating, very modern development
in the Olympic Village, the first known sponsorship
for a male African -American athlete. It's a
detail that gets overlooked in the grand political
narrative. Adi Dassler, who later founded Adidas,
he personally visited Owens in the Olympic Village.
The German shoemaker himself. Yep. And he persuaded
Owens to wear his innovative Gebruder Dassler
shoe fabric shoes during the competitions. This
moment is so significant. Even while his own
country was systemically marginalizing him, an
international businessman recognized the power
of his brand and his potential. Hashtag, hashtag,
hashtag, 2 .2 the quadruple gold. Okay, so Owens
arrives, the pressure is astronomical, and he
proceeds to deliver just a spectacular athletic
performance. He was the most successful athlete
at the Games, securing four gold medals. The
sources are crystal clear on this. This was a
direct, irrefutable blow to the core of Nazi
propaganda. His victories weren't... quiet, they
were loud, they were measured, and they were
an Olympic record time. ESPN later credited him
with single -handedly crushing Hitler's myth
of Aryan supremacy. That's a good way to put
it. The victories just stacked up so quickly.
Let's go through the sequence day by day. On
August 3rd, he wins the showcase event, the 100
-meter dash, in 10 .3 seconds, defeating his
Ohio State teammate, Rolf Metcalf. Then the next
day, August 4th, was the long jump. where he
achieved 8 .06 meters. And the long jump is inextricably
linked to that story of Luz Long, the German
competitor. We have to clarify that story because
it often gets embellished, doesn't it? It does.
The famous feel -good story is that Long, this
tall, blonde, classically Aryan German, advised
Owens on how to adjust his run -up during the
qualifying round to avoid fouling out. A symbol
of sportsmanship transcending racial hatred.
And while Owens did embrace Long after winning
and spoke very highly of him, later admissions
clarify the timeline. Owens eventually admitted
they didn't meet or exchange advice until after
the competition was already over. So the immediate
assistance is a bit of a myth, but the genuine
friendship and the symbolic defiance in front
of all the Nazi officials, that remains true.
Absolutely. The image of the two of them shaking
hands, celebrating together, that's what matters.
Long was genuinely pleased for Owens, and they
corresponded for years. His actions, regardless
of the timing, they symbolize the ideal of the
Olympics. And Owens just continued his run on
August 5th. He won the 200 -meter sprint in 20
.7 seconds. And interestingly, he defeated another
American athlete who would also leave a significant
mark on history, Mack Robinson. Jackie Robinson's
older brother. The very same. And finally, his
fourth gold came on August 9th in the relay,
but that medal is shaded by some controversy
surrounding the coaching decisions. Indeed. It
was the 4x100 meter relay where the team set
a new world record of 39 .8 seconds. But the
crucial detail is that just hours before the
race, the head coach, Lawson Robertson, replaced
two Jewish -American sprinters. Marty Glickman
and Sam Stoller. He replaced them with Owens
and Ralph Metcalf. Why the last -minute substitution?
Well, the official line was that the American
team was trying to field its strongest possible
team to ensure they got the world record. But
Glickman and Stoller were talented sprinters
who had been training for this. They were. So
the decision was widely viewed both then and
now as appeasement, an effort by American officials
to avoid embarrassing the Nazi regime by presenting
a gold medal to two Jewish athletes. And Owens
himself felt uneasy about the move, didn't he?
He already had three goals. He protested. He
told his coach he felt it was unfair to bench
the other athletes. But the assistant coach,
a man named Dean Cromwell, showing the hierarchy
of power at the time, just dismissed him. He
said, you'll do as you were told. And that was
it. Owens ran, secured the gold, set a world
record, but it was a politically bitter victory
rooted in this compromise of American ideals.
Despite that cloud, though, the sheer athletic
scale of those four golds cemented his legendary
status. It was an unparalleled achievement. That
record of winning the 100 meter, 200 meters long
jump and the four by 100 meter relay in a single
Olympic Games. It stood for nearly five decades.
Right up until Carl Lewis. at the 1984 Los Angeles
games. And his performance really established
a benchmark for track and field supremacy. Hashtag
tag 2 .3, deconstructing the Hitler snub. Now
we arrive at the most famous and maybe the most
misinterpreted moment of the 1936 games. The
Hitler snub. Right. The common historical narrative
is stark. It's simple. Hitler was so enraged
by a black man winning that he refused to acknowledge
Owens. The common narrative certainly captures
the emotional truth of Hitler's racial animus,
but the actual mechanics of the snub are far
more bureaucratic and, well, complex. The primary
sources indicate that the snub was less a spontaneous
act of hatred directed only at Owens and more
a consequence of political compliance with the
IOC. The International Olympic Committee. Right.
So tell us about the mandate that was put in
place. On the very first day of competition.
Hitler had only greeted and congratulated the
German victors. The IOC president at the time,
Henri de Bayer Latour, he intervened. The IOC
mandate was strict. Hitler must either greet
all the medalists, regardless of their country
or race, or he must greet none of them at all.
All or nothing. All or nothing. And Hitler, presumably
unwilling to personally congratulate every single
winner from every nation, opted to skip all the
medal presentations after August 1st. And Owens
won his first gold on August 3rd. Two days after
Hitler was forced to stop greeting winners. So
functionally, Hitler snubbed hundreds of subsequent
medalists, white, non -white, American, German,
everyone, because he chose not to comply with
the IOC's rule of universal greeting. Exactly.
It became this neutral, albeit politically motivated
decision to just absent himself from the ceremonies.
But what's so fascinating is... Owens' own account
of the event, which further complicates that
simple snub narrative. How did Owens describe
the interaction at the time? He was actually
quite measured. He said that Hitler had to leave
before the 100 -meter ceremony. But more importantly,
he claimed that when he was passing Hitler's
box on his way to a broadcast, he waved at me
and I waved back. Wow. And he added, I think
it was bad taste to criticize the man of the
hour in another country. He was defending the
dictator's decorum. Not out of political agreement,
surely, but maybe out of a sense of hospitality
in a foreign land. And we have other conflicting
testimonies that defy the simple narrative of
just pure hatred and refusal. We do. There was
an African -American newspaper editor, Robert
L. Vann, who reported witnessing Hitler salute
Owens for the 100 meter dash on August 3rd, writing
that his heart swelled with pride. And then decades
later. A highly credible British pilot, Eric
Brown, claimed he personally saw Hitler shake
hands and congratulate Owens in a less formal
setting. Plus, documentation shows Hitler did
send Owens a commemorative inscribed cabinet
photograph. So if the public optics of the snub
were messy and potentially exaggerated, where
do we find the true Nazi reaction? What was the
ideological damage Owens actually inflicted?
Oh, that damage is confirmed in the private documentation,
and it was total. Nazi Minister Albert Speer,
one of Hitler's closest confidants, he documented
Hitler's private reaction. And what did he say?
Speer noted that Hitler was highly annoyed by
Owens' triumphs, especially given the games'
propaganda intent. Hitler privately referred
to the black competitors as primitive. Primitive.
Yeah. And he attributed their success not to
training or skill, but to stronger, almost animalistic
physiques, suggesting they should be excluded
from future games entirely. That distinction
is so crucial for you, the learner. Owens didn't
necessarily face a personal direct snub in that
moment, but his success was devastatingly effective
because it drove Hitler to this private... documented
fury. It proved the weakness of the racist ideology
he was trying to promote. It was an ideological
atomic bomb delivered by pure speed. He dismantled
the concept of Aryan supremacy on the world stage.
Yet that victory bought him absolutely no currency
back home. And that transition from global hero
to local outcast is where the story becomes truly
tragic. Let's turn our attention now to the shocking
lack of recognition and the devastating financial
consequences Owens faced upon his return to America.
The contrast when he got home was immediate and
just heartbreaking. The bitter irony is that
in Germany, a country dedicated to racial supremacy,
Owens was allowed to travel and stay in the same
hotels as the white competitors. And then he
gets back to the U .S. And he's instantly plunged
back into the harsh reality of Jim Crow segregation.
He arrived back in New York City to what looked
like a hero's welcome, a ticker tape parade,
the highest honor for a returning figure. was
held for him along the Canyon of Heroes. The
public loved him. The public loved him, but the
institutions do not. The institutional racism
was just waiting for him at the reception. Mayor
Fiorella LaGuardia hosted this grand reception
honoring him at the Waldorf Astoria in New York,
one of the most prestigious hotels in the city.
And to attend the event being held in his honor.
He was famously forced to ride the freight elevator.
Let's just sit with that injustice for a moment.
This man just delivered the most significant
symbolic victory for democracy and equality in
two decades, shattering the propaganda of the
world's most hateful regime. And the institutions
of his own nation won't let him use the front
door or the main lift. It demonstrates that difference
between symbolic temporary fame and real systemic
equality. His athletic achievement was celebrated
as an American victory against a foreign enemy.
But the man himself was still viewed through
the lens of racial hierarchy. He was a symbol
to be deployed, but not an equal citizen to be
respected. And this institutional neglect, it
went right to the top, which was a source of
profound personal resentment for Owens. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, FDR, never invited Owens
to the White House to congratulate him. Not even
a telegram. Not a telegram. Nothing. And this
neglect was devastating, given that every gold
medal winner, especially one who served such
a vital political function, expected some gesture
of recognition. And Owens used that comparison
to Hitler. very deliberately in his later political
life. He did. Owens later became a staunch Republican
and campaigned for Alf Landon against FDR in
the 1936 election. And he explicitly contrasted
the two leaders. He did, remarking at a Republican
rally that, Hitler didn't snub me. It was our
president who snubbed me. Owens understood that
while Hitler's hatred was ideological, FDR's
neglect felt like personal cowardice in the face
of domestic racism. He was actively used by the
Republican Party to capture the African -American
vote, leveraging his fame and his resentment
toward the Democratic administration. Hashtag,
hashtag 3 .2, the struggle for survival. The
political snub was insulting, but the immediate
career -ending betrayal came from the athletic
establishment itself. And we have to return to
Avery Brundage. The same man who opposed the
boycott. Brundage was ruthless. Following the
games, the AAU and the USOC, they immediately
organized this grueling European exhibition tour
to capitalize on Owens' fame and, well, make
money. But Owens was physically and emotionally
drained. He was. He'd run multiple races across
Europe with very little rest or support. He was
also desperate to get home and start earning
some money to support his family. So he made
the difficult decision to leave the tour early.
and Brundage's retaliation was swift and career
-defining. When Owens refused to continue the
relentless unpaid touring, Brundage, clinging
to this rigid ideal of amateurism, prominently
suspended Owens from amateur competition. Which
instantly stripped him of the only currency he
had that mattered in the world of professional
sport, his amateur status. It prevented him from
competing in almost... any major event moving
forward. He was banned from earning money through
legitimate athletic channels. And this decision,
as we noted earlier, it's rooted in his lack
of a scholarship at Ohio State. That's the critical
link. Owens defended his choice by stating he
desperately needed financial opportunities, which
had been impossible to achieve as a working,
unscholarship college athlete. He said simply,
a fellow desires something for himself. The system
demanded he run for free while refusing to give
him the resources to even live comfortably. Exactly.
So the world's most famous athlete was suddenly
barred from competing. The economic opportunities
available to a black man in the 1930s were scarce,
regardless of his global fame. How did he survive?
He was relegated to menial jobs. He worked as
a gas station attendant, a janitor at a playground.
He tried to manage a dry cleaning firm. But the
most shocking and really dehumanizing chapters
of his life involve turning himself into a spectacle
for cash. This is where the infamous horse race
anecdote comes in. He raced not just horses,
but motorbikes and cars, often in these humiliating
novelty events during halftime shows. In county
fairs or minor league baseball parks. Far, far
removed from the glory of Berlin. He had to resort
to racing thoroughbreds and motorcycles for cash
prizes just to feed his family. He admitted these
races were often rigged, noting he'd try to raise
a high -strung horse that would get spooked by
the starting gun, giving him a head start. That
quote, it really bears repeating because it captures
the entire tragic reality. He reflected, people
say it was degrading for an Olympic champion
to run against a horse, but what was I supposed
to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't
eat four gold medals. He described himself as
having sold myself into a new kind of slavery.
I was a spectacle, a freak who made his living
by competing dishonestly against dumb animals.
It's just heartbreaking. And this financial desperation
continued to plague him. The dry cleaning business
failed, which led to serious legal consequences
later in life. Yeah, the struggle culminated
in a real low point in 1966 when, after filing
for bankruptcy, Owens was successfully prosecuted
by the IRS for tax evasion. It was a failure
of financial stability that had nothing to do
with athletic performance and everything. to
do with the lack of professional structure and
support afforded to him in his prime hashtag
tag tag 3 .3 a shifting perspective in public
service the 1940s and 50s saw owens trying to
find some kind of sustainable post -fame career
he briefly toured with a 12 -piece jazz band
in 1937 though we found that equally unfulfilling
but he did find more stability working for ford
motor company He did, from 1942 to 1946. And
his role at Ford speaks to his unique position
as a famous black man in an industrial setting.
He worked in Ford's ad hoc civil rights division,
serving as a liaison educating for African -American
employees within the plants. Later in 1946, he
briefly tried to become a sports entrepreneur
himself. Yeah, he owned the Portland Rosebuds
franchise in the short -lived West Coast Negro
Baseball League. Which unfortunately folded after
just two months. A difficult time for him. But
he finally gained some level of official government
recognition in the mid -1950s, ironically being
repurposed by the very government that had previously
ignored him. In 1955, Republican President Dwight
D. Eisenhower appointed Owens as an ambassador
of sports. He was sent on these extensive goodwill
tours across the world, India, the Philippines,
Malaya, to promote exercise and American ideals
of freedom and economic opportunity. It's a remarkable
late career irony, isn't it? It really is. We
must also address his, uh... controversial initial
stance on the burgeoning civil rights movement
and the Black Power movement of the late 1960s.
He was seen as a member of the accommodating
generation. He was highly critical of the militant
wing of the movement. The most famous example
is his reaction to Tommy Smith and John Carlos'
Black Power salute at the 1968 Summer Olympics
in Mexico City. He publicly denounced them. He
did. He argued their actions were meaningless.
He believed that only economic success and, you
know, quiet demonstration could affect real change.
He stated the black fist is a meaningless symbol.
When you open it, you have nothing but fingers,
weak, empty fingers. The only time the black
fist has significance is when there's money inside.
There's where the power lies. A stance that severely
alienated him from the younger generation of
black athletes who viewed him as having compromised
too much with the white establishment. But his
own life experiences and reflections on his post
-Olympic struggles, they eventually led to a
major published change of heart in the early
1970s. And this reversal is just crucial for
understanding his full legacy. In his 1972 book,
I Have Changed, Owens admitted he was wrong and
he criticized his earlier viewpoint. What did
he write? He wrote, I realize now that militancy
in the best sense of the word was the only answer
where the black man was concerned, that any black
man who wasn't a militant in 1970 was either
blind or a coward. Wow. That's a powerful evolution.
Recognizing that quiet endurance hadn't been
enough to achieve true equality, even for a global
icon like himself. It really is. And in one final
political act relating to the Olympics, he remained
steadfastly committed to the Olympic ideal, being
separate from global politics, even if meant
opposing a sitting Democratic president. Just
months before his death, Owens argued passionately
and unsuccessfully against President Jimmy Carter's
decision to demand a U .S. boycott of the 1980
Moscow Olympics. In protest of the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan? Right. Owens, having lived the
political reality of 1936, strongly believed
the game should be above war and international
disputes. Hashtag, hashtag 3 .4 death and lasting
tributes. Sadly, like many people of his generation,
Owens had a, well, an extremely harmful habit.
He was a heavy cigarette smoker. A pack a day
habit. That lasted for 35 years. Started around
age 32. And that habit tragically caught up to
him relatively young. He was diagnosed with extremely
aggressive drug -resistant lung cancer. And he
died in Tucson, Arizona in March 1980 at age
66, surrounded by his family. He was laid to
rest at Oakwood Cemetery in Chicago. And his
death. It finally brought the kind of universal
high level tribute that had been denied to him
in his earlier struggling years. The tributes
poured in from all over the world. President
Jimmy Carter issued this moving statement, observing
that perhaps no athlete better symbolize the
human struggle against tyranny, poverty and racial
bigotry. And his legacy has been permanently
cemented by honors that continue to accumulate,
ensuring his story is never forgotten. Absolutely.
The U .S. government recognized him with the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 and the
Congressional Gold Medal posthumously in 1990.
His name is an international benchmark now. The
Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium at Ohio State, a
major public park in Los Angeles, and perhaps
most poignantly, the Jesse Owens Alley in Berlin.
The street leading to the Olympic Stadium where
he performed his greatest feat. It is. Even an
asteroid 6758 Jesse Owens bears his name. And
there's that perfect symbolic detail that connects
his four victories right back to the land he
conquered ideologically. The Olympic Oaks. Following
his triumphs, the German Olympic Committee gifted
Owens four English oak saplings, one for each
gold medal. He planted them as living monuments,
one at Ohio State, one in Cleveland where he
trained, and others at various locations. These
trees are a perpetual growing reminder of the
symbolic blow he struck. against tyranny in 1936.
Hashtag tag outro. The life of Jesse Owens is,
I mean, it's fundamentally a study in profound
contradictions. On one hand, you have the pure,
unmatched athletic genius that allowed him to
shatter racial myths on the global stage. On
the other, you have the political and economic
reality that met him at the dock. A reality that
valued his symbolic victory more than it valued
his personal dignity or his family's financial
security. He was a global symbol of American
freedom abroad while simultaneously being a victim
of American segregation at home. We've traced
his path From the sharecropper's son forced to
work before school, through the Day of Days,
Marvel, and the Berlin Champion, all the way
to the suspended professional who raced against
horses just to avoid destitution. Yeah. It leads
us back, inevitably, to that painful reflection
on his post -Olympic hardships. I had jumped
farther and run faster than any man ever had
before, and it left me with next to nothing.
So what does the song mean for you, The Learner?
Jesse Owens' story challenges us to question
the value of symbolic victories in the face of
systemic oppression. He won the grand ideological
battle on the track, but he lost the daily economic
battle for respect and financial security. His
inability to parlay the greatest amateur athletic
achievement in history into a stable professional
life, it just reveals a profound societal failure.
It really does. The provocative thought we want
to leave you with is this. Owens once noted the
difference between the political freedom he promoted
as an ambassador and the economic freedom he
was denied at home. While his athletic feat was
the ultimate expression of individual freedom
and potential, the inability of his country to
grant him professional freedom suggests that
mere talent is never enough to overcome systemic
barriers. His story isn't just about the finish
line. No, it's about the devastating price of
being an unwanted hero. Thank you for joining
us for this deep dive into the unparalleled life
and the enduring, challenging legacy of Jesse
Owens. We'll see you next time.