MEXICO CITY REVISITED

In today's excerpt, the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City:

"Three months after [Robert Kennedy's killing, the real world again insinuated itself into sports. Again, ABC Sports, [Roone] Arledge, and [Howard] Cosell were there. Ten days before the 1968 Olympics were to begin in Mexico City, nearly ten thousand people gathered to protest the nation's expenditures on games when millions of Mexicans lived in poverty. Gunfire from soldiers and police killed more than two hundred protesters. ...

"Late in the games, the black American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos finished first and third at two hundred meters. They were proteges of black activist Harry Edwards, a professor at San Jose State. ... At a press conference alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., and Floyd McKissick of the Congress of Racial Equality, Edwards proposed a boycott of the Mexico City games unless certain demands were met. Those demands included barring South Africa and Rhodesia from the Olympics, [and] the hiring of black coaches and officials on the U.S. team ..."

No boycott developed, but Arledge expected something. ... Then, there it was, the something. As Smith and Carlos stepped onto the victory stand to receive their gold and bronze Olympic medals, they were barefoot. Their heads were bowed. Each wore one black glove. As Arledge watched the scene on a control room monitor, he shouted to directors and camera operators: 'Get in there!' He wanted close up pictures of Smith and Carlos. He said, 'This is Black Power!' In a city where people had been killed by government action during peaceful protests, in a time when black Americans protested institutionalized racism, Arledge was prepared. He recognized the social and political significance of the Smith-Carlos scene. Rather than turn ABC's camera away to preserve the IOC's pretension that politics played no part in the Olympics, Arledge shouted again, 'Get in on them!'

"[In an interview with Cosell soon after, Smith explained,] "The fist to show Black Power, the strength and unity of black people. The shoeless feet to show the anguish of black people all through the years. The bowed head because the words of the anthem were not being applied to blacks. ...

"The Warren (Ohio) Tribune ... printed a full-page, black-bordered broadside with the headline: 'SHAME ON HOWARD COSELL--AND SHAME ON ABC.' "NOTE: Edward's call for a boycott was ahead of its time. In 1980, the U.S. "asked African nations to boycott Moscow [even though] the U.S. had refused to join twenty-nine African nations in a boycott of South Africa's presence in the 1976 Olympics." Dave Kindred, Sound and Fury, Free Press, 2006, pp. 143-147, 236.

The above excerpt from the Wonderful Dave Kindred book (one of my favorite writers) comes courtesy of our friends at Delancey Place, What follows is my own recollection.

Both Carlos and Smith were injured in either other events or trial heats. Carlos was a powerful athlete with a forceful running style. Smith was a graceful, almost ethereal runner. Both were questionable starters. Because of his powerful style, Carlos was the more doubtful of the two. There was doubt until the end as to whether either would get to the starting blocks or could successfully get out of them. They were treated intensively by one of the american team physicians. In Carlos' case, the doctor designed a specific compression bandage to limit the possiblility of secondary injury. Both were able to answer the gun and earn their medals.

The Doctor received no fee for his services. Neither Smith nor Carlos has ever publicly thanked him. He was a southern white man.

Harry Edwards became upwardly mobile by becoming a "protest sociologist". It's funny how his schtick has played out. He told black athletes that were being exploited for so long that they came to take it as an article of faith. Their reaction? Hire better agents and get paid more for being exploited. Time marches on and I have not heard Edwards being seriously quoted on any topic involving sports or race in the last 15 years. The sixties, after all, didn't live forever, no matter how much some folks wish they had.