Yes, Oct. 16. Two months and five days from now.
But pardon me while I break from my habit, in the wake of the death of Isaac Hayes (if you didn't know, now you do), and use what was to be the celebration of one Olympics story (Herb Brooks and the 1980 men's Olympic ice hockey team will have to wait) to tell parts of a story you haven't heard all of.
To tell parts of a story you haven't heard all of because athletes aren't supposed to make political statements, though the media didn't seem to have any problem pressing Steve Nash some years ago when he politely objected to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
To tell parts of a story that have become part of the American tapestry of the civil rights struggle, which is by no means won.
To tell parts of the story of what Tommie Smith and John Carlos did on Oct. 16, 1968, that saw their quick exit from the 1968 Summer Olympics.
For Herb Brooks, who died Aug. 11, 2003, a champion's champion.
I'd been planning to write this over the next few months, whenever the call came (as was the case with my Schindler's List diary), and have it be thoroughly developed and magical.
But then Isaac Hayes died. And since I want this to reach people while its subjects are still alive, and partly because we have an Olympics going on right now, this comes to you in at least partial magicity (I get to invent words here) some months ahead.
My parents raised me to think nothing and nobody was better or worse than I was purely because of appearance. Part of the result of that upbringing is that when I saw video of Tommie Smith and John Carlos with their fists in the air at the 1968 Olympics, and my father explained what they were doing, I developed a sense of pride and respect for that statement.
And so it was about a year and a half ago, while reading the immense cultural tome Cosell, that I was introduced to parts of that story that made me appreciate Carlos and Smith (and Howard Cosell, for whom I once had enormous disdain and now have enormous respect) much more.
This is what ESPY viewers learned this year:
(As soon as I figured out what was happening, I was in full face-watering mode. Didn't stop for several minutes. I'm sure you're shocked.)
And this, courtesy of that beloved Fair Use element of the Copyright Act of 1976, is what I knew beforehand that made their appearance that much more special:
[In 1968] there was a threat that the blacks might boycott the Games. Professor Harry Edwards of San Jose State was leading a movement in this direction, a major press conference had been held in New York with Martin Luther King [Jr.] in attendance, and it had been made evident that a boycott might take place, or, if not a boycott, then some kind of protest might manifest itself at the Games.
[ABC producing mogul] Roone Arledge was as aware of this as I was. He was also aware of the long-standing criticism of sports broadcasting that the announcers were shills, and that in their desire not to offend anybody they could never hit an issue head on. Once and for all, especially in what would be the biggest sports coverage in the history of television, Arledge wanted to put that notion to rest. "Do your thing, he told me. "I don't want any newsman beating us on any story. We're on the scene, we've got the instancy of our medium, and I don't want to get beat."
[...]
But always in the background was the threat of a black protest. It finally came to pass. Tommie Smith set a new record in winning the 200 meters, and John Carlos finished third. Then, on the victory stand came the bowed heads, the shoeless feet and the black-power salute. It should not have been unexpected by the members of the U.S. Olympic Committee, but the way they behave one would have thought that the black protest had not been a simmering possibility during the past four months. No matter. This was a front-page story throughout the world, the very story that Arledge and I had discussed before we ever went to Mexico, and we couldn't let the papers beat us on it. All we had on the air that night was what happened on the victory stand. After the incident Smith and Carlos vanished. They couldn't be located in the Olympic Village; indeed, they had been ordered out of it. My assignment: Find Tommie Smith, interview him.
Smith was nowhere to be found.
[When he was finally found for me, I at first] couldn't get through to Tommie's room; they were taking no calls. Then I finally did [get through], and Tommie's wife told me that Tommie would talk to no one. I had never met he or Tommie, but she knew of me. I finally Induced her to let me come up to the room.
Once in the room, I felt defeated. Both of them were fixed in their position. Tommie would not grant an Interview. I argued and argued, but both said Tommy had never been treated fairly by either the press or broadcast. "You'd think I committed murder," he said. "All I did was what I've been doing all along, call the attention of the world to the way the blacks are treated in America. There's nothing new about this."
"I admit you have talked about a protest before," I told him, "but it's new when you do it at a world forum. I think you're wrong. I think you should state what you did and why you did it. Then at least some people might understand."
To my astonishment, Smith's wife, who was a schoolteacher, did an abrupt turnabout. She suddenly told Tommie she thought I was right, he began to waver, and the next thing I knew we were on our way to our studio at the Central Control Tower. When I got there you could sense the excitement. Arledge came out of the control room, Jim Spence would be talking to me from the control room during the interview, everybody gathered around, and it was as if the Games had come to a halt.
The interview was simple and direct. What did you mean, symbolically, by the bowed head, the shoeless feet, the outstretched fist? He explained: the fist to show the strength and unity of the black people everywhere, black power; the shoeless feet to show the anguish of the black people through all the years; the bowed head because the words of the anthem were not being applied to blacks.
"Are you proud to be an American?" I asked him.
"I am proud to be a black American," he answered.
The interview over, Smith and his wife were pleased that he had done it. "I got fair treatment," he said. [...]
The Tommie Smith interview was picked up by papers all over the world. The following night I was in the lobby of the El Presidente Hotel, just inside the door. A car went by, came to a sudden stop, then backed up in front of the door. Out of the car jumped a tall, familiar figure. At first I didn't realize who it was. Then suddenly I knew. It was John Carlos. He came through the door, shook me hand and said, "We're grateful for your fair treatment." And with that he was back in the car and gone.
-Cosell, pp. 50, 59-61.
Cosell goes on to relate that the USOC later tried to get Smith's and Carlos' medals taken away because of suspicion that they were not amateurs. The American Olympians were having none of it: "Dan Ferris of the AAU, the ancient patriarch of track and field, bluntly said, 'There is no such thing as an amateur.'" The USOC backed off.
That gives you more context, and here's yet more, and part of what needs to be common knowledge:
The Americans received their medals shoeless — to represent black poverty — but wearing black socks. All three athletes wore civil rights badges; Smith wore a black scarf around his neck and Carlos a string of beads to commemorate black people who had been lynched. When The Star-Spangled Banner struck up, they delivered the gesture that became front-page news around the world. With their heads bowed, Smith and Carlos each raised a black-gloved fist to represent Black Power.
The ramifications were immediate. The International Olympic Committee demanded that Smith and Carlos be suspended. The US Olympic Committee refused. It was then told that the US team would be banned, a threat which led to the two sprinters leaving the Olympic Village.
1 Tommie Smith In the aftermath of their dramatic gestures, Smith explained why he and Carlos had taken such a stand. "If I win, I am an American, not a black American," he said. "But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight." After Mexico, Smith mixed sport with the promotion of his beliefs in equal rights. But life was never easy. Many in America could not comprehend the protest, and his family suffered. "It was as though everyone hated me," he said, recalling the day a rock was thrown through a window of his house. With athletics an amateur sport, he spent three seasons playing American football with the Cincinnati Bengals before becoming an assistant professor of physical education at Oberlin College in Ohio. In 1995 he was on the coaching staff of the US team at the world indoor championships in Barcelona, further recognition arriving in 1999 with a Sportsman of the Millennium award. Smith, now 62, is a public speaker. Last year he and Carlos were honoured for their stance in Mexico. They had been students at San Jose University in the 1960s, and the college erected a 20ft statue of their protest.
2 Peter Norman The 26-year-old Australian PE teacher was responsible for the lopsided look of the podium protest. Carlos had forgotten his black gloves, and he and Smith were unsure what to do until Norman stepped in to suggest that they share Smith’s pair, one taking the right glove, the other the left.
For emphasis, because this is perhaps the most remarkable part of the story:
Carlos had forgotten his black gloves, and he and Smith were unsure what to do until Norman stepped in to suggest that they share Smith’s pair, one taking the right glove, the other the left.
An Australian is responsible for one of the most crucial pieces of this iconic image:
Peter Norman died about two years ago, and Smith and Carlos were his lead pallbearers.
Smith and Carlos, as you can see from the linked videos, are still very much alive, very much kicking, very much friends.
And now I hope you know a little more of a story very much a part of this country's tapestry despite that country's efforts to erase it.
P.S. Tommie Smith's decision to go to Oberlin was one of many parts of Oberlin's long and proud history and involvement with civil rights.