1968 Olympics Black Power salute
Based on Wikipedia: 1968 Olympics Black Power salute
On October 16, 1968, under the bright lights of the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City, two African-American men stood on a podium barefoot. They were not there to celebrate solely their athletic prowess, though they had just achieved it: Tommie Smith had won gold and set a world record in the 200-meter sprint with a time of 19.83 seconds, while John Carlos secured bronze with a time of 20.10 seconds. Between them stood Peter Norman of Australia, who had taken silver with an Oceania record that would stand for 56 years. As "The Star-Spangled Banner" began to play, the crowd in the stadium and millions watching via broadcast satellite around the world expected a traditional display of national pride. Instead, they witnessed a silent, searing indictment of American society that would redefine the relationship between sport and politics forever.
Smith and Carlos turned their heads downward as the anthem swelled. With their black-gloved fists raised high, they held the pose until the final note faded into silence. It was not a moment of chaos or shouting; it was a calculated, silent gesture that cut through the noise of the era with terrifying clarity. In his autobiography, Silent Gesture, published nearly three decades later, Smith clarified what the world often mislabeled: "My salute was not a 'Black Power' salute," he wrote. "It was a human rights salute." Yet, in 1968, amidst the turbulence of the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the distinction mattered little to those in power. The image of the two athletes, heads bowed against the backdrop of the American flag, became one of the most potent political statements in the history of the modern Olympics.
The Anatomy of a Protest
To understand the magnitude of that moment on October 16, one must look beyond the raised fists and examine the specific symbols each man wore. These were not random fashion choices; they were a curated vocabulary of pain and pride intended for an international audience. Smith, the gold medalist, wore no shoes. He walked onto the podium in black socks to represent black poverty in America. Around his neck was a black scarf, a symbol of black pride.
Carlos, who had secured third place, adopted a different set of symbols to communicate solidarity and mourning. His tracksuit top was unzipped, a gesture intended to show unity with all blue-collar workers in the United States who struggled to make ends meet. Around his neck hung a necklace of beads. In later years, Carlos explained the heavy weight of these beads: they were "for those individuals that were lynched, or killed and that no-one said a prayer for, that were hung and tarred." They were also a memorial for those thrown off the sides of slave ships during the Middle Passage, linking his moment on the podium to centuries of transatlantic suffering.
The third man on the podium, Peter Norman, was not American, yet he chose to stand in solidarity. An Australian critic of his own government's "White Australia Policy," Norman expressed empathy with the ideals of Smith and Carlos. The three athletes all wore badges from the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR), an organization founded by sociologist Harry Edwards. Edwards had originally urged black athletes to boycott the games entirely, arguing that the Olympic platform was complicit in systemic racism. When the boycott did not materialize as a total strike, Smith and Carlos decided to use their individual victories to deliver a message that could not be ignored.
The logistics of the protest were born of a momentary lapse and quick thinking. Both US athletes had intended to bring black gloves to the ceremony. However, on the morning of the event, Carlos realized he had forgotten his pair back in the Olympic Village. It was Peter Norman who suggested a solution: Carlos should wear Smith's left-handed glove. This practical adjustment inadvertently altered the visual history of the protest. While the traditional Black Power salute often featured the right fist raised, Carlos raised his left hand, and Smith raised his right. The resulting image was asymmetrical yet unified, two fists reaching for the sky in a shared demand for dignity.
When photographer John Dominis captured the moment, he did not know that his image would soon be transmitted via Eurovision to every corner of the globe. As the anthem played, the crowd at first reacted with confusion, then hostility. The silence of the athletes was broken by the roar of booing from the spectators in the stadium. Smith and Carlos remained motionless, heads bowed, fists raised, until the music stopped. Only then did they break their pose to leave the podium, stepping off into a world that would soon turn violently against them.
The Machinery of Retribution
The reaction from the Olympic establishment was swift and severe, revealing the fragility of the "apolitical" facade the Games were meant to uphold. Avery Brundage, the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), was a man who viewed sports through a rigid lens of nationalism and tradition. Brundage had served as president of the United States Olympic Committee in 1936, and notably, he had made no objections when German athletes performed the Nazi salute during the Berlin Olympics of that same year. He had argued then that the Nazi salute was a national salute acceptable in a competition of nations.
In 1968, Brundage flipped this logic on its head. He deemed Smith and Carlos's action to be a "domestic political statement," unfit for the international forum of the Olympics. In his view, because their protest did not represent a nation-state but rather an internal grievance within the United States, it violated the fundamental principles of the Olympic spirit. The IOC spokesman declared their actions a "deliberate and violent breach."
The punishment was disproportionate to any other penalty in Olympic history. Brundage ordered Smith and Carlos suspended from the US team and banned immediately from the Olympic Village. When the United States Olympic Committee initially refused to expel them, Brundage issued an ultimatum: he threatened to ban the entire US track and field team from future competition. Faced with the prospect of punishing hundreds of innocent athletes for the actions of two, the USOC relented. Smith and Carlos were expelled from the Games.
Contrary to a persistent myth that has circulated for decades, the IOC did not force them to return their medals. They kept the gold and bronze they had earned on the track. Their crime was not winning; it was speaking while winning. The official stance of the IOC was that their actions undermined the spirit of competition, yet Brundage's selective memory regarding 1936 suggests a different priority: maintaining the status quo rather than upholding universal human rights.
The media reaction back in the United States was equally brutal. Time magazine, on October 25, 1968, captured the prevailing sentiment of the sporting establishment with biting sarcasm: "'Faster, Higher, Stronger' is the motto of the Olympic Games. 'Angrier, nastier, uglier' better describes the scene in Mexico City last week."
Television personalities and sports writers joined the chorus of condemnation. Brent Musburger, then a writer for the Chicago American before becoming a legendary broadcaster at CBS and ESPN, described Smith and Carlos as "a couple of black-skinned storm troopers" who were "ignoble," "juvenile," and "unimaginative." The language used to describe them dehumanized them, stripping away their identity as athletes and reducing them to political caricatures.
The consequences for the men themselves were immediate and life-altering. They received death threats. Their families were targeted. The abuse was not limited to the written word; it permeated their daily lives. Smith later reflected on this duality of their existence in America: "If I win I am an American, not a black American. But if I did something bad then they would say 'a Negro'." He noted that society only claimed them when they were useful for winning medals, yet quickly abandoned their humanity the moment they spoke out against the injustice faced by Black people.
Smith articulated the specific grievances that fueled their protest: "We were concerned about the lack of black assistant coaches. About how Muhammad Ali got stripped of his title. About the lack of access to good housing and our kids not being able to attend the top colleges." These were not abstract political ideals; they were the daily realities of Black America in 1968, laid bare on a global stage.
The Cost of Courage
The price paid by Smith and Carlos extended far beyond their expulsion from Mexico City. They were ostracized by the US sporting establishment. Doors that should have been open to them as Olympic champions were slammed shut. For years, they struggled to find work in the sports industry or even to secure employment commensurate with their status.
Tommie Smith attempted to continue his athletic career. He played professional football for the Cincinnati Bengals in 1970 and later became an assistant professor of physical education at Oberlin College. In 1995, he returned to the Olympic sphere as a coach for the US team at the World Indoor Championships in Barcelona. In 1999, he was awarded the California Black Sportsman of the Millennium Award. Yet, these late-career recognitions could not erase the decades of silence and struggle that followed their gesture. He eventually became a public speaker, dedicating his life to education and advocacy.
John Carlos's journey was marked by similar professional hurdles and profound personal tragedy. After his Olympic run, he tied the world record in the 100-yard dash the following year, proving his continued excellence on the track. He also attempted a career in professional football, selected as a 15th-round pick in the 1970 NFL draft by the Philadelphia Eagles, but a knee injury ended his tryout. He found work with the Montreal Alouettes in the Canadian Football League for one season before his career stalled again.
By the late 1970s, Carlos had fallen upon hard times. The weight of the backlash and the systemic barriers they faced took a severe toll on his personal life. In 1977, his ex-wife died by suicide, an event that plunged him into a deep period of depression. It was only later in life that he found stability, working with the Organizing Committee for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and eventually becoming a track and field coach at Palm Springs High School. As of 2012, he continued his work as a counselor at the school, mentoring young people who now looked up to him not just as an athlete, but as a man of principle.
While Smith and Carlos suffered under the weight of American rejection, their ally Peter Norman faced a different kind of erasure in his own country. In Australia, conservative media outlets criticized him for supporting the Black athletes. He was reprimanded by Australian Olympic authorities and effectively blacklisted from future games. Despite making the qualifying time multiple times, he was never sent to the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
The ostracization of Norman continued long after his athletic career ended. When Sydney hosted the 2000 Summer Olympics, a major international event on Australian soil, Norman was not invited to participate in the celebrations, despite his role as a sports administrator and his history with the Olympic movement. It was only when the United States extended him an invitation to their own celebrations that he received any formal recognition from abroad.
The bond between Smith, Carlos, and Norman was forged in fire and cemented by shared suffering. When Peter Norman died in 2006 at the age of 63, it was Tommie Smith and John Carlos who served as pallbearers at his funeral in Australia. They stood together one last time to honor the man who had risked his own reputation to ensure their message was heard.
A Legacy Reclaimed
For decades, the narrative surrounding the salute was distorted by those who wished to minimize its impact. However, history has a way of correcting itself when the evidence is too overwhelming to ignore. In 2013, the official IOC website finally acknowledged the truth, stating: "Over and above winning medals, the black American athletes made names for themselves by an act of racial protest."
The turning point in public perception began slowly but gained momentum as the civil rights movement evolved into a broader conversation about justice. In 2008, Smith and Carlos were finally honored with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPY Awards. The award recognized that their "courage" was not merely athletic, but moral—a willingness to sacrifice their careers for the sake of humanity.
The story of the 1968 salute also serves as a mirror to later generations of activists who have followed in their footsteps. When Colin Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem in 2016 to protest police brutality, he was echoing the silent gesture of Smith and Carlos. When pitchers protested Pride Night or athletes refused to stand for anthems, they were drawing from the wellspring of resistance that was filled in Mexico City.
The events of October 1968 demonstrate that the "apolitical" nature of sports is often a myth constructed by those who benefit from the status quo. Smith and Carlos proved that every action on the podium has political weight. Their raised fists were not an attack on their country, but a plea for it to live up to its ideals. As Smith noted, they were not asking to be excluded from America; they were demanding that Black Americans be included as full human beings with rights and dignity.
The legacy of that day is visible in every protest that follows. It reminds us that the most powerful moments in history are often quiet ones—moments where a few individuals stand firm against the tide, refusing to look away from injustice even when the entire world tells them to smile for the camera.
In the end, the medals Smith and Carlos won on October 16 were eventually overshadowed by the gold they forged in their reputations as defenders of human rights. They were booed then, but they are cheered now. They were exiled then, but they are embraced today. The world has finally caught up to what they knew all along: that sports cannot exist in a vacuum, and that the fight for justice is the only game that truly matters.
The story of Tommie Smith, John Carlos, and Peter Norman is not just a chapter in Olympic history; it is a testament to the enduring power of the human spirit to demand change. It serves as a reminder that while the games may end, the struggle for equality continues, and that sometimes, all it takes to shift the course of history is two men standing on a podium, heads bowed, fists raised, in the face of an anthem that did not yet belong to them.