Name: この象徴的な五輪抗議の背景にあるストーリー (The story behind this iconic Olympics protest)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T11:19:17.000Z
Duration: 9 min 10 s
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The 1968 US Olympic track and field team is considered one of the greatest ever assembled

They won 28 medals and set 8 world records at the games in Mexico City.

The team included some of the fastest runners in the world at the time.

Like sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who made history when they accepted their

medals and then raised their fists during the playing of the US national anthem, in

And they almost didn't even show up that year.

Members of the team threatened to stay home, in protest of racist treatment of Black athletes

The story of this silent protest, and the boycott that almost was, starts with the buttons

The Olympic Project for Human Rights, or OPHR, was founded in 1967 by sociologist, educator,

and former star athlete Dr. Harry Edwards.

It was a coalition of prominent Olympic athletes that threatened to derail American Olympic

To protest the racism in sports that had for decades gone unaddressed.

In the mid-20th century, sports seemed to be a leading example of improved racial equality

Black athletes like football player Kenny Washington and baseball player Jackie Robinson

broke racial barriers by joining professional leagues in 1946 and 1947.

Which until that point, had been whites only.

College and professional sports teams gradually integrated from there –

– years ahead of racial segregation legally ending in the United States.

So the media began to promote the Black athlete as a symbol that racial democracy existed

And so it was kind of a factor that was used to dismiss the question of institutionalized

But in the 1960s, the myth of racial progress in America began to dissolve.

The Civil Rights Act ended legal segregation in 1964, but Black Americans continued to

face institutionalized racism and police brutality.

Integration simply wasn't successful in improving Black people's lives, and you

Years of frustration ultimately erupted in widespread violent riots.

I think the further we get away from it, we underestimate the influence of the riots.

The riots happened in a lot of urban cities across America.

Black people still live in terrible socioeconomic conditions in the cities.

And that was just as much a problem as Jim Crow laws.

A growing Black Power movement and Black student movement in the 1960s emboldened Black athletes

to speak up about the racial injustices they endured off

But with the 1968 Olympics coming up, black athletes saw an opportunity to push for change.

The the idea of a black Olympic boycott had been around since 1959.

And it went through various fits and stops until you get to the first Black Power Conference

And the Black Power Conference basically argued that you should use any means possible to

force the government to pay attention to institutionalized racism.

For Harry Edwards, that meant organizing the Olympic Project for Human Rights.

He realized that he could use Black sports participation as a way to attract attention

to the problem. The OPHR had 5 key demands, among them being

to disinvite South Africa and Rhodesia, two countries practicing apartheid, from competing

the removal of openly racist International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage,

The potential boycott became a hot topic in the news –

In the months leading up to the games in Mexico City, the OPHR kept members of the press guessing

The decision was made that if there wasn't a kind of unified or the majority of Black

athletes would participate, the boycott would be called off.

Because those who did boycott, like Tommie Smith, would have been boycotting in vain.

Another Black person simply would have taken their place.

Even though most of the OPHR's demands remained unmet, the athletes headed to Mexico City,

with plans to make their own demonstration if the opportunity arose.

Which it did – on October 16th, following the men's 200 meter final.

OPHR members Tommie Smith and John Carlos won gold and bronze, respectively, and Smith

After the race, they solemnly approached the medal stand –

...and, just as the US National Anthem began to play, did this:

For the full duration of the Star-Spangled Banner, Smith and Carlos bowed their heads

and each raised a black-gloved fist in the air – to protest the racial injustice in

their home country, and show solidarity with those fighting for equality.

The fists are not the only symbolic gesture in this image, as Tommie Smith explained later:

The right glove signified the power within Black America.

The scarf that was worn around my neck signified Blackness.

John Carlos and me wore black socks without shoes to also signify our poverty.

Additionally, John Carlos wore his jacket unzipped – a violation of Olympic etiquette

– to show solidarity with working class Americans.

He also wore black beads – to honor victims of lynching.

And finally, all three medal winners, including silver medalist Peter Norman of Australia,

Buttons reading Olympic Project for Human Rights. The were some boos in the stadium

This moment was the ultimate manifestation of the work of Harry Edwards and the OPHR

to intersect outspoken political activism with sport.

The International Olympic Committee suspended them Friday, their credentials were taken

away, and they were told they could not stay in Mexico.

They were dropped from the US Olympic team...

Sports journalist Howard Cosell criticized the US Olympic Committee's decision in this

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この象徴的な五輪抗議の背景にあるストーリー (The story behind this iconic Olympics protest)

ultimately

struggle

opportunity

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