Sidelined (18 page)

New York Times
sportswriter Robert Lipsyte had been covering the activities of the OPHR in the period leading up to the Olympics and remembers feeling that something “really strong and powerful” would happen.
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Paul Hoffman testified that there was a palpable sense of tension. The Harvard crew had found it difficult to engage in a dialogue with other athletes about the racial problems highlighted by the OPHR in the period leading up to the games. Once in Mexico City, however, they were able to spend more time with other athletes. Nevertheless, the reaction that Hoffman received from some members of the U.S. team was symptomatic of the strong feeling against any attempt to use the sporting arena to make a political statement. The small, 110-pound coxswain was pinned up against a wall in a basement mail room by one of the U.S. boxing coaches, who warned Hoffman not to talk to his boxers and to stop intimidating them. Hoffman remarked that he could not have intimidated the family cat, never mind a squad of boxers. When sitting on buses to take athletes to events, coaches would call their competitors over and warn them not to sit next to Hoffman, Livingston, or other Harvard oarsmen.
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The prospect of a protest against racial injustice on an international stage involving both white and black athletes was anathema to both the
IOC and the USOC. Alan Guttman has argued that Brundage's “commitment to the preservation of sports as a sacred realm apart, unsullied by commerce or politics,” made him opposed to political protest on the grounds that sport should transcend the struggles of wider society.
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Brundage argued that “the Olympic Games are not the place for demonstrations of any kind.” In reference to the decision to exclude the South African team from the Olympics because of the political problems of apartheid, the IOC leader argued that the situation “was a criticism of our so-called civilization rather than of the Olympic Games, which are trying to promote international friendship and respect.”
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USOC fears over any protest were, however, founded in an ideological framework that implicitly contradicted the rationale of Brundage's objections. For the United States, the Olympic Games were an extremely political event. “In America, sports were not games anymore, nor were they in Olympic competition. Ideologies, systems, religions, races and nationstates all turned to the Olympics for evidence that they were as powerful or as true or as inevitable as they claimed to be.”
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The Cold War heightened the intensity of international sporting contests and added greater profundity to victory and defeat. Brundage asserted that the games were no place for any kind of political demonstration, but the main fear of the U.S. authorities was that their political agenda for the Olympics would be compromised by any protest activities.

The Olympic Games were undoubtedly loaded with political symbolism. Indeed hammer-thrower Hal Connolly had first accepted and then rejected the honor of carrying the American flag in the 1968 opening ceremony. Since 1908 it had been U.S. practice not to dip its flag when passing the reviewing stand. Connolly perceived this as arrogant and disrespectful and he informed the USOC that he would break with protocol and dip the flag. They responded with a threat that he would be arrested if he did so and Connolly subsequently rejected the flag-bearing responsibilities.
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The raising of flags and the rendition of national anthems during victory ceremonies gave a political and nationalistic focus to the sporting competition. Individual excellence was irresistibly linked to national prestige. For twentieth-century America, sporting competition played a key role in the development of national identity. As Steven Pope has observed, “Sports tradition evoked the resilience of individualism, the work ethic, democracy, class conciliation; and, thereby, helped shape an emergent national identity.”
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It was the U.S. Olympic authorities' desire to utilize international sport
for their own political ends in the Cold War era that motivated the policy to silence dissenting voices of American athletes, both white and black. Within the geopolitical considerations of the federal government, civil rights demonstrations, southern white resistance, and race riots caused problems for the State Department, as they were seen to “lead to legitimacy-threatening world attention.”
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For the U.S. Olympic authorities, what was at stake in Mexico City was the continued projection of American exceptionalism through triumphant sporting performance. Black athletes and their white allies were warned against any attempt to use the games to voice their social and political grievances because the Olympics were not the place for such activities. In reality the games were very much the place for this activity, and what U.S. authorities feared most of all was that their own agenda would be hijacked and the divisions in American society would be exposed on the world stage.

On October 16, 1968, the Olympic 200-meter final took place. Both Tommie Smith and John Carlos almost failed to make it to the starting blocks. Smith had strained an adductor muscle in his semifinal and required ice treatment while preparing for the final.
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Carlos had stepped out of his designated lane in his heat and avoided disqualification only because officials failed to spot the error.
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Nevertheless, they both ran in a race that became the prelude to an act that defined their lives thereafter. Smith won in a world record 19.83 seconds. Carlos, who slowed and turned to look at his teammate in the last few strides, came in third after being passed on the line by Peter Norman. Carlos later argued that he slowed to let Smith win so that he would not be alone on the podium but would have another black athlete to stand with in solidarity.
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In his most recent account of events Carlos asserted, “As for me, I didn't care a lick if I won the gold, silver or bronze. I wasn't there for the race. I was there for the after-race.”
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Looking at the footage of the race and studying Smith's form throughout the year leading to the Olympics seems to discount Carlos's claims, however. Smith was simply faster, and the grimace on Carlos's face betrayed a man desperately trying to win.

Earlier in the Olympic track and field competition Tommie Smith and 400-meter runner Lee Evans had sat in the stands and discussed what they would do if Avery Brundage tried to shake their hands during a medal ceremony. Evans suggested that they should each wear a black glove and
hide their hands under their sweatshirts, revealing the black gloves at the last moment and therefore frightening Brundage. The athletes' wives purchased the gloves, which were then added to their kit bags.
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The exact mechanics of the events that unfolded in the holding area before the 200-meter victory ceremony are a little unclear, with each individual offering a slightly different picture of the past. It would, however, seem that Smith was the driving force behind the protest that followed. Lee Evans explains that “Carlos never even came to a meeting” of the OPHR and that it was he and Smith who were the principal athletes involved in the movement.
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Carlos concedes that he was not one of the original members of the OPHR, but once involved, he argues, he played a crucial part in the movement.
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It was Smith who produced the gloves that the two athletes were to wear and who told Carlos, “The national anthem is sacred to me, and this can't be sloppy. It has to be clean and abrupt.”
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Peter Norman stated that Carlos did not have any gloves with him and it was Smith who took the lead in the discussions that were held under the stadium before the medal ceremony.
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Recalling the events in the lead up to the podium moment some thirty years later, USOC press secretary Robert Paul stated that he had been aware some gesture was going to be made. Head Coach Payton Jordan and Sprint Coach Stan Wright told Paul that they had given the two sprinters permission to wear black handkerchiefs and black socks underneath their sweat suits.
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Sportswriter Neil Amdur describes Smith as an “indomitable” competitor and saw Carlos's gesture as “a part of what Tommie [Smith] was in total.”
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Certainly the bend in Carlos's raised arm on the podium compared with Smith's straight, strong gesture and comprehensive explanation of the protest after the event seem to suggest a greater sense of purpose on the part of the gold medalist.
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Carlos later explained that his arm was bent so that he could “throw down a hammer punch” to protect himself from anyone who tried to attack him on the podium.
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Smith and Carlos outlined to Norman what they were going to do on the podium. The Australian silver medalist explained that he supported what they were doing and would show his solidarity by wearing the OPHR badge if they could find him one. As the three men walked out to receive their medals Smith and Carlos wore their gloves; the former had a black scarf wrapped around his neck and the latter a necklace of beads hanging from his. Paul Hoffman leaned over the barrier at the side of the track to wish the men all the best and Carlos asked for the OPHR badge he was wearing. Norman pinned the badge on his sweatshirt.
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As the national anthem rang out the two black sprinters bowed their heads. Smith raised his right fist and Carlos his left in the defining moment of the 1968 Olympic Games.

The
New York Times
reported that the incident “passed without much general notice in the packed Olympic stadium.”
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Yet many observers reported booing and jeering from the crowd in response to the actions of Smith and Carlos.
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Carlos himself describes a mixture of boos and aggressive, defiant singing of the national anthem by those who then abused the two sprinters as they left the arena.
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Paul Hoffman described the crowd reaction as “more confused rather than angry.”
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Furthermore, steeplechaser George Young, who took the podium in his medal ceremony immediately after Smith and Carlos's salute, explained, “We had a pretty good reception. I think people were a little bit stunned and did not know how to react.”
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Clearly the profundity of the act and the strength of the reaction that was to follow were not immediately apparent. The athletes were led from the stadium by an Olympic official and were not seen again until ABC sports reporter Howard Cosell interviewed Smith the next day. Smith explained the significance and symbolism of the gesture thus: “I wore a black right-hand glove and Carlos wore the left-hand glove of the same pair. My raised right hand stood for the power in black America. Carlos's raised left hand stood for the unity of black America. Together they formed an arch of unity and power. The black scarf around my neck stood for black pride. The black socks with no shoes stood for black poverty in racist America. The totality of our effort was the regaining of black dignity.”
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Smith's explanation gave added potency to the gesture and accentuated the dignified and thoughtful nature of the protest. An impulse that had begun with Harry Edwards's call for black athletes to boycott the Olympics had seemingly ended in the symbolic gesture of two sprinters. In reality, however, things had only just begun. Smith and Carlos's actions provoked significant reaction from white administrators and athletes but also from their black teammates.

The initial response of the USOC was to censure Smith and Carlos without formally removing them from the Olympic village.
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It should be noted that Roby had given Brundage assurances in his August 8 letter—discussing the problems posed by protests—that any athlete who was involved in such activity would be sent home.
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Brundage was furious at the actions of Smith and Carlos; he raged that “warped mentalities and cracked personalities seem to be everywhere and impossible to eliminate.”
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It was the head of the IOC who was the driving force behind the expulsion of Smith and Carlos from the Olympic village. Brundage
insisted that unless the two men were expelled from the games and all future Olympic competition, the U.S. track and field team would be barred from the rest of the days of competition.
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Brundage told one correspondent after the games, “In order to get action we had to intimate to the USOC that if it could not control its team perhaps it should take them all home.”
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The historic irony is that Brundage's reaction to the actions of Smith and Carlos elevated their importance; by making martyrs of the sprinters, the IOC chief contributed to the immortalization of their protest. Czech gymnast Vera Caslavska turned her head away from the Soviet flag during her multiple medal ceremony appearances in protest of the suppression of political freedoms in Prague. No action was taken against her and no media storm developed as it did around Smith and Carlos.