Jesse Owens
| Gold medal |
1936 Berlin |
Athletics Men's 100m |
| Gold medal |
1936 Berlin |
Athletics Men's 200m |
| Gold medal |
1936 Berlin |
Athletics Men's 4x100m relay |
| Gold medal |
1936 Berlin |
Athletics Men's long jump |
James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 - March 31, 1980) was an African-American athlete and civic leader. He participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany where he won four gold medals and achieved international fame.
He was born in Oakville, Alabama and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He was given the name Jesse by a teacher in Cleveland who did not understand his accent when the young boy said he was called J.C. Throughout his life Owens attributed the success of his athletic career to the encouragement of Charles Riley, his junior-high track coach who had picked him off the playground and put him on the track team (See Harrison Dillard, a Cleveland athlete inspired by Owens).
In a span of 45 minutes on May 25, 1935 at the Big Ten meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he tied the record for the 100 yard (91 m) dash and set world records in the long jump, 220 yard (201 m) dash, and the 220 yard (201 m) low hurdles.
In 1936 Owens arrived in Berlin to compete for the United States in the 1936 Summer Olympics. Adolf Hitler was using the games to show the world a resurgent Nazi Germany. He and other government officials had high hopes German athletes would dominate the games with victories (and Germany did win more gold medals that year than any other country). Meanwhile, Nazi propaganda promoted concepts of "Aryan" racial superiority and depicted ethnic Africans as inferior or even non-human.
Owens surprised many by winning four gold medals: On August 3 1936 the 100 m dash, on August 4 the long jump (after some friendly and helpful advice from German competitor Lutz Long), on August 5 the 200 m dash and after he was added to the 4 x 100 m relay team, he won his fourth on August 9 (his performance wasn't duplicated until 1984 when Carl Lewis won gold medals in the same events at the 1984 Summer Olympics).
On the first day, Hitler shook hands only with the German victors and then left the stadium (some claim this was to avoid having to shake hands with Cornelius Johnson, who was African-American, but according to a spokesman Hitler's exit had been pre-scheduled). Olympic committee officials then insisted Hitler greet each and every medalist or none at all. Hitler opted for the latter and skipped all further medal presentations. [1] [2] In his autobiography (The Jesse Owens Story, 1970) Owens recounted how Hitler later stood up and waved to him anyway:
When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him. I think the writers showed bad taste in criticizing the man of the hour in Germany.
Owens was cheered enthusiastically by 110,000 people in Berlin's Olympic Stadium and later ordinary Germans sought his autograph when they saw him in the streets. However back in New York, after the ticker-tape parade in his honor, Owens had to ride the freight elevator to attend a reception for him at the Waldorf-Astoria. He later recounted:
When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either.
After the games he had difficulty making a living and became a sports promoter, essentially an entertainer. He would give local sprinters a ten or twenty yards (9.1 or 18.3 metres) start and beat them in the 100 yd (91 m) dash. He also challenged and defeated racehorses although as he revealed later, the trick was to race a high-strung thoroughbred horse that would be frightened by the starter's pistol and give him a good jump. His self-promotion eventually turned into a public relations career in Chicago, Illinois, including a long stint as a popular jazz disc jockey there.
Jesse Owens was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 by Gerald Ford and (posthumously) the Congressional Gold Medal by George H. W. Bush on March 28, 1990. In 1984, a street in Berlin was renamed for him and the Jesse Owens Realschule/Oberschule (a secondary school) is in Berlin-Lichtenberg.
Owens was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans.
A pack-a-day smoker for 35 years, he died of lung cancer at age 66 in Tucson, Arizona. Owens is buried in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois.
Trivia
- Running in Berlin, Owens (like most of the athletes) wore track shoes made by Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik, a German firm. The company later split in two, becoming Adidas and Puma.
- Owens endorsed presidential candidate Alf Landon in 1936.
External links
- Official website
- His accomplishments and his encounter with Adolf Hitler (ESPN)
- Follow the Olympic Torch to his Birthplace in North Alabama
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