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Home , Bill Dwyre, Henry Carr, John Carlos, Larry James, Lee Evans (sprinter), Neil Allen

American Journalism, 26:2, 99-121 Copyright © 2009, American Journalism Historians Association

A ‘Race’ for Equality: Print Media Coverage of the 1968 Olympic Protest by and By Jason Peterson

During the Summer Olympics in 1968, Tommie Smith and John Carlos made history. Although they won the gold and bronze medals, respectively, in the 200-meter dash, their athletic accom- plishments were overshadowed by their silent protest during the medal ceremony. Images of Smith and Carlos each holding up a single, closed, gloved fist have become iconic reminders of the . What met the two men after their protest was criticism from the press, primarily sportswriters. This article examines media coverage of the protest and its aftermath, and looks at how reporters dealt with Smith’s and Carlos’s political and racial statement within the context of the overall coverage of the .

n the night of October 16, 1968, at the Olympic Games in City, U.S. sprinter Tommie Smith set a world record for the 200-meter dash by finishing O 1 in 19.8 seconds. The gold medal winner celebrated in a joyous embrace of fellow Olympian, college team- Jason Peterson is an mate, and good friend, John Carlos, who won instructor of journalism the bronze medal. However, Smith and Carlos at Berry College and a had something other than athletic accolades or Ph.D. candidate at the University of Southern the spoils of victory on their minds. In the same Mississippi, Box 299, year the Beatles topped the charts with the lyr- Rome, GA 30149. ics, “You say you want a revolution? Well, you (706) 368-6767 know, we all want to change the world,” Smith [email protected] and Carlos sought to use their feats on the track oval to advance the mission of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, a group Smith helped start. The principal driver behind the OPHR was sociologist and college professor Harry Edwards, who

— Spring 2009 • 99 stated the group’s mission as effecting the liberation of blacks in the and elsewhere by using the international platform provided by and in sports.2 Edwards, then a part-time sociology professor at San Jose State College, pursued an Olympic boycott even after an initial discus- sion of such a protest failed to generate much interest at the 1967 National Conference of held in Newark, New Jersey. Edwards, who once said that “sports were the only area of campus life where Blacks could exercise any political leverage,” contacted 60 prominent college athletes and asked them to meet in Los Ange- les at the conference. 3 Edwards led a workshop at the conference focused on whether or not black should participate in the 1968 Olympic Games. He found that many of the athletes felt that despite their athletic accomplishments and the potential spoils their victories would bring to the United States, they were still treated as less than equals by white Americans. Edwards knighted the attend- ing members as the Olympic Project for Human Rights and emerged from the meetings with a unified group of American athletes willing to go to extremes to point out the ills of American life for blacks.4 Edwards and OPHR members such as Smith, Carlos, and UCLA star Lew Alcindor believed that human rights, not merely black civil rights, were being trampled on in the United States, South Africa, and elsewhere.5 From Paris to Prague, from New York to , and in as well, the world’s youth protested the Vietnam War, repression, and inequality that turbulent year of the Olympic Games. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated in April. Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down in Los Angeles in June. Anti-Vietnam demonstrators disrupted the Democratic Convention in Chicago, students briefly took over Columbia University to op- pose the construction of a gymnasium in Morningside Park, citing that the building’s location and make-up was the administration’s attempt to create a segregated environment, and CIA recruitment on campus, and protesters from the Women’s Liberation movement threatened the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, all in 1968. The Olympic Games themselves were threatened by a Mexican military assault on hundreds protesting government funds spent on the games. Standout athletes such as Smith, fellow Olympic sprinter , and Alcindor joined Edwards’s cause and supported his ef- forts, doing much to raise the organization’s profile nationally. Ed- wards and the OPHR first used this newfound influence to boycott the New York Athletic Club’s annual track meet in 1968.6 Because

100 • American Journalism — of the group’s prior threats of an Olympic boycott, its effort in New York was seen as a precursor of sorts to a withdrawal from the Mexi- co City games. Edwards also called for the resignation of then-Inter- national Olympic Committee president . Edwards described Brundage as “a devout anti-Semitic and an anti-Negro personality.”7 Brundage openly supported South Africa’s entry of an all-white team in the 1968 Summer Games and was once quoted as saying he would sell his home in a Santa Barbara Country Club before letting “niggers and kikes” become members.8 The IOC ulti- mately revoked South Africa’s invitation after other nations, includ- ing Ethiopia and Algeria, threatened to withdraw from the Games in protest.9 Edwards and members of the OPHR opposed the then 80-year-old Brundage, in Smith words, as “our Hitler.” Smith wrote, “as far as I was concerned, Avery Brundage was just another racist white man. Nothing I heard ever changed my mind about it. He thought white was it.”10 Smith’s victory in the 200 meters, the first Olympic victory by a member of the Project, provided the group with the international platform it sought. This article examines newspaper coverage of Smith’s and Car- los’s Olympic solidarity demonstration in an attempt to determine how sportswriters and sports reporters handled the complexities of race and politics. Reporters for a number of major print publica- tions in the United States expressed disdain and even anger towards Smith and Carlos. Sportswriters seemed to believe the U.S. sprinters had violated the sanctity of sports by inserting their own politics. These reactions point to an unwritten rule or norm in sports that its participants leave their politics and social activism at the arena or stadium gate. For example, , then a reporter for the Chicago American, called the demonstration “an ignoble perfor- mance that completely overshadowed a magnificent athletic one.” Smith and Carlos behaved like “a pair of dark-skinned storm troop- ers,” in Musburger words.11 A sample of news accounts, columns, and opinions was drawn from 15 U.S and world newspapers published between October 17, 1968, the first day the protest was reported, and October 29, 1968, when coverage of the last day of the Olympic Games ended. Because of the different political and racial contexts throughout the United States, a representative sample of newspapers in major markets throughout the country seemed appropriate. Newspapers examined included southern publications such as the Constitution, the Dallas Morning News, and the New Orleans-based Times-Picayune; the Boston Globe, , and in

— Spring 2009 • 101 the East; the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the in the Midwest; and the San Jose Mercury News, the Oakland Tri- bune, the San Francisco Examiner, and the in the West. These major market newspapers and those from the sprinters’ home state of were more likely to contain original report- ing on the protest rather than merely wire reports from the Associ- ated Press. English-language newspapers internationally were also included, such as The (London) Times, the Sydney Mercury Herald, and The (Montreal) Gazette. These newspapers provided impor- tant contrasts to U.S. coverage, which helped to identify distinctly American themes in coverage. On that warm October 16 evening, before Smith, Carlos, and Australian emerged for the medal awards ceremony, the two U.S. sprinters removed their shoes, rolled up their track pants, and exposed long black socks. The men then donned beads and scarves and fastened Olympic Project for Human Rights buttons on their U.S.A. warm-up jackets (silver medalist Peter Norman, too, wore a button, in support of the Project). Finally, the two sprinters each slipped on one black glove.12 Carlos told biographer C.D. Jack- son that with their gestures and appearances he and Smith sought to defy the “hypocrisy” of the United States and “the way she treats people of color.”13 The reaction in the Olympic stadium was one of shock, fol- lowed quickly by anger. At first, “the American people in the stands were shocked to silence,” according to Carlos. “One could hear a frog piss on cotton it was so quiet in the stadium.”14 The silence was soon broken, however, by booing, while millions around the world watched on television in disbelief. The press conference that followed quickly turned into a media frenzy. Carlos handled most of the questions, and he did so color- fully. “They [whites] look upon us as nothing but animals,” he said at one point. “We are nothing but show horses for white people.” Claiming he did not want the bronze medal, Carlos handed it to his wife, saying he would never attend another Olympics as a competi- tor.15 For his part, Smith said very little at the press conference, only that he objected to being referred to as a “Negro” and would instead like to be referred to as “black.” “If I do something bad, they won’t say American, they say Negro,” Smith explained.16 After the press conference, Smith elaborated for ABC sports reporter :

102 • American Journalism — The right glove that I wore on my right hand signified power within black Ameri- ca. The left glove my teammate John Carlos wore on his left hand made an arc with my right hand and his left hand also to sig- nify black unity. The scarf that was worn around my neck sig- nified blackness. John Carlos and me wore socks, black socks, without shoes, to also signify our poverty.17

Members of both the United States Olympic Committee and the IOC were outraged; the two In this Oct. 16, 1968, Associated Press photo, American sprinters Tommie Smith, center, and governing bodies acted John Carlos, right, extend a black-glove covered quickly. Two days after fist to the sky during the medal ceremony for the their medal stand displays, 200-meter dash at the 1968 Summer Olympics Games in Mexico City. Gold medal winner Smith and Carlos were Smith and bronze medalist Carlos protested the expelled from the Olym- mistreatment of blacks in the United States and pic Games and suspended elsewhere by striking the iconic pose during the playing of the national anthem. Both men were from the U.S. Olympic expelled from the Olympic Village and sent back team. to the United States two days later. Australia’s silver medalist Peter Norman is on the left. The Social Climate in AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS. 1968

Despite landmark legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, by the late blacks in the United States had become disillusioned. For many, the civil rights movement had produced only the illusion of progress.18 Some in the black community criticized the pervasive lack of enforcement of the civil rights-based legislation, allowing Jim Crow policies and norms to persist. Race riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles

— Spring 2009 • 103 and in Newark, New Jersey, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968, suggested that advances in civil rights were perhaps inciting more violence.19 Evidence of the country’s recalcitrance on civil rights abounded. In the South, colleges and universities continued to field white-only athletic teams. In addition, black athletes were denied product endorsements and coaching op- portunities offered to their white counterparts. Consistent with Edwards’s belief and in the tradition of prede- cessors Jackie Robinson, , and , many young black athletes began to see potential leverage in their roles as sports figures. “Blacks don’t catch hell because we are basketball stars or because we don’t have money,” Alcindor said. “We catch hell because we are black. This is how I take my stand—using what I have,” referring to his starring role on the UCLA men’s basketball team.20 Alcindor eventually decided to not play for the United States in the Olympics, explaining that “until things are on an equitable basis, this is not my country. We have been a racist nation with first class citizens and my decision to not go to the Olympics is my way of getting my message across.”21 Unlike Alcindor, Smith chose to participate in the Summer Games and fight for the cause of the OPHR. In his mind, something had to be done and done on a world stage.22 Smith’s justification for his affiliation with the OPHR’s protest was the “contention that it [the protest] helped everybody, not just the black athletes.”23 Ed- wards’s and the OPHR’s objective in Mexico City could be sum- marized by a poster that hung in Edwards’s San Jose office, a poster which read, “Rather than and jump for medals, we are standing up for humanity.”24

Literature Review

The work of sportswriters in the context of race has been stud- ied before. Glen Bleske and Chris Lamb, for example, examined Jackie Robinson’s 1947 debut in the major leagues from the per- spectives of the white press and black press. Bleske and Lamb found that the black press was much more aware of the social significance of Robinson’s appearance in Major League while white journalists failed to identify the historical context of the event.25 Within the tumultuous and racially charged framework of 1968 and the Olympic protest, it is possible that a similar difference in cover- age existed. While the black sports press may have identified with the overall political and social message being made by Smith and

104 • American Journalism — Carlos, the white press interpreted this historical moment as an act of disrespect, both to America and to the Olympics. While the protest itself has been examined by sociologists and documented by historians, how the media covered the complex blend of politics, race, policy, and sports has not been studied. So- ciologist Douglas Hartmann argued that the protest was condemned because it blurred the line between sports and politics and legiti- mized Smith’s and Carlos’s portrayal of race in the United States.”26 The negative response from mainstream America was “not surpris- ing,” Hartmann wrote, because “there was little sympathy or politi- cal support for those dramatizing the problems of race, much less for those who did so on the Olympic stage.”27 According to Hartmann, the American public misinterpreted the protest as an attack on sport rather than a social commentary on the racial strife that existed in America at the time. It is his belief that racial hegemony is manifest in and through popular culture, which is why the image of Smith and Carlos with fists raised has become so iconic.28 In her examination of race, national identity, and the 1968 Olympics, historian Amy Bass wrote that the emergent role of the black athlete as promoted by the OPHR sought “to make America fulfill its promises” of equality, yet acknowledge that the mere pres- ence of blacks in sports does not necessarily indicate a socially even playing field.29 Bass suggested that the Black Power salute “chal- lenged the flag, contesting and claiming a denied national identify and producing a dramatic reaction and consequences.”30 Historian Mark Kurlansky included the protest in his book, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World, writing that the protest “had the potential to politicize the [Olympic] games.”31 Kurlansky noted that OPHR member and 400-meter gold medal winner Lee Evans, along with 400-meter silver winner and 400-meter bronze winner , were not punished for their mild pro- test because of their jubilant appearance. Evans, James, and Free- man wore black berets and posed in a similar manner as Smith and Carlos, but removed the berets and bowed their heads as the United States National Anthem was played. “As it was in the days of slav- ery, the smiling Negro in a non-threatening posture was not to be punished,” Kurlansky wrote.32 Sociologist Michael Lomax took a different view of the protest, examining Edwards’s role in the OPHR. Lomax wrote that integra- tion did not address the lack of equality that the black athlete faced and that the efforts of Edwards underlined “many aspects of the ongoing black freedom struggle.”33 Edwards, per Lomax, wanted

— Spring 2009 • 105 to obtain basic human and civil rights through the OPHR. In fact, Lomax wrote that opposition to Edward’s efforts came from other black athletes who feared that any radical action would only lead to racial prejudice in the one area that promised them a degree of social mobility.34 While Hartmann, Bass, and others have noted the very negative reactions in press reports and sports coverage to the U.S. sprinters’ actions at the Games, scholars have not studied how sportswriters handled the complexities of race, politics, nationalism, and activ- ism. Examining news media coverage of Smith’s and Carlos’s ges- tures and statements can provide valuable insights, therefore, into how news media handled one of the first times that sportswriters, reporters, and columnists were forced in their daily journalism to make sense of overtly political statements made in the usually safe, apolitical haven of athletic competition. The 1968 Games were only the beginning, as future Olympics would feature their fair share of political statements: The killing of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Games in Munich, the U.S. Olympic boycott of the 1980 Games in Montréal, and the Centennial Olympic Park Bombing in Atlanta at the 1996 Games.

American Newspaper Coverage

Most news accounts of the protest portrayed Smith and Car- los in a negative light and offered little support for their efforts to advance equal rights for blacks.35 Some print publications, regard- less of geographic location, found the protest to be an embarrass- ment to the U.S. Olympic team and the United States in general, and sportswriters led the charge criticizing Smith and Carlos. Re- porters took their focus off the Olympics as an athletic competition and emphasized instead their own positions on the appropriateness of Smith’s and Carlos’s actions.36 Because of anger towards Smith and Carlos, news values such as balance and objectivity were often sacrificed. For example, in his article on Smith’s victory, Associ- ated Press sportswriter Will Grimsley referred to Smith and Carlos as “militants,” and described Carlos’s comments during the press conference as a “bitter tirade against the white structure.” Grimsley, who specialized in college football and the Olympic Games, spent more than 40 years with the Associated Press as a sportswriter and covered Freedom Summer in Mississippi and ’s re- fusal to join the military.37 How Grimsley could discern bitterness in the medal stand actions of the two athletes is impossible to know,

106 • American Journalism — but because he wrote for the Associated Press, Grimsley’s wire story was picked up by many newspapers throughout the United States. His characterization, then, was a potentially influential one in cast- ing the events of the night of October 16. For this reason, then, it is also important that Smith’s objection to being referred to as a “Ne- gro,” which can be found in other AP accounts of the press confer- ence, was absent in Grimsley’s, which described the one-fist gesture as a “Nazi-like” salute.38 Also writing for a national audience by virtue of syndication, Washington Post columnist also condemned the actions of Smith and Carlos as particularly pernicious when juxta- posed with Australian Peter Norman standing in “respectful atten- tion.” The columnist did note, however, Smith’s objection to being described as a “Negro.”39 Povich, who wrote columns for the Post for nearly 75 years, was one of the first white journalists to openly support the integration of baseball in the 1930s and 1940s and of the Washington Redskins in the early 1960s.40 Povich would go on to cover the 1972 Games in Munich and received the 1975 J.G. Taylor Spink Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In many instances, what a writer omitted was more signifi- cant than what he included. The Chicago Tribune diminished the importance of Smith’s victory and the effects of Smith’s and Car- los’s actions by burying the news of the protest in its coverage. Tri- bune sports editor George Strickler did not mention Smith until the twelfth paragraph of his article, when he described the protest as a “discordant note” in the otherwise harmonious Olympics. Carlos “lost some cockiness” after Norman bested him for silver, Strickler wrote. 41 ’s gold medal victory in the notwith- standing, there was no reason by the merits of athletic accomplish- ment not to lead with Smith’s world record and gold medal victory. Stricker called Seagren’s performance “the greatest in the history of the pole vault,” but clarified that Seagren was awarded the gold medal because he had the fewest misses. In fact, Seagren’s record of 17 feet, 8 ½ inches was shared with Claus Schiprowski of West and Wolfgang Nordwig of East Germany. Based on Sea- gren’s shared record, there is no journalistic justification for mak- ing his pole vault victory the focus of the article over Smith’s win. Stricker would later become the Pro Football Writer’s Association’s first president and was awarded the Dick McCann Memorial Award in 1969 for excellence in reporting in professional football.42 Some newspapers carried very little on Smith’s and Carlos’s dis- play, seemingly as a means of protest. Sports columnist Sam Blair of

— Spring 2009 • 107 the Dallas Morning News acknowledged on October 20 the lack of coverage in his newspaper, noting that a number of American journal- ists would likely withhold coverage.43 Famed black U.S. Olympian Jesse Owens told the Associated Press that the news media should ignore the protest, thereby justifying Dallas’s blackout.44 The Dal- las Morning News, the Atlanta Constitution, and the Times-Picayune published only wire accounts of the 200-meter race and subsequent protest and in their October 17 editions.45 The Boston Globe also printed only Associated Press copy in its October 17 edition, however, unlike the newspapers mentioned above, the Globe sent sportswriter John Ahern to Mexico City. Rath- er than cover the Smith-and-Carlos-spurred controversy himself, Ahern instead wrote only a sidebar on the protest from the perspec- tive of Harvard University’s crew team, members of the U.S. rowing team. The article did not mention Smith and Carlos by name, refer- ring to them only as “two Negro trackmen” on first reference and as “two black athletes” afterwards.46 Ahern’s choice of perspective – reporting only reactions from the Harvard crew team – could have been Ahern’s or the Globe’s way of denying Smith and Carlos the forum they were seeking. (This approach also localized the story; Harvard University is in Cambridge, Mass.) Newspapers in and near Smith’s and Carlos’s home of San Jose, California, while not openly objecting to the protest, took a fairly neutral approach. The San Jose Mercury Herald had an obvious lo- cal angle; Smith and Carlos were both students at San Jose State College. Smith’s victory was teased on the front page of the Octo- ber 17 edition, and the sports section featured Povich’s syndicated article with another article on the track races by sports editor Louis Duino under the headline “Tommie In Record 200 Win, Then ‘Sa- lutes’ Black Power.” Duino’s report made no mention of the protest, instead celebrating the victory by San Jose’s own. The combination of Povich and Duino gave the sports page an interesting dichotomy, pairing Povich’s bristling reactions with Duino’s local pride.47 Published in Smith’s and Carlos’s backyard, the Oakland Tri- bune ran a story on Smith’s victory and the subsequent podium protest on October 17 written by sportswriter Blaine Newnham, an article that covered the basic events of the evening. However, unlike many of the other writers, Newnham, who is white, never referred to Smith and Carlos as “Negroes” or as “militants.”48 According to Newnham, sportswriters knew usage of the term “Negro” had a negative connotation for many black athletes and black readers.49 Newnham said in an interview that he chose not to use the term

108 • American Journalism — because of his knowledge of and sensitivity to his readers; Oakland was home to the .50 Also published in the San Jose area, the San Francisco Exam- iner in its October 17 edition attempted to contextualize Smith’s and Carlos’s behavior, marking the newspaper’s coverage as unique in the sample. Examiner sports writer Bob Brachman, who began writing for the paper in 1937, pondered Smith’s and Carlos’s moti- vations, wondering what “deep emotional disturbances” they felt as they stood on the medal stand. Brachman also described Smith as being visibly upset after the protest.51 Brachman, who according to Newnham was a close friend of Smith’s, seemed to be explaining Smith’s and Carlos’s actions in support of the two sprinters, by try- ing to identify with their feelings.52 Like the Dallas Morning News, Los Angeles Times sports editor Paul Zimmerman, failed to mention Smith’s gold medal victory or his world record run. Instead, Zimmerman led with Bob Seagren’s record-setting victory in the pole vault. While writing only about the athletic aspects of the games, Zimmerman did mention in passing that Smith and Carlos had raised their fists during the national an- them, each with only one glove, explaining that “someone suggested that they buy one pair of gloves to money.”53 Zimmerman, who died in 1996 at the age of 92, covered eight Olympics, including the 1932 and 1984 games, both of which were held in Los Angeles.54 Shifting attention to the day after the medal stand controversy erupted on October 18, a number of newspapers ran an Associated Press article on the United States Olympic Committee’s apology to the IOC for Smith’s and Carlos’s actions and its warning to other U.S. athletes that similar displays would not be tolerated. The ar- ticle, which ran in ran in the sports sections of the Atlanta Consti- tution, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the San Jose Mercury, and the Washington Post, quotes Ev- erett Barnes, then director of the USOC, as saying, “it [the protest] makes our country look like the devil.” The unbylined story did not mention the names of Smith or Carlos until the fifth paragraph.55 While many major U.S. newspapers ran only wire copy on the Olympics on October 18, their first editorials and columns on the controversy began to appear on that date. One of the more outspo- ken sportswriters was Los Angeles Times columnist and 1990 Pu- litzer Prize winner Jim Murray, who made light of the protest by writing that if his message wasn’t clear, he should be excused for “wearing his black glove.” Murray, who wrote for the Times from 1961 through 1998 and served as ’s West Coast

— Spring 2009 • 109 editor from 1959 through 1961, used sarcasm in addressing the pro- test, writing, “I don’t care for the Star-Spangled Banner either. But I kept my shoes on.”56 Importantly, however, Murray acknowledged racial conflict in the United States: “Well, now our secret is out: we got race problems in our country This will come as a great astonish- ment to the reading public of the world, I am sure.”57 Fellow Times veteran columnist John Hall echoed Murray’s ob- jections in writing that he was “sick of Smith and Carlos and their whining.” Hall described Smith’s and Carlos’s outlook on the world as “shallow,” and he said he “was sick of apologizing for the state of blacks in the United States.”58 While perhaps not as cutting as Mur- ray, Hall clearly objected not only to the sprinters’ protest, but also to their views on race. Perhaps because he was a veteran of politics in sports, having covered and even argued for blacks’ entry into professional base- ball in the 1930s and 1940s, Shirley Povich wrote one of the more balanced columns in the sample in the October 19 edition of the Washington Post. Povich questioned the USOC’s decision to expel Smith and Carlos, but like Harrison, Povich also second-guessed the sprinters’ choice of time and place for their actions:

This, then was the chance for Smith and Carlos to tell the world of their militancy and protest with an impact never before offered by a Negro, athlete or otherwise. They took that chance, took the consequences, took their medals and were going home. It is not nice that they did not give their full attention to the American flag, but their sin otherwise was less than horrible.59

While sympathetic to Smith’s and Carlos’s grievances, the na- tionally syndicated columnist seemed more disappointed than any- thing else, believing that the Olympics were not the proper forum for an overtly political protest. Murray followed up on October 20 with another column on the two sprinters’ suspensions. Again using biting sarcasm, Murray wrote, “You remember when Tommie Smith and John Carlos were going to boycott the Olympics? Well, Friday the Olympics boycot- ted them.”60 Murray continued jabbing at the two runners, saying he didn’t think a person could get into so much trouble over a pair of gloves. “The American blacks here have mistaken the International Olympic movement for the hierarchy of the state of Mississippi,” he wrote.61 Murray suggested that Carlos’s negative views of white

110 • American Journalism — people could be perpetuated by the fact he lost the silver medal to one (Peter Norman), and he further insulted by questioning Carlos’s and Smith’s intelligence.62 Despite the lack of commentary on the controversy in his Oc- tober 17 article, San Jose Mercury sports editor Louis Duino openly questioned the timing of Smith’s and Carlos’s protest in his October 18 column. Duino wrote that the protest had been conducted “in bad taste” and that it lacked “organization.” While not objecting with the fervor of other sportswriters, Duino clearly believed that the protest was simply done in the wrong place at the wrong time.63 Almost every major newspaper ran an article on the suspensions of the two sprinters and their expulsion from the Games. New York Times sportswriter Joseph Sheehan reported a mixture of reactions from Olympic Games participants: “Some hailed it as a gesture of independence and a move in support of a worthy cause. Many others said they were offended and embarrassed. A few were vehemently indignant.”64 On the same day, the Los Angeles Times sportswriter and columnist Charles Maher indicted Smith and Carlos for break- ing an unwritten rule in sports by polluting the Games with their po- litical views. Maher also referred to a black reporter befriended by Smith and Carlos as a “Negro.”65 Maher gained a degree of notoriety earlier in the year for writing a five-part investigative series examin- ing the possible athletic superiority of blacks over whites titled “The Negro Athlete in America.”66 Some Olympic coverage, however, questioned the treatment of the two athletes, if not explicitly endorsing their behavior. The Oak- land Tribune, for example, ran on October 18 an unbylined Associ- ated Press story critical of Smith’s and Carlos’s expulsion. There was no reason why Smith and Carlos could not have been allowed to stay in the Olympic Village as long as they were with their wives, the anonymous author editorialized, a clear violation of the journal- istic standard of objectivity..67 The Tribune’s coverage was the exception, however. Overall, columns and editorials throughout the country put the blame on Smith and Carlos. An editorial in the Chicago Tribune on October 19 denounced the podium display as an “insult” to the United States and predicted that “when these renegades come home, they will probably be greeted as heroes by fellow extremists.”68 The New York Times’s 1956 Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Arthur Daley wrote in his October 20 edition of “Sports of the Times” that Smith and Carlos brought their views where they didn’t belong, describ- ing the protest as “disgraceful, insulting, and embarrassing.” He de-

— Spring 2009 • 111 scribed Carlos as “ultra belligerent” and voiced pleasure over his expulsion from the Games.69 In Dallas, Sam Blair wrote two columns on the podium pro- test, the first of which condemned it as “rude” and “deceptive.” Blair, who spent 41 years at the Morning News, wrote that Carlos “talks faster than he runs but not nearly as well,” and he asked the sprinter to be sure to keep his promise to boycott the 1972 Olympics four years hence.70 Blair’s second column, which ap- peared on October 22, stated that despite the United States’s many victories, the Olympics would best be remembered for “poor taste and bad manners.” Smith’s and Carlos’s behavior was “sorry,” and their actions were militant and ridiculous, according to Blair, who described Smith’s and Carlos’s positions on race “insulting” and “distasteful.”71 For the remainder of the Olympic Games, articles appeared on Smith and Carlos and their reception in the United States. Some of this coverage ran underneath critical headlines. An October 22 article on Smith’s and Carlos’s homecoming in the late edition of the Dallas Morning News appeared with the headline, “Smith, Car- los Silent.”72 For the early edition, the headline was more negative: “Irate Negro Sprinters Shut Mouths.”73 In an article on the sprinters’ homecoming in the Los Angeles Times, Smith refused to discuss the protest or expulsion with reporters, then “led reporters on a broken field run.” Smith was quoted by theTimes as calling the news media “mean,” which inspired the headline “Smith, Carlos in Flight from ‘Mean’ Reporters.”74 The San Jose Mercury, the hometown newspa- per of Smith and Carlos, not surprisingly ran a much more thorough account of their return. The article noted Smith’s silence, broken only to say he was tired. Smith then broke “into a fast walk,” accord- ing to the account.75 The United Press International’s October 22 ac- count of the homecoming in the Washington Post made no mention of the “mean” comment, but did include gold medal pole vaulter Bob Seagren’s description of the sprinters’ actions as “cheap.”76 In the most supportive editorial in this study, Boston Globe col- umnist ’s October 23 work sympathized with the San Jose contingent and blamed the format of the Olympic games for the subsequent IOC outrage and eventual expulsion of the two - ers.77 The podium protest was “so mild that probably few would have noticed had the Olympic exactitudes not counter-punched in noble defense of their own standards – the standards of old, rich, uncon- cerned white men,” he wrote, providing a refreshingly enlightened view compared to most of the reports in the sample. Collins also

112 • American Journalism — decried the suppression of individualism implicit in the condemna- tion of the two sprinters’ actions, an individualism that Collins said resided at the very heart of the original Olympic spirit. “Olympic officials will tell you that they will allow no politics in their play- pen, yet instead their very format encourages tasteless nationalism and stifling of individualism,” he wrote. Collins, who after 46 years still serves as a correspondent for the Globe, was often upset by the “strict code of denial that existed [in Boston] about confronting the racial problems” that were present in the city and the United States, and was often viewed by fellow journalists as “the moral voice” of Boston sports reporters because of his willingness to speak out on issues of race.78 In examining Olympic wrap-up coverage, it is clear that many of the aforementioned journalists continued to paint the protest in a negative light. The Los Angeles Times indirectly included the sprint- ers only by briefly referencing the protest, calling it “a discouraging note” and the controversy “threatened to rip the American teams apart.”79 The San Jose Mercury News published a different Asso- ciated Press account from Los Angeles, calling the protest a “dis- cordant note.”80 Boston Globe executive sports editor Jerry Nason wrote in his wrap of the Games, “No one will forget that here the United States had to make a public apology for the boorish and mis- placed ‘black power’ demonstrations.”81 The Washington Post also only briefly mentioned the 200-meter runners, focusing on their ges- tures rather than their athletic accomplishments: “The Games were marked by racial dispute, triggered when Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave a black power gesture during the gold-medal ceremony. Smith and Carlos were subsequently dropped from the U.S. team.”82 It is possible that in omitting Smith’s and Carlos’s athletic accom- plishments, the newspapers were punishing the athletes for their ac- tivism, or perhaps attempting to distance the rest of America from the sprinters’ embarrassing actions in Mexico City. Some newspa- pers, including the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times, simply omitted Smith and Carlos from any sort of summary Olympic ac- counts, leaving out of the summaries Smith’s world record and gold medal victory.83 One of the few post-Olympic commentaries that discussed Smith and Carlos with any substance was in the October 29 edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Oliver Kuechle’s weekly sports column stated that there wasn’t an unwanted event “except for the unfortunate insult before the world which sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, accepting medals, gave this country.” 84 Kuechle

— Spring 2009 • 113 spent 47 years at the Milwaukee-based paper and regularly covered the Milwaukee Braves and the Green Bay Packers.

The View Overseas

The foreign media examined were generally supportive of Smith and Carlos, even characterizing them as heroes to their cause. In its October 18 issue, for instance, The (London) Times covered the awards ceremony actions of the U.S. sprinters rather than run- ning profiles of British Olympic athletes. Times sportswriter Neil Allen, who seemed to understand the significance of the protest in historical context in a way that most U.S. sportswriters seemingly could not, wrote that while individual Olympic events are generally forgotten over time, the 200-meter run in 1968 likely would be re- membered forever.85 Smith and Carlos made history by becoming the first Olympic champions to “make racial [and] political capital out of the most treasured moments of their sporting careers,” he wrote, calling Smith “the most notable black champion of all.”86Allen, who would become a veteran Olympic journalist, is a sportswriter at The News in Portsmouth, Great Britain. The Sydney Morning Herald, too, endorsed the U.S. runners’ actions, claiming that the IOC was “unwise” in suspending Smith and Carlos. The editorial writer(s) did recommend separating poli- tics and sports, but stated that only “racial bigots” should have been offended by the Smith’s and Carlos’s actions, calling the protest an “intensely human expression.” The unbylined editorial also praised Australian native Peter Norman, the silver medalist, for his support of Smith and Carlos by wearing an OPHR button on his warm-up jacket.87 Norman told reporters that he asked Smith for the button because he (Norman), too, “believed in human rights.”88 Chris Allan, a columnist for The (Montreal) Gazette was not as understanding, writing that the U.S. track team members’ “misguid- ed” use of the Olympics for political theater amounted to a “cancer” on the Games. Allan also reported comments from Canadian sprint- er Jerome James, who compared the U.S. runners’ one-fist gesture of “power” to a display of the swastika.89

Aftermath

Nearly four decades after the 1968 Olympics, former Oakland Tribune sportswriter Blaine Newnham was able to admit that he, too, had been angry with the U.S. sprinters and that his anger was

114 • American Journalism — shared by a number of fellow sportswriters who covered those same Games. Newnham said in an interview in 2005 that many newspa- per writers quickly tired of the controversy and, therefore, simply refused to cover Smith and Carlos after they had been suspended. Newnham said the one-fist black power protest was one of the first times that political action and sports intersected on such a grand stage, a complexity that left many writers angry and confused. “There was something special about the Olympics,” he said. “You just don’t violate that with politics.”90 While Newnham’s admission supports the notion that sports- writers viewed the protest as a blow to sport, Harry Edwards claimed in his 1970 book that a majority of white sports media in the United States were apathetic towards racial injustice, and that writ- ers seemed to care more about pleasing editors and publishers than reporting the truth. Sacrificed, then, were the journalistic standards of objectivity and balance, in Edwards’s view.91 Smith has stated on his Web site that people who viewed his ac- tions on the podium as disrespectful misunderstood his purpose. He says that he was not behaving unpatriotically, but rather demonstrat- ing patriotism in his own way.92 Smith said he believed at the time that anything short of what he and Carlos did on such a grand stage would have been ineffective.93 In 1998, Smith told the Associated Press that he and Carlos did what they did “to stand up for human rights and to stand up for black Americans.”94 Following unsuccessful attempts at careers in the , both sprinters largely disappeared from the public eye, with the exception of the occasional update or “Where are they now?” article in newspapers and magazines. In some of these later accounts, Carlos acknowledged the negative reactions in the media but never blamed the media. While Newnham disagreed with the protest itself, looking back, he said he thought it had a positive ef- fect. “The Olympics should rise above politics, but I think the two guys [Smith and Carlos] did a good thing,” he said. “It was a world stage and they had something to say. The world had to listen and they forced us [Americans] to deal with it [the treatment of blacks].”95

Conclusion

During the two weeks that followed the protest, sportswriters, in general, objected to Smith and Carlos’s demonstration and failed to contextualize the political statement behind their act. Rather than

— Spring 2009 • 115 examining the protest for its meaning and considering the legiti- macy of the OPHR’s claims, sportswriters viewed the protest as a damning blow to the Olympic spirit. With few exceptions, the sports reporter defended, perhaps unintentionally, the social climate of the United States by negating the racial content of protest with their steadfast objections. Emotionally biased journalism replaced the journalistic standards of fair and balanced reporting. Rather than pointing out the social legitimacy of the protest, sportswriters buried the messages and condemned Smith and Carlos. While the protest illustrated the potential power of the black athlete in sports, the mes- sage itself was lost. The strong political statement made by Smith and Carlos was simply damned by journalists as one of many nega- tive occurrences in 1968. More comfortable covering clear winners and losers, these writers seemed unwilling or unable to understand the motivation for or goals of the two black athletes’ actions. Future research could examine the coverage in the black press and contrast it to how mainstream media covered the controversy. The black press likely was far more sympathetic to the sprinters’ views and the OPHR’s goals. An examination of black press cover- age, then, could provide important insights into how or whether the protest resonated in black communities in the United States and into the ways black sportswriters viewed the athletes’ actions. Another potential examination could include the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, which was rife with political unrest and turmoil and in- cluded the aforementioned Munich massacre and the objections and potential protest of a Rhodesian contingent in Germany. Because of sportswriters’ overall objections to the political context of 1968, it is possible that the further politicalization of the scared realm of athlet- ics could have been met with similar disdain and contempt.

Endnotes

1 “Smith and Seagren Win Gold Metals,” Atlanta Constitution, 17 , 49; “Smith Wins 200 in 19.8,” Boston Globe, 17 October 1968, 49- 50; George Strickler, “Smith and Seagren win Gold Medals,” Chicago Tri- bune, 17 October 1968, C1, 3; “Two More Gold Medals,” Dallas Morning News, 17 October 1968, B4; Paul Zimmerman, “Seagren Takes Pole Vault at 17-8½,” Los Angeles Times, 17 October 1968, Part 3, 1, 4; “Move to avert Brundage snub by Negroes,” The (London) Times, 17 October 1968, 17; Oliver Kuechle, “Gold Medals Won by 2 More Yanks,” Milwaukee Jour- nal Sentinel, 17 October 1968, Part 2, 21; Joseph Sheehan, “Smith takes Olympic 200 Meters and Seagren Captures Pole Vault,” New York Times, 17 October 1968, 58; Louis Duino, “Tommie in Record 200 Win, Then

116 • American Journalism — Salutes Black Power,” San Jose Mercury News, 17 October 1968, 73, 74; Blaine Newnham, “Incredible Smith in 19.8 Wins,” Oakland Tribune, 17 October 1968, 37-38; Jim Webster, Ken Knox, and Australian Associated Press, “World Records At the Games,” Sydney Morning Herald, 19 October 1968, 32; and “Gold Total Rises Again,” Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 17 October 1968, sec. 7, 1. All accounts reported that Smith broke his own world record, which was 20.0 seconds. The previous Olympic record was 20.3, set by American in 1964. 2 Russell Wigginton, The Strange Career of the Black Athlete: and Sports (West Port, CT: Praeger Publishing, 2006), 69-70; and Harry Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete (New York: The Free Press, 1970), 128-129. 3 John Wilson, Playing by the Rules: Sport, Society, and the State (: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 56-57. 4 Michael Lomax, Sports and the Racial Divide: African American and La- tino Experience in an Era of Change (Jackson: University Press of Missis- sippi, 2008), 55; Amy Bass, “Whose Broad Stripes and Bright Stars? Race, Nation, and Power at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics,” Sports Matters: Race, Recreation, and Culture edited by John Bloom and Michael Nevin Willard (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 189; and , Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon’s Legend- ary Coach and Nike’s Cofounder (Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, 2007), 118-119. 5 Lomax, 55-56. 6 Bass, 185-186. 7 Bass, 185. 8 William L. Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Move- ment and American Culture, 1965-1975 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 88; Mark Kurlansky, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World (New York: Ballantine Books, 2004), 348; and Blaine Newnham, interview by author, 14, April 2005. Newnham is an editor with the Seattle Times and former Oakland Tribune reporter who covered the Olympics in 1968. 9 Lomax, 79. 10 Tommie Smith and David Steele, Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007), 165. 11 Ibid. 12 John Carlos and C.D Jackson, Why? The Autobiography of John Carlos (Los Angeles: Milligan Books, 2000), 202. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Carlos and Jackson, 208; and Will Grimsley, “Olympic Village Stirred By Black Protest,” (Baltimore) Evening Sun, 17 October 1968, D1, 11. 16 Carlos and Jackson, 206. 17 Edwards, 104. 18 Lomax, 60-61. 19 Ibid. 20 Lomax, 71. 21 Amy Bass, Not the Triumph But the Struggle: The 1968 Olympics and the

— Spring 2009 • 117 Making of the Black Athlete (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), 187. 22 Smith and Steele, 22-23. 23 Smith and Steele, 33. 24 Ibid. 25 Chris Lamb and Glen Bleske, “Covering the integration of baseball – a look back,” Editor & Publisher 130, no. 4 (27 January 1996): 48-50; and Chris Lamb, Blackout: The Untold Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Spring Training (Omaha: Bison Books, 2006), 46-47. 26 Douglas Hartmann, “The Politics of Race and Sport; Resistance and Domination in the 1968 African American Olympic Protest Movement,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 19, no. 3 (July 1995): 548. 27 Hartmann, 556-557. Hartmann explained that, upon their return to the United States, both Smith and Carlos fell on hard times. Smith tried to reg- ister for U.S. Reserve Officers’ Training classes in his final year at San Jose State. He was told to turn in his uniform and a verbal agreement to play football with the NFL’s was taken off the table because he was called “too eager,” according to friend and future NFL Hall of Fame member Jim Brown. Carlos never finished college and had to make ends meet by taking odd jobs. His wife committed suicide in 1977, an act he blames on the pressures he faced from his role in the protest. 28 Hartmann, 558. 29 Bass, 200. 30 Bass, 199. 31 Mark Kurlansky, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World (New York: Bal- lantine Books, 2004), 327. 32 Kurlansky, 349. 33 Lomax, 85. 34 Lomax, 56-57. 35 Hartmann, 555. 36 Bass, 192. 37 The Associated Press, Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered War, Peace, and Everything Else (New York: Princeton Architec- tural Press, 2007), 147-148. 38 Will Grimsley, “Olympic Village Stirred By Black Protest,” (Baltimore) Evening Sun, 17 October 1968, D1, 11; “Olympians Vary in Reaction to Protest,” Oakland Tribune, 17 October 1968, E37, 38; and “Black Fist Dis- play Gets Varied Reaction in Olympic Village,” Los Angeles Times, 17 Oc- tober 1968, Part 3, 1. 39 Shirley Povich, “Smith, Carlos Hold Black-Gloved Fists High During Star Spangled Banner,” Washington Post, C1; Shirley Povich, “Black Pow- er on Victory Stand,” Los Angeles Times, 17 October 1968, part 3, 1, 4; and Shirley Povich, “A Gesture of Protest,” San Jose Mercury News, 17 October 1968, 73. 40 Shirley Povich, All Those Mornings... at the Post: The 20th Century in Sports from Famed Washington Post Columnist Shirley Povich (New York: PublicAffairs Publishing, 2006), 72, 203, 247.

118 • American Journalism — 41 George Strickler, “Smith and Seagren Win Gold Medals,” Chicago Tri- bune, 17 October 1968, C1, 3. 42 Pro Football Hall of Fame, http://www/profootballhof.com, 13 January 2009. 43 Sam Blair, “Sprinters Back on Wright Foot,” Dallas Morning News, 20 October 1968, B2. 44 Bill Tanton, “Press Irks Owens,” (Baltimore) Evening Sun, 17 October 1968, D1. 45 “Smith and Seagren Win Gold Medals,” Atlanta Constitution, 17 October 1968, 49; “Two More Gold Medals,” Dallas Morning News, 17 October 1968, B4; and “Gold Total Rises Again,” Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 17 October 1968, sec. 7, 1. 46 John Ahern, “Protest? Harvard Oarsman Too Busy,” Boston Globe, 17 October 1968, 49, 50. 47 Louis Duino, “Tommie in Record 200 Win, Then Salutes Black Power,” San Jose Mercury News, 17 October 1968, 73, 74. 48 Blaine Newnham, “Tommie Raises His Fist,” Oakland Tribune, 17 Oc- tober 1968, E37. 49 Edwards, 29. Edwards described the word “Negro” as one assigned to blacks by white men as a shorter version of the word “nigger.” Edwards said blacks objected to use of the word “Negro.” 50 Newnham telephone interview with author, 15 April 2005. 51 Bob Brachman, “U.S. Apologizes for Protest,” San Francisco Examiner, 17 October 1968, 27, 32. 52 Newnham telephone interview with author, 15 April 2005. 53 Paul Zimmerman, “Seagren Takes Pole Vault at 17-8½,” Los Angeles Times, 17 October 1968, Part 3, 1, 4. 54 , “Former Times Sports Editor Paul Zimmerman Dead at 92,” Los Angeles Times, 30 January 1996, C2. 55 “U.S. Olympians Make Apology,” Atlanta Constitution, 18 October 1968, 66; “U.S. Apologizes for Protest by Blacks,” Chicago Tribune, 18 October 1968, Sec. 3, 1, 3; “U.S. Apologizes for Athletes ‘Discourtesy’,” Los Ange- les Times, 18 October 1968, Part 3, 1; “U.S. Leaders Warn of Penalties For Further Black Power Acts,” New York Times, 18 October 1968, 59; “Yanks Apologize For Race Protest,” San Jose Mercury News, 18 October 1968, 57; and “U.S. Apologizes for Black Protest,” Washington Post, 18 October 1968, D1. 56 Elizabeth A. Brennan and Elizabeth C. Clarage, Who’s Who of Pulitzer Prize Winners (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999), 65. 57 Jim Murray, “Excuse My Glove,” Los Angeles Times, 18 October 1968, Part 3, 1. 58 John Hall, “It Takes All Kinds,” Los Angeles Times, 18 October 1968, Part 3, 2. 59 Shirley Povich, “This Morning,” Washington Post, 19 October 1968, C1. 60 Jim Murray, “The Olympic Games - No Place For A Sportswriter,” Los Angeles Times, 20 October 1968, D1, 3.

— Spring 2009 • 119 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid. 63 Louis Duino, “Americans Boo Smith, Carlos,” San Jose Mercury News, 18 October 1968, 58. 64 Joseph Sheehan, “2 Black Power Advocates Ousted From Olympics,” New York Times, 19 October 1968, 1. 65 Charles Maher, “U.S. Expels Smith, Carlos From Olympic Team,” Los Angeles Times, 19 October 1968, Part 2, 1, 3. 66 The five part series, titled “The Negro Athlete in America” was published in the Los Angeles Times from March 24, 1968 through March 29, 1968. S. W. Pope, The New American Sport History (Champaign, Il: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 320; Paul R. Spickard and W. Jeffrey Burroughs, We are a People: Narrative and Multiplicity in Constructing Ethnic Identity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000), 131, and Bass, 199. 67 “Olympic Walkout Unlikely,” Oakland Tribune, 18 October 1968, E 55, 56. 68 “The Natural Right of Being a Slob,” Chicago Tribune, 19 October 1968, Sec.1, 10. 69 Arthur Daley, “Sports of the Times,” New York Times, 20 October 1968, Sec. 5, 2. 70 Sam Blair, “Sprinters Back on Wright Foot,” Dallas Morning News, 20 October 1968, B2. 71 Sam Blair, “Loud Mouths Taint U.S. Accomplishments,” Dallas Morning News, 22 October 1968, B1. 72 “Smith, Carlos Silent,” Dallas Morning News, 22 October 1968, B1. 73 “Irate Negro Sprinters Shut Mouths,” Dallas Morning News, 22 October 1968, B1. 74 “Smith, Carlos in Flight from ‘Mean’ Reporters,” Los Angeles Times, 22 Oc- tober 22, Part 3, 6. 75 Scott Moore and Wes Mathis, “Newsmen Outrun Smith and Carlos,” San Jose Mercury News, 22 October 1968, 1, 2. 76 “Smith, Carlos Back, Have ‘No Comment,’” Washington Post, 22 October 1968, D2. 77 Bud Collins, “The Olympics protesters have been too few,” Boston Globe, 23 October 1968, 27. 78 Howard Bryant, Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 2003), 48, 97. 79 “80,000 Watch Olympics End on Happy Note,” Los Angeles Times, 29 Oc- tober 1968, Part 3, 3. 80 “Pageantry Ends Games,” San Jose Mercury News, 28 October 1968, 45- 46. 81 Jerry Nason, “Cheering Mexico City Bids Olympics ‘Adios’,” Boston Globe, 28 October 1968, 1, 23. 82 “80,000 Watch Olympics Close,” Washington Post, 29 October 1968, Sec. 3, 1, 2. 83 Wrap-up articles that failed to mention the protest included George Strickler, “Bring Down Curtain on 1968 Festival,” Chicago Tribune, 28 October 1968,

120 • American Journalism — Sec. 3, 1, 5; Steve Cady, “Amid Gun Salutes and Music, Mexico Bids a Colorful ‘Adios’ to Olympics,” New York Times, 28 October 1968, 59; Bob Brachman, “It’s Adios to 1968 Olympics,” San Francisco Examiner, 28 October 1968, 53, 58; “Yanks Run on Gold Ends,” Oakland Tribune, 28 October 1968, 37-38. 84 Oliver Kuechle, “Time Out For Talk,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 20 Oc- tober 1968, Sec. 3, 3. 85 Neil Allen, “After the race, a racial gesture,” The (London) Times, 18 October 1968, 12. 86 Ibid. 87 “Politics at the Games?” Sydney Mercury Herald, 21 October 1968, 2. 88 Jim Webster and Ken Knox, “Black Power rears its head at Games,” Sydney Morning Herald, 19 October 1968, 1. 89 Chris Allan, “Jerome raps affair as misguided power play,” The (Montreal) Gazette, 19 October 1968, Sec. 3, 27. 90 Newnham telephone interview with author, 15 April 2005. 91 Edwards, 33. 92 Tommie Smith. http://www.tommiesmith.com, 24 April 2005. 93 Lipsyte, 1. 94 Kurlansky, 350. Smith and Carlos were inducted into the San Jose State Uni- versity Sports Hall of Fame in 1999. 95 Newnham telephone interview with author, 15 April 2005.

— Spring 2009 • 121