'Race' for Equality

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 Tommie Smith and John Carlos 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 accomplishments 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 Civil Rights movement. 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 Olympic Games. n the night of October 16, 1968, at the Olympic Games in Mexico 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 United States 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 Black Power 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 Americans 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 basketball 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 Los Angeles, and in Mexico City 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 Lee Evans, 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 Avery Brundage. 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 publications 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, Brent Musburger, 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 Atlanta Constitution, the Dallas Morning News, and the New Orleans-based Times-Picayune; the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and the Washington Post in — Spring 2009 • 101 the East; the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Chicago Tribune in the Midwest; and the San Jose Mercury News, the Oakland Tri- bune, the San Francisco Examiner, and the Los Angeles Times in the West. These major market newspapers and those from the sprinters’ home state of California 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 Peter Norman 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, followed 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 Howard Cosell: 102 • American Journalism — The right glove that I wore on my right hand signified power within black Ameri- ca.

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