Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University History Dissertations Department of History 2-18-2009 Stand Up and Be Counted: The Black Athlete, Black Power and The 1968 Olympic Project for Human Rights Dexter L. Blackman Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss Recommended Citation Blackman, Dexter L., "Stand Up and Be Counted: The Black Athlete, Black Power and The 1968 Olympic Project for Human Rights." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2009. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss/22 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. STAND UP AND BE COUNTED: THE BLACK ATHLETE, BLACK POWER AND THE 1968 OLYMPIC PROJECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS by DEXTER L. BLACKMAN Under the Direction of Jacqueline A. Rouse ABSTRACT The dissertation examines the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR), a Black Power initiative to build a black boycott of the 1968 US Olympic team that ultimately culminated in the infamous Black Power fists protest at the 1968 Olympics. The work challenges the historiography, which concludes that the OPHR was a failure because most black Olympic-caliber athletes participated in the 1968 games, by demonstrating that the foremost purpose of the OPHR was to raise public awareness of ―institutionalized racism,‖ the accumulation of poverty and structural and cultural racism that continued to denigrate black life following landmark 1960s civil rights legislation.