Boycott talk became protest talk, but no roles were assigned. Athletes would make their own choices. Ten days before the opening ceremony, at a student protest in Mexico City’s Tlatelolco plaza, government troops killed scores of protesters. (The exact number has never been determined.) There was fear in the air when the Games began on Saturday, October 12. Facing death threats at home and if he went to Mexico, Edwards did not attend. He would watch the Games from Montreal, where he was attending a writers’ conference.
Events willed Smith and Carlos forward. Before the start of the track and field competition, USOC officials arranged for Jesse Owens, a national hero for his performance at the Berlin Games, to speak to the black athletes. He discouraged them from demonstrating. “Jesse told those guys, ‘If you do, you’ll never get a job,’” says Edwards. “[U.S. 400-meter runner] Vince Matthews stood up and said, ‘I already don’t have a job.’ In 1968 a black athlete didn’t get a job. Maybe you got a job at the parks and recreation department in the town where you grew up.”
But the first black American to win a gold medal embraced Owens’s words. On the night of October 14, Hines became the first 100-meter runner to crack the 10-second barrier with fully automatic timing, setting a world record of 9.95. His protest was that he declined to shake Brundage’s hand, a significant act that went largely unreported. He stood at attention for the anthem. “Jesse Owens was our leader, and we were under his instructions to do what was right and acceptable,” says Hines, now 72 and living in his native Oakland. “I also followed my own instructions with respect to Brundage.”
Two nights later was the 200 meters. Pressure was building within the OPHR. Hines had not been a part of the OPHR meetings. On the afternoon of the 16th, Carlos and Smith won their 200-meter semifinals. Carlos had run a hand-timed 19.7 seconds, a world record, at the second of two Olympic trials, in the 7,382-foot altitude of Echo Summit, California, in September. (That mark was later disallowed because he had worn Puma spikes that were deemed too advantageous.) Carlos entered as the favorite, a status solidified when Smith tweaked a groin muscle decelerating past the finish in his semi. (In videos he can be seen limping off the track.)
After the heat Smith retreated to a training room with Bud Winter, his college coach. “Bud loved ice,” says Smith. “He put ice all over my leg.” As Smith lay on a trainer’s table, Evans approached. They had met as adolescents working the fields near Smith’s home in Lemoore and Evans’s in Madera. “Smith!” Tommie recalls Evans shouting at him. “We picked cotton, we cut grapes. You gonna let this stop you? You better get out there and win that race.”
Smith started from lane 3, with Carlos in lane 4. These were the first Olympic track races on an artificial surface rather than on cinders or on dirt. Smith ran a cautious turn, protecting his groin injury; Carlos, the more powerful sprinter, scorched the bend, swallowed up the stagger on the third U.S. starter, Larry Questad, and reached the straightaway with a one-meter lead over Smith. “I was in trouble,” says Smith. “I was way behind the fastest man in the world.” But with 80 meters to run, Smith burst forward and delivered 60 meters that are among the fastest by any human. Carlos turned to look as Smith shot past (more on this). Smith was a breathtaking runner—knees lifting, shoulders slightly hunched, the rest of his body placid. Where Bolt was a fury of movement and power, Smith was serene.
Ten meters from the line, Smith raised his arms high and wide, then took his last seven strides that way. The automatic timer first froze at 19.78, and then was adjusted to 19.83. With Carlos’s previous mark disallowed, Smith’s time became the world record, and it stood for 11 years, and there’s little doubt he left time on the track by prematurely celebrating. Carlos, staggering at the line, lost the silver to Norman but comfortably took the bronze. Soon afterward came the medal ceremony. The gloves. The socks. The moment.
In the years that followed, Smith and Carlos would be seen as twins in a reductive narrative: tall black men with goatees, fast runners, militants. They were painted with the broadest of brushes and turned into caricatures of the angry black man, reviled and feared by many. The reality was different: aside from being two of the fastest runners on earth, they had little else in common.
* * *
Smith was born in Clarksville, Texas, the seventh of 12 children; his family came to California on a labor bus when he was seven. They settled in Lemoore, worked in the fields, and went to church on Sundays. Tommie was serious, thoughtful, pious. Lynda Huey arrived at San Jose State two years after Smith, a blond sprinter raised in San Jose. They dated for a while and later became close friends before drifting apart in the 1990s. “When I met Tommie,” says Huey, “he was very aware of his place in society. He didn’t think we should be seen together, a black man and a white girl. He would leave the apartment first, and tell me to wait 15 minutes.”
Smith’s track career was a runaway success. At one time he concurrently held world records for 200 meters, 220 yards, and 400 meters. And if he was quiet, he was not unaware. In 1966, on the day that he set records in the 200 and the 220, he participated in a civil rights march in East Palo Alto. “I was a college student,” says Smith. “I was no dummy. And I knew racism.”
Carlos was born one day short of a year after Smith and hardened by realities that only New York City can confer. In his 2011 autobiography, The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World, written with Dave Zirin, he describes his childhood as a frenetic hustle, whether stealing food off freight trains (and giving it to poor families), playing the numbers for money, or singing with his friends outside the Savoy Ballroom. His life and Smith’s were different versions of black men growing up in 1950s and ’60s America.
Carlos earned a track scholarship to East Texas State, spent two years there, and then moved home before transferring out West in 1968. Carlos wrote in his book that it was Edwards who had encouraged the move at a meeting in New York City in January ’68, where Carlos says he also met Dr. King. Says Edwards, “I didn’t know, or know of, John Carlos prior to him showing up at San Jose State in May 1968. He quickly became one of the most ardent and vociferous advocates of the OPHR. Carlos came on board in May 1968—four months before the Olympic trials at Lake Tahoe—and I’m glad he did.”
The arrival of Carlos changed the atmosphere at San Jose State, which was already known as Speed City. “It had been Tommie’s kingdom,” says Huey. “Then John came, and the energy was different. John’s personality could be scary. And Tommie didn’t want to be a part of that. I don’t think they were ever friends.”
Carlos was the archetype of the trash-talking, big-stoned sprinter. In a 1991 retrospective, SI’s Kenny Moore, who was a marathoner on the 1968 and ’72 Olympic teams, called Carlos “a fountain of jive.”
Dick Fosbury, the gold medalist in the high jump at the ’68 Games, became friends with Carlos and Smith at Team USA training camps that summer. “John Carlos was a street-smart, very confident, fun guy to be around,” says Fosbury. “He had a walk, this strut, the way he carried himself. I was from small-town Oregon. I had never known anybody like ’Los. He struck me as a smart guy who could handle himself and any situation that came up. Tommie was thoughtful and a gentleman. They were different guys whose paths crossed.”
* * *
Their appearance on the stand remains riveting to this day, every element significant. Single shoes and bare feet covered only in black socks, signifying poverty at home. Carlos’s beads, recalling the lynchings of black men. Smith’s black scarf, highlighting a deep identity with his race. The gloves, the fists shoved upward for the world to see, suggesting defiance and unity.
Edwards watched from an apartment in Montreal. He started the movement, but he takes no credit for the moment. “That was them,” he says. “I didn’t know what they were going to do. They had a monumental thing in front of them. First, somebody had to win. Then they had to wrestle with the whole issue of what to do. There was no clear path, no silver staircase. The scope of the demons
tration: the beads, the shoes, the gloves. The courage and the commitment that they showed. They deserve every accolade that they get. They deserve to be the faces of a movement that defined an era.”
Smith and Carlos knew they would protest somehow; they just weren’t sure what form it would take. They have never publicly agreed on who devised the specifics, but they agree that it came together only after the race, in the well of the stadium. “In the dungeon,” says Smith. Smith’s wife, Denise, had bought a pair of black gloves (Smith wore the right, Carlos the left). Carlos’s wife, Kim, had brought beads with her from the United States. Over the years each man has taken credit for orchestrating the moment. And again, the outcome overwhelms the details. In the end, they were together.
At the first notes of the anthem, both men turned 90 degrees to the right and struck their poses. Carlos has said that his arm was bent to shield his face from sniper fire, Smith that his posture was ramrod straight as a remnant of his ROTC training. Smith told me, “I was afraid the whole time. I prayed. I said the Lord’s Prayer all the way through. Then I listened to the national anthem, because that’s a powerful thing, hearing that anthem knowing how many people died so that belief could remain a part of America.”
All three men wore OPHR pins; Norman’s had been given to him by a U.S. rower who supported the organization. The ceremony was over in less than 90 seconds. Smith and Carlos raised their fists as they left the stadium floor. Both men remember hearing boos and whistles.
Reaction at home was swift and mostly negative. The most frequently cited response came from Brent Musburger, then a 29-year-old sportswriter with the long-shuttered Chicago American, who wrote, “Smith and Carlos looked like a couple of black-skinned storm troopers, holding aloft their black-gloved hands during the playing of the national anthem.” Most media accounts found a way to use the term black power, which was fair—Edwards calls it a “proto-hashtag”—but simplistic.
The BBC interviewed Smith and Carlos the next day.
BBC: “Do you think the Olympic Games are the right place to do this kind of thing? To use the world stage?”
Smith: “We used it so the whole world could see the poverty of the black man in America.”
BBC: “You might say you’ve got it all. You’ve got publicity, you’ve got medals, you’ve got martyrdom as well.”
Carlos: “I can’t eat that. And the kids around my block, that grew up with me, they can’t eat that. And the kids that grew up after them, they can’t eat it. They can’t eat gold medals. Like Tommie Smith said, ‘All we’re asking for is an equal chance.’”
Later that day Smith sat down with ABC’s Howard Cosell for a brief live interview. It is Cosell’s last question, and Smith’s answer, that lives on.
Cosell: “Are you proud to be an American?”
Smith: “I’m proud to be a black American.”
Fifty years later Smith sits in his basement and remembers the exchange. “That question stopped me,” he says. “I didn’t want to say, ‘Yes, Howard,’ because I was not proud at that particular time. I was confused about how to respond. So I said I’m proud to be a black American. I felt a light go through my body when I said that.”
On Friday, Smith and Carlos were suspended by the USOC (though they were done competing) after the IOC threatened to suspend the entire U.S. team if Smith and Carlos were not expelled. The two were ordered to leave the Olympic Village. The front-page headline in the New York Times: “2 Black Power Advocates Ousted from Olympics.” That night Evans led a U.S. sweep of the 400; all three men wore black berets on the victory stand, but removed them for the anthem. Long jumper Ralph Boston, who won a silver medal behind teammate Bob Beamon’s ethereal world record, received his medal in bare feet. The Times wrote that their behavior had been “tempered” by the expulsion of Smith and Carlos. No one else was sent home.
* * *
There is one other issue relating to the 200-meter race in Mexico City: Carlos says he allowed Smith to win. He first hinted at this in the press conference afterward. Asked why he looked to his left, Carlos said, “The upper part of my calves were pulling pretty hard. I wanted to see where Tommie was and if he could win it. If I thought he couldn’t have won it, I would have tried harder to take it.”
By 2011, when Carlos wrote his book, that had evolved into, “Whatever drove Tommie, I could tell that for him, the only acceptable ending was to make his political statement from the gold medal perch and the gold medal perch alone. 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.” In his interview for an NBC documentary, 1968, which will air this month, Carlos went further and called Smith’s injury “Fake. Artificial. He didn’t fool me in the least little bit.”
There is a long tradition of head games among sprinters. Perhaps Carlos truly settled for any medal that would get him onto the podium. But his insistence on this narrative has deepened the rift between the two. “John says he let me win,” says Smith. “Threw the race. You cannot say that. When you don’t win, you congratulate the winner for trying his best. I don’t believe Carlos means it. I really don’t.”
In the fall of 2017, Smith met with Kaepernick at a hotel restaurant in New York City. The meeting had been arranged by Glenn Kaino, an artist and documentary filmmaker who is working with Smith. “I told him he will have to find new avenues for his life,” says Smith. “He’ll need a second plan. I had a plan for my life before Mexico City. But that stopped it. I got home and I was hungry. I lost my food. I lost my house. The price was devastating.”
There is a distinction here: Kaepernick’s protest has cost him millions, but he has also made millions. And his new contract with Nike figures to generate significant income. His future is sure to be very different from the one Smith and Carlos have lived. Says Edwards, “Not only is Kaep likely to make millions from his Nike deal, he is also likely to receive every dollar that he would have made on the field by way of a settlement with the league without taking another hit.” (The resolution of his collusion claim against the league is pending.) Edwards adds, “On top of it all, he will continue to grow as a sports icon, who will be remembered and revered by tens of millions after all but the most diehard football heads will have long forgotten the likes of Brady, Favre, and Manning.” The scope of Kaepernick’s legacy is debatable, as Smith and Carlos will attest, but there are differences between a sprinter and a quarterback.
The question of whether their protest was worth it will always hang over Smith and Carlos. It did not instantly alter the course of race relations in America. Edwards argues that the path set upon by Smith and Carlos was never going to be a straight line to equality. “Struggles that are not victories do generate change,” says Edwards. “Whether or not they generate progress is another issue. Progress is like profit; at some point it comes down to who’s keeping the books.” Edwards divides athlete activism into waves: Jack Johnson and Jesse Owens (among others) fighting for legitimacy in the first; Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby (among others) fighting for access in the second; Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, and Smith and Carlos (and others) fighting for dignity in the third. And Kaepernick (and others including Malcolm Jenkins and Eric Reid) are the evolving fourth wave.
What did Smith and Carlos contribute most? “Imaging,” says Edwards. “Those two men on a victory podium in Mexico City is the most iconic sports image of the 20th century, and that will still be true 200 years from now.”
But to paraphrase Carlos, you can’t eat imaging. Both men suffered for their protest, drifting in and out of poverty; Smith for several years and Carlos for large slices of three decades. Not long after Smith returned home from Mexico City, his mother’s home was vandalized, with feces left in the mailbox and dead animals on the lawn. Both men played pro football, but neither appeared in a regular-season game.
Smith caught a break in 1972, when activist Jack Scott was named athletic director at Oberlin (
Ohio) College and hired three black head coaches, including Smith. Smith worked at Oberlin for six years, until he was hired as a coach and phys-ed teacher at Santa Monica, a community college. Smith stayed there for 27 years, speaking out mostly when spoken to. Huey recalls walking down the hall with Smith in the late ’80s, hearing a young student heave a little trash talk at him and Smith saying, softly, “They have no idea.” Mexico City was always a part of his life. “I don’t remember ever not knowing about it,” says Kevin Smith, 50, who was born to Tommie and Denise a few months before the ’68 Olympics.
But Smith found traction at Santa Monica. “He was quiet, humble, analytical,” says Jeff Shimizu, who worked at the college from 1985 to 2016, mostly as executive vice president. “I felt he was happy here, but he had been through difficult times. He was a strong advocate for diversity, and he loved working with students. I loved going into his office and talking. I miss him.”
Reentry was more challenging for Carlos. After a few races in the aspirational and short-lived International Track Association (a fledgling pro track league in the era of “amateurism”), he moved to Los Angeles with Kim and their three children in the early 1970s. There, as he describes in his book, he found work as a security guard and a groundskeeper at a park. He told SI in ’91 that he once worked as a bar bouncer for $65 a week. He wrote of burning furniture in the fireplace for heat. Says Kimme, “There were struggles, but what I remember most is seeing my father get up and go to work every day, no matter what the job was. We had a roof over our heads. We had food. I saw a man of integrity.”
Kim died by suicide in 1977, four years after the couple had split. Carlos has long blamed himself and the backlash from Mexico City for her death. But Kimme, a mental health counselor in Trenton, New Jersey, has pushed back against that narrative. “Suicide is much more complicated than that,” she says. “My mother was a woman of color in the ’60s and ’70s. You did not discuss mental illness. You did not discuss whatever pain you were dealing with. The demonstration [in Mexico City] didn’t make our lives easier. But any decision my mother made had nothing to do with my father.”
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