Skip to main content

The salute seen around the world

By



This photo still resonates 47 years later, especially given all the attention Black Lives Matter has been getting in the news media and among the presidential candidates.  Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood barefoot and held their black-gloved fists high in a Black Power salute that sent shockwaves around in the United States and around the world.  How dare these two men "politicize" the Olympics, echoed all the leading newspapers and television news programs of the time.  I guess it is one thing for countries to politicize the games, but another when individual athletes do.

However, lost in this story is is the Australian guy on the podium with the two American athletes.  That was until a documentary was made of Peter Norman, who actually finished second in that 200 meter race behind Tommie Smith who set a new world record.  Norman's time still stands as the national record in Australia.

The 1968 Olympics were already marred by violence in Mexico City, when the government brutally repressed a student uprising two weeks earlier.   A young Czech gymnast defied the Soviet flag being raised during her medal ceremony, in response to the brutal oppression by Soviet authorities of the Prague Spring earlier that year and the controversial judges' decision that led to her having to share a gold medal with a Soviet athlete.  Of course, the American media lauded this protest.

It turns out Peter Norman wasn't just an innocent bystander, but actually asked Smith and Carlos if they had a black glove for him, as he supported their cause and continued to do so throughout his life.  In Norman's case it was about human rights as a whole.  He was against the harsh Australian immigration policies and the way Australia treated the aborigines in his home country and let it be known.  However, it was his outspoken support for Smith and Carlos that earned him the ire of the Australian Olympic committee, which banned him from any succeeding games.  He was the fastest Australian in 1972 as well, but wasn't allowed to attend the Munich Games, which became politicized in a much more tragic way.

Norman suffered abuses from his countrymen for many years.  Even in 2000, when Australia hosted the Olympics, he was offered a spot on the Olympic committee provided he recant his support for Smith and Carlos.  Norman refused again.  It was only in 2012, after his death, that the Australian parliament finally issued an apology to Peter Norman and recognized his great achievements, six years too late.



Smith and Carlos had maintained contact with Norman over the years, and had flown to Australia to serve as pallbearers at his funeral in 2006.  They had great respect for their follow athlete, who had stood alone against Australian authorities and most of his countrymen, whereas they had both found support at home.

Athletes are often easy targets for our ire.   News coverage of Smith and Carlos' tribute overshadowed all events, and made Peter Norman a pariah in his home country for supporting their salute.  It is great to see Norman finally getting his due, even if it comes many years too late.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro
228 comments
Read more

Dylan in America

By
Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.
182 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more