Summer Olympics Mexico
Without Prejudice
Colour TV came early to us kids. We happened to be living in the UK and Dad rented a colour TV for the Summer Olympics held in Mexico City, the year 1968. My siblings and I were fascinated with the new medium. We religiously watched everything that came on. One channel only and it was BBC2. We watched the test patterns just to see colour, black and white was very drab after that.
I remember all the fuss at the Olympics about the "height" affecting the runners lungs. Well just about every ones lungs, sensible people had gone early to adjust to the thinner air. We watched slavishly. Mum was rapt when John Carlos and Tommie Smith put their black gloved fists in the air at the medal awards, silence all around. I was thrilled beyond measure.
Such a defiant thing to do and it was all about Human rights and Olympic officials tried to say it was a salute to the Black Panthers movement but that was a load of cods wallop.
As stated in Wikipedia,
The Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics was a protest made by the African American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos; the athletes made the raised fist gesture at the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City. The Australian competitor, Peter Norman, who was neither Black nor American, also wore a human rights badge on his shirt during the ceremony to show his support to the two Americans.
The event was one of the most overtly political statements in the history of the modern Olympic Games. Tommie Smith stated in his autobiography, Silent Gesture, that the gesture was not a "Black Power" salute, but in fact a "human rights salute".
The protest on the morning of 16 October 1968, U.S. athlete Tommie Smith won the 200 meter race in a world-record time of 19.83 seconds, with Australia's Peter Norman second with a time of 20.06 seconds, and the U.S.'s John Carlos in third place with a time of 20.10 seconds.
After the race was completed, the three went to collect their medals at the podium. The two U.S. athletes received their medals shoeless, but wearing black socks, to represent black poverty
Smith wore a black scarf around his neck to represent black pride, Carlos had his tracksuit top unzipped to show solidarity with all blue collar workers in the U.S. and wore a necklace of beads which he described as
"Were for those individuals that were lynched, or killed and that no-one said a prayer for, that were hung and tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the middle of passage."
All three athletes wore Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) badges after Norman, a critic of Australia's White Australia Policy, expressed empathy with their ideals. Sociologist Harry Edwards, the founder of the OPHR, had urged black athletes to boycott the games; reportedly, the actions of Smith and Carlos on 16 October 1968, were inspired by Edwards' arguments.
Both U.S. athletes intended on bringing black gloves to the event, but Carlos forgot his, leaving them in the Olympic Village. It was the Australian, Peter Norman, who suggested Carlos wear Smith's left-handed glove, this being the reason behind him raising his left hand, as opposed to his right, differing from the traditional Black Power salute.
When "The Star-Spangled Banner" played, Smith and Carlos delivered the salute with heads bowed, a gesture which became front page news around the world. As they left the podium they were booed by the crowd. Smith later said
"If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight."
It was a time of protest across the world. My siblings and I felt it, absorbed it and drew it in as a breath of fresh air. Answers were blowing "In The Wind and we were on "The Eve Of Destruction."
International Olympic Committee (IOC) president, Avery Brundage, deemed it to be a domestic political statement, unfit for the apolitical, international forum the Olympic Games were supposed to be. In an immediate response to their actions, he ordered Smith and Carlos suspended from the U.S. team and banned from the Olympic Village.
When the US Olympic Committee refused, Brundage threatened to ban the entire US track team. This threat led to the two athletes being expelled from the Games.
A spokesman for the IOC said it was "a deliberate and violent breach of the fundamental principles of the Olympic spirit."
Brundage, who was president of the United States Olympic Committee in 1936, had made no objections against Nazi salutes during the Berlin Olympics. He argued that the Nazi salute, being a national salute at the time, was acceptable in a competition of nations, while the athletes' salute was not of a nation and therefore unacceptable.
Brundage had been one of the United States' most prominent Nazi sympathisers even after the outbreak of the Second World War, and his removal as president of the IOC had been one of the three stated objectives of the Olympic Project for Human Rights.
Today, the official IOC website states that "Over and above winning medals, the black American athletes made names for themselves by an act of racial protest."
In Australia, an historic airbrush mural of the trio on podium was painted in the inner-city suburb of Newtown in Sydney. In 2010 the highly visible work was under threat of demolition to make way for a rail tunnel.
Painted on a house wall with permission of the owner, it faces a main commuter rail line. Local government is fighting to retain the monochrome tribute, captioned "THREE PROUD PEOPLE MEXICO 68",including attempts to have it heritage-listed, though this move would not guarantee its protection.
Smith and Carlos were pallbearers at Norman's funeral in 2006. I guess loyalty and friendship last forever when it has been forged like it was. A clear demonstration against abuse of all disenfranchised people.
The Eve Of Destruction, Written By a 19 Year old Boy, P.F. Sloan in 1965
The eastern world, it is exploding
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction.
Don’t you understand what I’m tryin’ to say
Can’t you feel the fears I’m feelin’ today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no runnin’ away
There’ll be no one to save, with the world in a grave
[Take a look around ya boy, it's bound to scare ya boy]
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction.
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/b/barry_mcguire/eve_of_destruction.html ]
Yeah, my blood’s so mad feels like coagulatin’
I’m sitting here just contemplatin’
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation.
Handful of senators don’t pass legislation
And marches alone can’t bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin’
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction.
Think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
You may leave here for 4 days in space
But when you return, it’s the same old place
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace
And… tell me over and over and over and over again, my friend
You don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction
Mm, no no, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction.
Due to its line "You're old enough to kill, but not for votin'", "Eve of Destruction" was used as a rallying cry by supporters of the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which changed the voting age from 21 to 18 as of 1971.
Love it, Janette
Colour TV came early to us kids. We happened to be living in the UK and Dad rented a colour TV for the Summer Olympics held in Mexico City, the year 1968. My siblings and I were fascinated with the new medium. We religiously watched everything that came on. One channel only and it was BBC2. We watched the test patterns just to see colour, black and white was very drab after that.
I remember all the fuss at the Olympics about the "height" affecting the runners lungs. Well just about every ones lungs, sensible people had gone early to adjust to the thinner air. We watched slavishly. Mum was rapt when John Carlos and Tommie Smith put their black gloved fists in the air at the medal awards, silence all around. I was thrilled beyond measure.
Such a defiant thing to do and it was all about Human rights and Olympic officials tried to say it was a salute to the Black Panthers movement but that was a load of cods wallop.
As stated in Wikipedia,
The Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics was a protest made by the African American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos; the athletes made the raised fist gesture at the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City. The Australian competitor, Peter Norman, who was neither Black nor American, also wore a human rights badge on his shirt during the ceremony to show his support to the two Americans.
The event was one of the most overtly political statements in the history of the modern Olympic Games. Tommie Smith stated in his autobiography, Silent Gesture, that the gesture was not a "Black Power" salute, but in fact a "human rights salute".
The protest on the morning of 16 October 1968, U.S. athlete Tommie Smith won the 200 meter race in a world-record time of 19.83 seconds, with Australia's Peter Norman second with a time of 20.06 seconds, and the U.S.'s John Carlos in third place with a time of 20.10 seconds.
After the race was completed, the three went to collect their medals at the podium. The two U.S. athletes received their medals shoeless, but wearing black socks, to represent black poverty
Smith wore a black scarf around his neck to represent black pride, Carlos had his tracksuit top unzipped to show solidarity with all blue collar workers in the U.S. and wore a necklace of beads which he described as
"Were for those individuals that were lynched, or killed and that no-one said a prayer for, that were hung and tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the middle of passage."
All three athletes wore Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) badges after Norman, a critic of Australia's White Australia Policy, expressed empathy with their ideals. Sociologist Harry Edwards, the founder of the OPHR, had urged black athletes to boycott the games; reportedly, the actions of Smith and Carlos on 16 October 1968, were inspired by Edwards' arguments.
Both U.S. athletes intended on bringing black gloves to the event, but Carlos forgot his, leaving them in the Olympic Village. It was the Australian, Peter Norman, who suggested Carlos wear Smith's left-handed glove, this being the reason behind him raising his left hand, as opposed to his right, differing from the traditional Black Power salute.
When "The Star-Spangled Banner" played, Smith and Carlos delivered the salute with heads bowed, a gesture which became front page news around the world. As they left the podium they were booed by the crowd. Smith later said
"If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight."
It was a time of protest across the world. My siblings and I felt it, absorbed it and drew it in as a breath of fresh air. Answers were blowing "In The Wind and we were on "The Eve Of Destruction."
International Olympic Committee (IOC) president, Avery Brundage, deemed it to be a domestic political statement, unfit for the apolitical, international forum the Olympic Games were supposed to be. In an immediate response to their actions, he ordered Smith and Carlos suspended from the U.S. team and banned from the Olympic Village.
When the US Olympic Committee refused, Brundage threatened to ban the entire US track team. This threat led to the two athletes being expelled from the Games.
A spokesman for the IOC said it was "a deliberate and violent breach of the fundamental principles of the Olympic spirit."
Brundage, who was president of the United States Olympic Committee in 1936, had made no objections against Nazi salutes during the Berlin Olympics. He argued that the Nazi salute, being a national salute at the time, was acceptable in a competition of nations, while the athletes' salute was not of a nation and therefore unacceptable.
Brundage had been one of the United States' most prominent Nazi sympathisers even after the outbreak of the Second World War, and his removal as president of the IOC had been one of the three stated objectives of the Olympic Project for Human Rights.
Today, the official IOC website states that "Over and above winning medals, the black American athletes made names for themselves by an act of racial protest."
In Australia, an historic airbrush mural of the trio on podium was painted in the inner-city suburb of Newtown in Sydney. In 2010 the highly visible work was under threat of demolition to make way for a rail tunnel.
Painted on a house wall with permission of the owner, it faces a main commuter rail line. Local government is fighting to retain the monochrome tribute, captioned "THREE PROUD PEOPLE MEXICO 68",including attempts to have it heritage-listed, though this move would not guarantee its protection.
Smith and Carlos were pallbearers at Norman's funeral in 2006. I guess loyalty and friendship last forever when it has been forged like it was. A clear demonstration against abuse of all disenfranchised people.
The Eve Of Destruction, Written By a 19 Year old Boy, P.F. Sloan in 1965
The eastern world, it is exploding
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction.
Don’t you understand what I’m tryin’ to say
Can’t you feel the fears I’m feelin’ today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no runnin’ away
There’ll be no one to save, with the world in a grave
[Take a look around ya boy, it's bound to scare ya boy]
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction.
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/b/barry_mcguire/eve_of_destruction.html ]
Yeah, my blood’s so mad feels like coagulatin’
I’m sitting here just contemplatin’
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation.
Handful of senators don’t pass legislation
And marches alone can’t bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin’
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction.
Think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
You may leave here for 4 days in space
But when you return, it’s the same old place
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace
And… tell me over and over and over and over again, my friend
You don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction
Mm, no no, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction.
Due to its line "You're old enough to kill, but not for votin'", "Eve of Destruction" was used as a rallying cry by supporters of the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which changed the voting age from 21 to 18 as of 1971.
Love it, Janette
