How embarrassing, I'm only an hour from San Jose. I recognize the name of the artist who put up the statue commemorating this at SJSU. What amazing guys, and so brave.
Some people (particularly IOC president Avery Brundage) felt that a political statement had no place in the international forum of the Olympic Games. In an immediate response to their actions, Smith and Carlos were suspended from the U.S. team by Brundage and voluntarily moved from the Olympic Village. Brundage, who was president of the United States Olympic Committee in 1936, had made no objections against Nazi salutes during the Berlin Olympics.<6> People who opposed the protest said the actions disgraced all Americans. Supporters, on the other hand, praised the men for their bravery. The men's gesture had lingering effects for all three athletes, the most serious of which were death threats against Smith, Carlos and their families.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommie_SmithFigures. Fascism A-OK, oppressed people celebrating...must suppress! They don't mention that at the Asian Art Museum in SF. The Avery Brundage collection is one of the biggest attractions, it's 50% of the permanent exhibit. I was trying to remember why that name sounded familiar, I have a book on the tea bowls he owned.
http://www.asianart.org/collection.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avery_Brundage
936 Olympics; Removal of Jews from the track team, and opposition to women in sports
As USOC president, Brundage rejected any proposals to boycott the 1936 Summer Olympics to be held in the capital of Nazi Germany, despite the exclusion of German Jews by the policies of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. In fact, Brundage became a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after the group expelled American Ernest Lee Jahncke, who had urged athletes to boycott the Berlin games.
On the morning of the 400-meter relay race, at the last moment, the only two Jews on the 1936 US track team, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, were replaced by Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe. Brundage, a Nazi sympathizer had pressured to have the only two Jews on the track team removed at the last moment so as not to embarrass Hitler and the Nazis with a Jewish victory.<7><8><9><10><11><12><12> Brundage later praised the Nazi regime at a Madison Square rally.<8><9><10><13><14> Brundage was expelled from the America First Committee in 1941 because of his pro-German leanings. After the 1936 Olympics, Brundage's construction company was awarded a building contract to build the German Embassy in Washington, D.C. Brundage was notified in a letter from Nazi authorities acknowledging Brundage's pro-Nazi sympathies.<8> As late as 1971, after many revelations over Nazi Germany's use of the 1936 Olympics for their own propaganda, Brundage still claimed "The Berlin Games were the finest in modern history...I will accept no dispute over that fact".<9>
Fuck, talk about politicizing the Olympics. I'm sorry Tommie must sell his medals for money. They should go in the Smithsonian.