His gold medal was farm-forged

I asked my podcast guest, Tommie Smith, who is arguably one of the bravest athletes of the 20th century, if he listened to music before competitions. His answer was Sam Cooke. That was poignant. Sure, the sprinter was a man of his era. But being born black in 1944 America with unique talents, you quickly learned that in theory, you were brought here for your labor. There were certain athletes and entertainers who decided that was not fair: If you accept my talent, you have to accept all that comes with my skin color. Tommie, of course, became famous for his silent protest: defiantly raising his fist at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City after he won the gold medal in the 200 meter. So as we are about to witness another Olympics, this time in Tokyo, I wanted to use “Renaissance Man” to celebrate him and talk about his history-making moment.

While on the winners’ podium, fist raised, with fellow American John Carlos and Australian Peter Norman, he flexed part of his wrist. He called it his “class muscle.” So where did that iconic physical attribute come from?

“From the country backwoods of Texas,” he told me. “I picked cotton, milked cows, fed hogs. I worked feverishly to endure those days, and by doing those hand [movements] just to survive, I created muscles in my arms . . . And creating these muscles, that’s where they came from. Hard work with my hands and with the endurance that I knew I had to have to be somebody bigger than we were back in the day.”