‘We were wrong’: Finally, civil rights icons honored
“Just tell everybody thanks for the acknowledgment, and the fight goes on.”
It’s never too late to acknowledge you were wrong. Fifty-plus years after the U.S. Olympic Committee vilified Tommie Smith and John Carlos for taking a stand against racism and discrimination, banishing them from the Mexico City team and leaving them to face scorn and condemnation at home, it is issuing a mea culpa. On Nov. 1, Smith and Carlos will be inducted into the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame, an honor bestowed because of their “character, conduct and off-field contributions,” as well as their athletic achievements.
“It sends the message that maybe we had to go back in time and make some conscious decisions about whether we were right or wrong,” Carlos told USA TODAY Sports on Monday, after the 2019 class was announced.
“They’ve come to the conclusion that, ‘Hey man, we were wrong. We were off-base in terms of humanity relative to the human rights era.’ ”
Smith and Carlos were two of the best American athletes in their day. Smith won gold in the 200 meters in the 1968 Olympics, setting a world record that would stand for 11 years, while Carlos was the bronze medalist.
At home, however, their country was in turmoil. The civil rights movement had forced Americans to take a hard look at who we were as a country, and the answer was often disappointing. The noble promise of all citizens being equal had been exposed as a lie, with segregation and discrimination sowing hate and bitter distrust.
Then, six months before the Mexico City Games, Rev. Martin Luther King was assassinated. Robert Kennedy was killed two months later. Anger, indignation and fear raged across the country.
The Olympics are supposed to be devoid of politics, the quest to go faster, higher and stronger transcending our divisions. But athletes are human before all else, Carlos said. You cannot celebrate the individual spirit while at the same time demanding it be ignored.
“You have to realize this: You can’t ever sign a waiver to disregard the fact you’re involved in the human race,” he said. “How can you disassociate yourself from the issues of human rights?”
So as they stood on the medals podium and “The Star-spangled Banner” played, Smith and Carlos bowed their heads and raised a black-gloved fist – Smith his right, Carlos his left. Both had taken off their shoes.
The gesture is now iconic. At the time, however, it was seen by many as an outrage. They were kicked out of the Olympics and suspended from the U.S. team. Whatever endorsements and commercial opportunities their medals would have brought disappeared.
There were even death threats.
But history eventually has a way of putting things right, and so it is with Smith and Carlos. No one disputes the racism and social injustice that were so prevalent then, or the indignities it caused. Smith and Carlos are now seen as noble in their cause, leaders in the struggle for civil rights.
Their alma mater, San Jose State, erected a statue of them in 2005. In 2016, they accompanied the U.S. team to the White House after the Rio Olympics.
“It’s great when an individual (goes) from the most hated individual in society and then becomes formative icons in society,” Carlos said. “Then everyone wants to be attached to that history.”
It’s instructive, too.
Despite the passage of 50 years, the issues that led Smith and Carlos to bow their heads and raise their fists rage on. We are still not a society of equals, and we have a president and other political leaders who demonize people for the color of their skin, their gender and their religion.
Like Smith and Carlos did, athletes are using their platforms to call attention to society’s ills. When hammer thrower Gwen Berry and fencer Race Imboden won golds at the Pan American Games last month, they protested during their medal ceremonies.
The USOPC could have responded harshly, given that Berry and Imboden had signed the standard agreement promising not to make political displays during Olympic-type events. But it chose instead to put the athletes on probation, perhaps recognizing as Smith and Carlos did all those years ago that some things are more precious than medals.
“Just tell everybody thanks for the acknowledgment,” Carlos said, “and the fight goes on.”