For February, Black History Month, Sopris Sun illustrator Larry Day will highlight an influential African American each week, accompanied by an illustration.
It was Oct. 16, 1968, in Mexico City. Before a crowd of 50,000 United States runner Tommie Smith stood on the Olympic podium accepting the gold medal for the 200-meter dash, setting a new world record. Australian Peter Norman won the silver and American John Carlos won the bronze, coming in 3/10 of a second behind Smith. At Norman’s suggestion, both Smith and Carlos wore badges representing the Olympic Project for Human Rights, an organization to which Smith and Carlos belonged.
For 80 long seconds, Smith and Carlos bowed heads and raised their black gloved fists in a protest for human rights while the National Anthem played. The protest got them both expelled from the Olympics, thus missing the 400m and the 100m races.
Afterwards, the three medal winners were scorned by the public and the media. But Smith never lost his drive. He became the track and field coach at Santa Monica College for 27 years and continues to be a sought-after speaker. He received 11 world records, was inducted into numerous sports halls of fame and received The Arthur Ashe Award for Courage as well as the Courage of Conscience Award from the Peace Abbey Foundation for his dedication to athletics, education and human rights.
Smith’s life was portrayed in a 2022 graphic novel, “Victory. Stand! Raising My Fist for Justice.”
“Those fists in the air were dedicated to everyone at home, back in the projects in Chicago, Oakland, and Detroit, to everyone in the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn, to all of the brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers in Birmingham, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, New Orleans, to everyone struggling, working their fingers to the bone on farms across America, to everyone holding out hope that things will get better … that was for you, from John and me. We had to be seen because we were not being heard.” – Tommie Smith