‘A cry for freedom’: The Black Power salute that rocked the world 50 years ago
Americans Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos raise their gloved fists in a human rights protest during their medal ceremony at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City on Oct. 16, 1968. Australian silver medalist Peter Norman stands at left on the podium. (AP)
The Black Power salute photo, one of the most influential protest images of all time, was captured 50 years ago when U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos stepped onto the world stage during the Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
It was Oct. 16, 1968. Smith had just won gold and Carlos had taken bronze in a blazing 200-meter dash. Australian sprinter Peter Norman, who had won silver, stood to their right.
When "The Star-Spangled Banner” began to play, Smith lowered his head and raised his right fist.
Carlos raised his left.
Life magazine photographer John Dominis raised his lens.
Dominis’s photograph would freeze that moment of silent protest. The picture would slingshot around the world, capturing all the angst and anger of 1968. The photo would become an iconic image of the Black Power movement and an emotional reference point among NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality.
Dominis, who died in 2013, said later he had no idea in that stadium in 1968 that his shot would make history. “I didn’t think it was a big news event,” Dominis said in a 2008 interview with the Smithsonian Magazine. “I hardly noticed what was happening when I was shooting.”
Other photographers, standing in the media-holding pen a few feet away, also captured the moment. But Dominis seized on searing details that made his image more powerful. His photo shows Smith, his pant legs rolled up, standing in black stocking feet, his right shoe resting on the podium.
“It was a cry for freedom,” Smith said in a 2016 interview with the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History and Culture, which acquired the tracksuit he was wearing that day, along with the shoes he raced in, and the box he held on the podium, which contained an olive tree branch.
Carlos wore a long string of beads falling from his neck, his jacket unzipped in utter defiance of Olympic rules.
And the photo illuminates the subtle expression on Norman’s face. Few realized that Norman was also part of the protest. Norman wore a small badge on his chest: “Olympic Project for Human Rights,” which had been organized to protest racism in sports.
The protest had been something the athletes planned carefully. Everything captured in the photo held a special significance. Smith and Carlos had walked slowly to the stand as if in mourning, their hands clasped behind their backs — each holding a running shoe. They walked across the grass of the stadium in black stocking feet. They had taken off their shoes specifically to protest poverty in the United States.
To protest lynchings of black people, they wore a scarf and beads. “I looked at my feet in my high socks and thought about all the black poverty I’d seen from Harlem to East Texas,” Carlos wrote in his 2011 book written with Dave Zirin, “The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World.”
“I fingered my beads and thought about the pictures I’d seen of the ‘strange fruit’ swinging from the poplar trees of the South.”
They bowed respectfully as the Olympic official placed their medals around their necks. But when the anthem began to play, they lowered their heads to protest the hypocrisy of a country that proclaimed to uphold freedom and human rights around the world but neglected to protect the rights of black Americans. Carlos unzipped his Olympic jacket, in defiance of Olympic etiquette, but in support of “all the working-class people — black and white — in Harlem who had to struggle and work with their hands all day.”
Carlos had deliberately covered up the “USA” on his uniform with a black T-shirt to “reflect the shame I felt that my country was traveling at a snail’s pace toward something that should be obvious to all people of good will. Then the anthem started, and we raised our fists into the air.”
When Smith thrust his fist in the air, the crowd fell silent. Carlos and Smith recalled later that they knew by openly defying Olympic rules, there would be repercussions.
Source: washingtonpost.com
Americans Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos raise their gloved fists in a human rights protest during their medal ceremony at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City on Oct. 16, 1968. Australian silver medalist Peter Norman stands at left on the podium. (AP)
The Black Power salute photo, one of the most influential protest images of all time, was captured 50 years ago when U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos stepped onto the world stage during the Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
It was Oct. 16, 1968. Smith had just won gold and Carlos had taken bronze in a blazing 200-meter dash. Australian sprinter Peter Norman, who had won silver, stood to their right.
When "The Star-Spangled Banner” began to play, Smith lowered his head and raised his right fist.
Carlos raised his left.
Life magazine photographer John Dominis raised his lens.
Dominis’s photograph would freeze that moment of silent protest. The picture would slingshot around the world, capturing all the angst and anger of 1968. The photo would become an iconic image of the Black Power movement and an emotional reference point among NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality.
Dominis, who died in 2013, said later he had no idea in that stadium in 1968 that his shot would make history. “I didn’t think it was a big news event,” Dominis said in a 2008 interview with the Smithsonian Magazine. “I hardly noticed what was happening when I was shooting.”
Other photographers, standing in the media-holding pen a few feet away, also captured the moment. But Dominis seized on searing details that made his image more powerful. His photo shows Smith, his pant legs rolled up, standing in black stocking feet, his right shoe resting on the podium.
“It was a cry for freedom,” Smith said in a 2016 interview with the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History and Culture, which acquired the tracksuit he was wearing that day, along with the shoes he raced in, and the box he held on the podium, which contained an olive tree branch.
Carlos wore a long string of beads falling from his neck, his jacket unzipped in utter defiance of Olympic rules.
And the photo illuminates the subtle expression on Norman’s face. Few realized that Norman was also part of the protest. Norman wore a small badge on his chest: “Olympic Project for Human Rights,” which had been organized to protest racism in sports.
The protest had been something the athletes planned carefully. Everything captured in the photo held a special significance. Smith and Carlos had walked slowly to the stand as if in mourning, their hands clasped behind their backs — each holding a running shoe. They walked across the grass of the stadium in black stocking feet. They had taken off their shoes specifically to protest poverty in the United States.
To protest lynchings of black people, they wore a scarf and beads. “I looked at my feet in my high socks and thought about all the black poverty I’d seen from Harlem to East Texas,” Carlos wrote in his 2011 book written with Dave Zirin, “The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World.”
“I fingered my beads and thought about the pictures I’d seen of the ‘strange fruit’ swinging from the poplar trees of the South.”
They bowed respectfully as the Olympic official placed their medals around their necks. But when the anthem began to play, they lowered their heads to protest the hypocrisy of a country that proclaimed to uphold freedom and human rights around the world but neglected to protect the rights of black Americans. Carlos unzipped his Olympic jacket, in defiance of Olympic etiquette, but in support of “all the working-class people — black and white — in Harlem who had to struggle and work with their hands all day.”
Carlos had deliberately covered up the “USA” on his uniform with a black T-shirt to “reflect the shame I felt that my country was traveling at a snail’s pace toward something that should be obvious to all people of good will. Then the anthem started, and we raised our fists into the air.”
When Smith thrust his fist in the air, the crowd fell silent. Carlos and Smith recalled later that they knew by openly defying Olympic rules, there would be repercussions.
Source: washingtonpost.com
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