Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens is well remembered as the American track star who singlehandedly foiled Adolf Hitler’s plan to use the 1936 Olympic Games to demonstrate Aryan supremacy to the rest of the world. This belief is not strictly true. Owens won more Gold medals than any other individual athlete, but the German Olympic team did earn the most medals overall – 89 – than any other nation, the United States being second with 56. Nor did Hitler publicly display his disdain for Owens, refusing to acknowledge the athlete or shake his hand, as is usually claimed.
Owens nearly didn’t go to the Berlin Olympics, persuaded by NAACP and AAU officials that doing so would be tacit acceptance of the racist regime in Germany. It took the American Olympic Committee’s finding that boycotting the Olympic Games was un-American, driven by agitators, before Owens and other black athletes, including Mack Robinson, brother of Jackie Robinson, agreed to compete (Robinson would win a Silver Medal running second to Owens in the 200 meter sprint). The American team, including the black athletes, were received enthusiastically when they arrived in Berlin, with Owens receiving adulation from fans and competing athletes.
Despite the fame achieved by Owens through his domination of the events in which he competed, he was not personally congratulated by Hitler as some other track and field athletes were. When the press reported Hitler’s behavior as a snub of the Americans in general and Owens in particular, the athlete defended Hitler in the press. He stated that a scheduling mix-up required Hitler’s departure from the stadium before having an opportunity to meet him. Owens claimed that Hitler had waved to him in salute, and that he waved back in acknowledgment.
After returning to the United States Owens expanded on the events in Berlin, stating that he was treated better by the Nazi leadership in Berlin than he was by the American leadership in Washington. Owens claimed that he was never invited to the White House and did not receive a congratulatory telegram from the president. Owens was feted with a ticker tape parade in New York upon his return to the United States, after which there was a reception held in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Despite being the guest of honor, Owens had to enter the hotel from the back and use the freight elevator, in accordance with restrictions regarding blacks in place at the hotel at the time.
Fame notwithstanding, Owens found it difficult to find lasting work in his home country following the Olympics. In 1942 he was hired by a former competitor to work at Ford, and remained with the company for a few years before getting involved with a new Negro League as a part-owner of a team. To supplement his income he often staged races against horses; these were usually rigged by startling the horse at the start, causing it to shy away. Owens died of lung cancer in 1980. Often presented as proof of the falsehood of the Nazi claim of Aryan supremacy, his achievements did little to help him cope with the American racial attitudes which prevailed through most of his life.