“I always loved running…it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs.” –Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens was born James Cleveland Owens on September 12, 1913, in Danville, Alabama. His parents, Henry and Emma Owens, were poor sharecroppers who struggled to support their eleven children. The children had to help out the family by working as often as possible, and by the age of seven, James Cleveland was picking cotton in the fields along with everyone else.
When James Cleveland, who was called “J.C.” by his family, was eight years old, his parents decided to move the family to Cleveland, Ohio, in hopes of finding more lucrative employment. J.C. was enrolled in school, and on the first day the teacher asked him his name. He replied, “J.C.”, but the teacher interpreted this as “Jesse,” and the name stuck. Young Jesse worked part time jobs doing such things as delivering groceries and working at a greenhouse. Despite being somewhat sickly, Jesse began to realize that he liked to run.
The Olympic games of 1936 were to be held in Nazi Germany, and Adolph Hitler intended to showcase his blond, blue-eyed German athletes as the epitome of Aryan superiority and dominance. Nazi commentators made derisive remarks about the supposed “inferiority” of African American athletes who would represent the United States in the Games. The whole world was watching the outcome of these Olympic Games—it was here that Owens’s triumphs in track and field events made him a hero of American sports history.
First he took the Gold Medal in the 100-meter dash (another African American, Ralph Metcalfe, took the Silver). The next day Owens was to compete in the long jump event. Three attempts were allowed for an athlete to qualify. Owens took a practice run and was dismayed to learn that the officials had counted it as an attempt. He fouled his next attempt, and only had one try left. A German athlete, Luz Long, was considered to be Owens’s main competition in the event. Long came over to Owens and introduced himself; he gave Owens a suggestion that he mark the spot from which he should jump, to make sure he would not foul his final attempt. It worked, and Owens qualified. Long and Owens competed in the long jump that afternoon, and Owens won the Gold Medal. Long congratulated him in front of everybody.
The American press said that Hitler had snubbed Owens by not shaking his hand, as he had done with other winning athletes. However, Owens was a very calm and even-tempered person, well experienced in handling discrimination in his own country (for example, after the ticker tape parade he received on his return, he had to ride the freight elevator upstairs to his reception at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, because the lobby elevator was only for Whites). He said, “I wasn’t invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the President either…When I came back, after all those stories about Hitler and his snub, I came back to my native country and I could not ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn’t live where I wanted. Now, what’s the difference?”
After the games had finished, Owens was invited, along with the rest of the team, to compete in sweden. However he decided to capitalise on his success by returning to the United States to take up some of the lucrative commercial offers he was receiving. American athletic officials were furious and withdrew his amateur status, ending his career immediately.
With no sporting appearances to bolster his profile, the lucrative offers never quite materialised. Instead he was forced to try to make a living as a sports promoter, essentially an entertainer. He would give local sprinters a ten or twenty yard start and beat them in the 100 yd (91 m) dash. He also challenged and defeated racehorses although as he revealed later, the trick was to race a high-strung thoroughbred horse that would be frightened by the starter’s shotgun and give him a bad jump.
He soon found himself running a dry-cleaning business and then even working as a gas station attendant. He eventually filed for bankruptcy but, even then, his problems were not over and in 1966 he was successfully prosecuted for tax evasion. At rock bottom, the rehabilitation began and he started work as a U.S. ‘goodwill ambassador’.
A pack-a-day smoker for 35 years, Owens died of lung cancer at age 66 in Tucson,arizona in 1980.
Define irony:
When U.S. sprinter Jesse Owens got to Germany for Berlin’s 1936 Olympics, Adi Dassler drove from Bavaria on one of the world’s first motorways to the Olympic village. There he found Owens, unpacked a suitcase filled with spikes and persuaded him to try them. Owens won four gold medals in Dassler shoes.Adi Dassler was the German creator of the Adidas sport shoe.
July 9, 2008
Categories: Uncategorized . . Author: gettosoulclothing . Comments: 3 Comments
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