The achievements of many black men and women have always been overshadowed by the well publicized accomplishments of white men. This column will feature black people that have achieved extraordinary feats and successes over the centuries. The column is not a racial rebuttal but a documentation of black achievements so as to liberate the African mind.

“The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are”, Maya Angelou

The 1936 Olympics were held in Berlin at the height of Nazi Power and just two years before the start of the Second World War. For Adolf Hitler, the games were going to be a platform to prove his theory of the superior Aryan race.
But within one week of competition in the Summer Olympics of 1936, the son of an America Sharecropper and grandson of slaves single handedly crushed Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy.
Born James Cleveland Owens on 12 September, 1913 in Oakville, Alabama, Owens got the name “Jesse” by accident from his class teacher who did not catch his thick southern United States accent. He was about nine years when his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio and one of his instructors as ked what his name was; J.C. Owens, he said, and the instructor immediately thought he said Jesse and the nickname stuck.
Owens was a sickly child who suffered from chronic bronchial congestion and pneumonia but he established himself as a nationally recognised sprinter while in Technical High School setting records in the 100 and 200 yard dashes.
After graduating from East Technical High School, he enrolled into Ohio State University where he continued excelling in athletes and earned the nickname of “Buckeye Bullet” because of his ever improving speed.
Owens earned his place in the United States Olympic team during the 1935 Big Ten Championships. At that meeting, within a space of forty-five minutes, he set three world records and tied one.
His Long Jump world record of twenty six yards eight and a quarter inches (26-8¼ ) stood for 25 years. Owens also set new world records in the 220 yards sprint and 220 yard low hurdles.
This dominance at the Big Ten Championships qualified Owens for selection for the US Olympic Team trials. He went on to win three events at the trials and was selected for the 100 yards, 220 yards and the Long Jump.
When he traveled to Berlin for the 1936 Olympics, Owens was aware that Hitler was a fascist, but his purpose was not to disprove the supremacy of the Aryan race, rather it was to prove his ability at a black man. The Germans considered black people as inferior; however Owens was also conscious of the injustices suffered by African Americans back home in the United States.
Hitler was not happy with the composition of the United States team and did not hide his displeasure at the American’s decision to include black athletes on their Olympic roster. He was also infuriated by the inclusion of Jews in the American team.
The African Americans proved their worthy and helped the United States to 11 gold medals, six of which were won by black athletes.
Owens proved true to his form. He won four gold medals in the Long Jump, 100 meters, 200 meters and 4x100meters relay. After Owens won the 100 meters, Hitler stormed out of the stadium althouigh some reports claim that he later congratulated the athlete. Owens himself always confirmed that Hitler never shook his hands.
Owens was only entered in three events but the withdrawal of the only two Jews in the U.S. Track team, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller opened the door for his fourth gold medal. Owens and another African American Ralph Metcalfe replaced the two Jews in the 4x100meter relay. With Owens as the lead off runner, the team won the gold medal.
According to historians, “the rumor was that the Nazi hierarchy had asked U.S. officials not to humiliate Germany further by using two Jews to add to the gold medals the African-Americans had already won.”
Glickman blamed U.S. Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage for acquiescing to the Nazi demands.
To the further disappointment of Hitler, Owens and Metcalfe helped the team not only to win the gold, but to set an Olympic and World record of 39.8 seconds which would last for 20 years.
“In Germany, the Nazis portrayed African-Americans as inferior and ridiculed the United States for relying on “black auxiliaries.” One German official even complained that the Americans were letting “non-humans, like Owens and other Negro athletes,” compete.”
The Nazi hatred was not only confined to the Jews and African Americans, they also hated any German who showed friendship to them. Long Jump Germany athlete Luz Long ended up in problems for showing affection to Owens.
During the Long Jump qualifying rounds, Owens fouled his first two attempts and was headed for disqualification if he fouled the third attempt. Luz gave advice to Owens before his third and final attempt and Owens qualified.
In the finals in the afternoon, Luz’s fifth jump matched Owens’ twenty five feet and ten inches jump (25-10). Owens out jumped Luz at his next attempt and repeated a similar performance on his final jump to win the gold medal with twenty six feet and five and half inches (26-5½).
Luz Long embraced and congratulated Owens and that put him in trouble with the Nazi leaders. The two started a friendship but soon after the start of the Second World War, Owens was informed that Luz was killed at the frontline.
“It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler,” Owens said. “You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn’t be plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment. Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace. The sad part of the story is I never saw Long again. He was killed in World War II.” Owens, though, would continue to correspond with Long’s family.
Upon his return to the United States, Owens was treated like a curiosity rather than a hero. The president of the United States at the time Franklin D. Roosevelt did not even meet him to congratulate him as was traditional with all Olympic champions.
“When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn’t ride in the front of the bus,” Owens said. “I had to go to the back door. I couldn’t live where I wanted. 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.”
White America completely ignored Owens; during the welcome party in New York, he was made to ride on the elevator of a freighter, no endorsements came his way, and he retired from amateur athletics. Owens then survived by running against cars, horses and dogs; and for a time played with the Harlem Globetrotters.
“People said it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do?” Owens said. “I had four gold medals, but you can’t eat four gold medals,” was the mild mannered Owens response when people mocked him about the dog and horse races.
Owens survived this cruel rejection by the American establishment just as he had survived the tough years of his childhood. As a nine year old boy, he picked 100 kilogram’s of cotton a day on a farm in the Deep South. When the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, he took different jobs in his spare time delivering groceries, loading freight cars, and as a handyman at a shoe repair shop while his brother and father worked at a steel mill.
He eventually overcame the tough years and found financial security in 1950 through marketing and public relations. He opened a public relations firm and toured the country delivering lectures for corporations.
White America would reluctantly recognize the gentle champion. In 1950 an Associated Press Poll chose Owens as the greatest track and field star of the first half of the Twentieth Century, In 1976, President Gerald Ford presented Owens with the Medal of Freedom, the highest honour the United States can bestow upon a civilian.
In 1980, the city of his glory, Berlin, named a street after Owens.
All his life, Owens remained married to his childhood sweetheart Minnie Ruth Solomon. They met at Fairmount Junior High School when Owen was 15 and Ruth was 13. They had their first child Gloria in 1932 and got married in 1935. They had two more daughters Marlene, born in 1939 and Beverly, born in 1949. They remained a close knit family until Owens died in 1980 of lung cancer and his wife died in 2001.
Jesse Owens was also posthumously honoured by President Bush in 1990 with the Congressional Medal of Honour.
President Bush called Owens victories in Berlin as “an unrivaled athletic triumph, but more than that, a triumph for all humanity.”