Jesse Owens' Olympic triumph over time and Hitlerism

Ebony, April, 1996 by Lerone Bennett, Jr.

There occurred a postscript to this event that throws additional light on Hitler's dilemma. At the end of the broad jump competition, Long, the German challenger, threw his arm around Owens' shoulder, and the two men--one blond and German, the other Black and American--"affectionately walked along the track, arm in arm," directly under Hitler's box, as the crowd roared its approval.

On Wednesday, another cold, gray and rainy day, Owens surpassed his previous efforts, easily defeating Matthew (Mack) Robinson, brother of [future baseball great] Jackie Robinson, by more than three yards in the 200-meter finals. Arthur Daley, who was witness to the event, said in a dispatch to the New York Times that Owens' running on this day was "a thing of beauty, a joy to behold." It was, he added, one of the most amazing achievements in the ancient art of foot racing. No one in history had broken even 21 seconds flat for the distance around a turn and here was this human bullet ripping off 0:20:7, his eleventh record of one description or another in 14 appearances

Shortly before Owens received his third gold medal, Hitler left the stadium. Reich officials said he left because of the inclement weather; others said a Black man from America had driven "the apostle of Nordic supremacy into sudden retreat ...." On the final day of track-and-field competition, Owens added a fourth gold medal and a 12th record as the lead-off man of the 400-meter relay team. By that time, America's Black auxiliaries," as the Nazis derisively called the Black athletes, had won six of the 12 American gold medals.

Owens returned to America and a hero's ticker-tape parade. He was a hero, but he was a Black hero, and the market for Black heroes was limited. To make ends meet, Hitler's nemesis was forced to race cars, dogs and horses. Years later, he said, "I came back to my native country and I couldn't ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door, I couldn't live where I wanted .... I wasn't invited up to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the president, either." The hero of Berlin did not receive the official thanks of his country until 1976, when president Gerald Ford awarded him the Medal of Freedom. By that time he was a successful public relations executive and the international symbol of the Olympic movement. Toward the end of his life, he told a reporter that the four gold medals of Berlin had kept him alive "over the years," adding: "Time has stood still for me. That golden moment dies hard."

Hitlers lived and died, regimes rose and fell, but Owens' triumph lived on. When, on March 31, 1980, he died, the golden moment became a living memorial, giving imperishable testimony on the limits of tyranny and the swiftness and grace of the human spirit.