Archie Williams, Olympic gold medal winner, dies - obituary - Brief Article

Archie Williams, 78, whose gold-medal performance at the 1936 Berlin Olympics helped Black competitors upstage Hitler's hope of using the games to showcase Aryan athletes, died recently at his home in Fairfax, Calif. Williams won the 400-meter race in 46.5 seconds, and along with athletic feats of other Black athletes such as Jesse Owens, shifted the spotlight from Nazi Germany and its theories of racial superiority. Williams returned to the U.S. as a hero in his native Oakland, Calif. In 1939, he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineenng from the University of California-Berkeley.

"I remember him telling me that he couldn't get a job when he finished his engineering degree," Vesta Williams, his wife of 50 years, said. "They weren't hiring Black engineers." In a 1981 interview with the Oakland Tribune, Williams commented on racism in America. "As I recall, whell I came back home...people asked me, |How did those dirty Nazis treat you?' To which I always replied, |Well, over there at least we didn't have to ride in the back of the bus.'"

In addition to his wife, Williams is survived by two sons, Archie Jr. and Carlos.