By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (August 5^th 2021)

Nazis, Jim Crow and Olympic Greats

Sixty years before the Centennial Games of 1996 Jesse Owens overcame horrific racism home and abroad to enter Olympic history. His talent and achievements made a mockery of the Third Reich’s claim to be the Master-Race, but he and his black teammates (18 of them) faced appalling racism in the USA too. President Franklin Roosevelt refused to congratulate Owens or other black medal winners despite their great sporting displays, and they discriminated against American Jewish athletes too.

And let’s not forget that despite the pressure of the Nazis to win, long jumper, Luz Long showed heroic sportsmanship – he died young in World War II. Owens was in danger of not qualifying, but noticing a flaw in Owens’ run-up, Long pointed it out and Owens made the adjustment – one of the great acts of sportsmanship in Olympic history and one that came at great personal risk to Long. But this was far from the first appallingly racist Olympiad.

Olympic Disgrace

Thirty-two years earlier the USA displayed its own Olympian white supremacist clap-trap. Black Boer War veterans – incredibly they were on the Boers’ side – were the first Africans to finish an Olympic Marathon. Len Taunyane and Jan Mashiani’s achievement was greeted with despicable racism back in South Africa.

The following year the Cape Colony’s government declared that only white people could represent South Africa. They were outraged that black Africans had competed, removed them from official representatives of South Africa. This white supremacist government was as racist as its successor. The first black Africans to complete an Olympic Marathon were prevented from competing again. The International Olympic Committee did not protest this outrage, which clearly breached Olympic ideals.

The Cape Colony’s disgrace against Olympic ideals happened despite Taunyane and Mashiane being held as prisoners of war on St Helena, the place where Napoléon Bonaparte[1] was incarcerated after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.

Protests and Recognition

Despite the scandal of the Tlatelolco Massacre meaning that México’s Olympic Games should have been cancelled, 1968 was iconic too. The world remembers Tommie Smith’s and John Carlos’ clenched fist salute, but their protest was not just about racism. Look at the photo and you’ll see they wore just one glove and look at their footwear too. This was a protest against poverty and the treatment of black people in the USA.

And look at the silver medallist, the late Peter Norman of Australia. He supported Smith and Carlos and paid a high price. He was prevented from competing in the Olympic Games for Australia four years later despite achieving the qualifying standard. Carlos and Smith were among the pall-bearers at Norman’s funeral. Australia’s apology for treating its own sporting great so badly was posthumous. Peter Norman was an Olympic great on and off the track.

That Avery Brundage, the US Olympic Committee and Australia’s punished these athletes for standing up to racism and more while ignoring the massacre of Méxicans protesting for human rights absolutely disgraces the Olympic Games and its supposed ideals. The recognition of Carlos, Norman and Smith belatedly is far too little and far too late.

There’s no shortage of candidates, whose achievements are not confined to sporting prowess alone, so what do African icons think and why?

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[1] Napoléon Bonaparte spent his final years imprisoned on St Helena. Followers, like Marshall Michel Ney, were executed. Ney had served Bonaparte bravely, but when the former Emperor was exiled to Elba after defeat in 1814 Ney served the Bourbon Monarchy. After Napoléon’s escape Ney defected back to him. Defeat at Waterloo led to Ney being convicted of treason and executed. He refused a blindfold and gave the order to fire himself on December 7^th 1815.

Meanwhile, Bonaparte was dispatched to St Helena. He died there on May 5^th 1821. Bonaparte was an opportunist. After a defeat in Egypt, he left for France to seize his chance of power. The former supporter of the Robespierre brothers was fortunate to avoid execution after the fall of the Jacobins. He suffered major defeats. Many credit his 1812 defeat in Russia to Mikhail Kutuzov’s tactic of stretching Napoléon’s supply lines by scorched earth hit and run until the Russian Winter hit. Kutuzov cut the supply to the Grande Army and let the winter do its worst. Some claim this was the first major reverse in Bonaparte’s career. It was not.

Almost a decade earlier Napoléon demonstrated his white supremacist credentials. He wanted to take control of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) back from former slaves. Their Revolution 1791-1804 succeeded. It had been the jewel in pre-revolutionary France’s crown. This was why Bonaparte wanted it back.

The Jacobins – Napoléon had been an ‘enthusiastic’ supporter until their fall from power – had abolished slavery. Napoléon not only wanted Saint-Domingue back but slavery too.

He arranged a temporary peace with Britain – then severely weakened by its own fiasco in Haiti – and informed both Britain and the USA’s slave-owning white supremacist, Thomas Jefferson, of his intention to restore slavery in the French colonies in the Caribbean. Having restored slavery in Guadeloupe and deported the black leader of the former slaves, Toussaint Louverture to prison, neglect and an early death, the leader of the mixed-race contingent of the French invasion, General André Rigaud, was also deported to prison in France. This achieved the seemingly impossible task of uniting the former slaves and mixed-race children of the white colonialists in a common cause against the French.

Interestingly, the Haitian revolutionaries had mastered guerrilla warfare and tactics. They hit and ran and scorched the earth and they utilised their weapon, General Yellow Fever. Napoléon failed miserably. In November 1803 the Haitian revolutionaries won the decisive Battle of Vertières. Napoléon’s arrogant white supremacy had failed. This was the first significant defeat of Napoléon’s career.