I was only 8 years old when African-American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos bowed their heads and raised their fists on the medal podium at the Mexico City Games. It was 1968 and all was not well back home.
Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated earlier that year, followed by Robert Kennedy’s assassination a few months later. Riots erupted across the country and the Vietnam War was raging.
As a stage-managed celebration of American athletic superiority abroad, the Olympic medal ceremony was supposed to make everyone forget about inequality at home.
Though Mr. Smith and Mr. Carlos, who came in first and third respectively, had not heeded the calls of black activists to boycott the Olympics entirely, they knew they would have a worldwide audience for what they decided to do if they won. As they stood on the podium, they executed their plan and an iconic moment in American protest was born.
Tommie Smith raised his right fist above his head while John Carlos raised his left as a gesture of solidarity with the civil rights movement and the defiant shouts of black power back home.
Needless to say, what they did was not popular in Middle America. The image of the pair with raised fists infuriated those who insisted that all athletes be advertisements for the American way, even when it violated their consciences. For their trouble, the duo got death threats and were excoriated in the media as “useful idiots” for communism.
Even today, the photo makes many Americans, even those who weren’t alive at the time, uncomfortable. Fortunately, there are millions of Americans of all backgrounds who remain deeply moved by it, including me.
By acknowledging the difficulties back at home with clenched fists, Mr. Smith and Mr. Carlos made it possible for every American athlete who followed them to the winners’ podium to make their complicated histories as Americans an inextricable part of their patriotism if they chose to do so.
As far as I know, no other American Olympian has felt it necessary to copy their gesture. Instead of raised fists, there has been a flowering of excellence in the most elite sports by black athletes with complicated backstories that expand our understanding of what it means to be an American.
Now it is far more radical for athletes of all backgrounds, especially blacks, to show how patriotic, optimistic and powerful they are on their own world-beating terms.
Simone Biles of Team USA gymnastics is the undisputed queen of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro with four gold medals. With each mind-boggling performance, she’s praised as the greatest gymnast of all time.
Her colleague, Gabby Douglas, the star of the 2012 Olympics and co-star on this year’s deep bench, multi-racial USA gymnastics team, continues to shine with another gold medal win, though she took heat from some sofa-surfing “patriots” for not placing her hand over her heart during the national anthem last week.
Then there’s Simone Manuel of Team USA swimming, the first black American woman to win a gold medal in a sport that was formerly believed anathema to blacks. She’s not only a role model to millions of black children now, she’s one of the best in the world. No one expected to be saying that of Ms. Manuel going into Rio. Michelle Carter’s gold medal in the shot-put event wasn’t as high profile as the other athletes, but it is equally significant.
My favorite image to come out of Rio so far was when three African-American sprinters — Brianna Rollins, Nia Ali and Kristi Castlin — won gold, silver and bronze respectively in the 100-meter hurdles. The image of the three women in a synchronized celebratory high jump with three American flags unfurled behind them gives me goosebumps every time I see it. This is America living up to its promise of opportunity.
Of course, black male athletes have done well in the Olympics since Jesse Owens disrupted Hitler’s elaborately staged Olympics in Germany in 1936. Still, this year feels exceptionally liberating, given the depressing politics of America’s urban realities.
Despite the fear of the Zika virus that kept many athletes away and predictions that the games would be undermined by Brazil’s many domestic problems, the Olympics have been particularly good to American athletes. Michael Phelps and Simone Biles, two of the greatest athletes on the planet, survived difficult upbringings to represent their country. They are both examples of American possibility that my three sons and everyone their age take more for granted than I did decades ago.
Yes, this is partly generational. I grew up at a time when black people were rarely on television except to sing and dance. It was a big deal that Mr. Smith and Mr. Carlos were in Mexico City in the first place, much less had their fists in the air.
Today, raising a fist at the podium isn’t necessary when the whole world finally takes your humanity for granted. Tommie Smith and John Carlos helped make these moments possible.
Tony Norman: tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631; Twitter @TonyNormanPG.
First Published: August 19, 2016, 4:00 a.m.