Friday - October 16, 2020 - On this day in history: The Black Power Salute - Olympic Stadium - Mexico, City 1968 - Part 1 of 2.

Mexico City, Mexico - October 16, 1968

While Tommie Smith’s and John Carlos’ names may not be easily-recognizable, two of their decisions during the medal ceremony for the 200 meter event of the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City have forever carved out a place in history. While Part 1 of this piece focuses on the two most visible decisions that Smith and Carlos carried out on that evening, Part 2 will look more closely at decisions that were made both before as well as the after the actual ceremony.

These are the two decisions to which I’m referring: (1) The decision to place black gloves on their hands during the medal ceremony; and (2) The decision to ball their hands up into fists and thereafter raise those fists into the air while the Star Spangled Banner played.

Following an NBA season where players gathered to decide whether to actually continue playing basketball during a time in the United States where calls for racial justice have been demanded –––– more fervently, and more consistently –––– than they have, perhaps, since the 1960s and 1970s, Smith’s and Carlos’ Black Power Salute marked one of the earliest, and certainly, one of the most emblematic depictions of athletes engaging with racial and social justice issues.

Here’s what we know: a lot happened in 1968. Protests against the Vietnam War were being held all across the country. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, on June 5th. And just one hundred and ninety-five days before Smith and Carlos’ race, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, TN, on April 4th.

And by the way, there was also an election that year. Less than a month after the Black Power Salute, Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey had secured the democratic nomination only following the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy –––– who was likely to have been the candidate, had he not lost his life five months earlier.

These are the facts from the track of Olympic Stadium from the morning of October 16th, 1968: Tommie Smith, from Clarksville, Texas, placed first, setting a world record in the 200m at 19.83 seconds; an Australian, Peter Norman, placed second; and the Harlem-born John Carlos, placed third.

The race, of approximately twenty-seconds, can still be revisited. And while it’s impossible to revisit the political, racial, and social discourse in America –––– which was growing more tumultuous each year of the 1960s, reaching a tipping point in 1968; memories of and lessons from that year, and particularly, the energy and essence of that night ––––– now fifty-two years ago, can still be felt. No, it’s not only that echoes from that night in Mexico City in 1968 can still be felt, but even more so: it’s that those memories and lessons have now become impossible to ignore.