In
these days of #BlackLivesMatter,
#HandsUpDontShoot,
#ICantBreathe,
#TakeDownTheFlag
and
#WhoIsBurningBlackChurches,
new
movements
are brewing and people are
searching
for ways to do their part to
fight
racial injustice. When people ask
how
they can help in the midst of
everything
that is being thrown at us, I
can’t
help but think of Peter Norman.
Who,
you ask? He’s the man on the left,
the
Australian Silver medalist in that
iconic
photo with Tommie Smith and John
Carlos
- the Gold and Bronze medalists -
at
the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico
City.
On
October 16, 1968, Smith and Carlos
took
the victory stand with their heads
bowed
and eyes closed, their hands
raised
with black gloves, and fists
clenched.
Their “black power salute”
during
the playing of the Star-Spangled
Banner
was a silent protest by these
athletes
against racial injustice, and their
statement,
viewed then as a
controversial
combination of Olympic
sports
and politics, sent shock waves
throughout
the games.
The
unsung hero of the Black Power fist
salute,
Norman not only suggested that
Smith
and Carlos share Smith’s pair of
black
gloves, he also wore a badge in
solidarity
with the Olympic Project for
Human
Rights (OPHR), an organization
that
called for a boycott of the Olympics
by
black athletes, banning apartheid
South
Africa and Rhodesia from the
Olympics,
the hiring of black coaches and
the
restoration of Muhammad Ali’s
boxing
title. Norman spoke out against
racism
in America and in his native
Australia,
where Aboriginal people were
first
counted in the census the year
before,
had been given the right to vote
only
three years earlier, and were forcibly
removed
from their families under a
White
Australia policy.
“I
couldn’t see why a black man wasn’t
allowed
to drink out of the same water
fountain
or sit in the same bus or go to
the
same schools as a white guy,” said
Norman,
who had a strong Salvation
Army
upbringing. “That was just social
injustice
that I couldn’t do anything
about
from where I was, but I certainly
abhorred
it.”
The
actions of Smith - the gold medalist
in
the 200-meter race - and Carlos - the
bronze
winner - must be viewed within
the
context of the times in which the
men
lived. And the times were turbulent
and
divisive. After all, Dr. Martin Luther
King,
Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy
had
been assassinated only months
before
the games at Mexico City. The
United
States was engulfed in anti-
Vietnam
War protests and civil rights
demonstrations.
Antiwar protestors had
been
beaten by police during the
Democratic
National Convention in
Chicago.
There were calls for black power
in
African-American communities
throughout
the nation, and the Black
Panther
Party had expanded to cities
across
America. And the U.S. Supreme
Court
had struck down the Jim Crow
antimiscegenation
laws only a year
earlier.
On
the victory stand, the symbolism of
the
political statement made by Smith
and
Carlos had been well planned. The
two
athletes wore black socks with no
shoes
to represent “black poverty in a
racist
America,” while Smith wore a black
scarf
around his neck standing for black
pride.
Carlos - who wore beads for those
who
were lynched and died in the Middle
Passage
- raised his left fist to represent
black
unity. And Smith raised his right
fist
for black power in the U.S. Together,
the
men represented unity and power.
“If I win I am an American,
not a black
American. But if I did
something bad
then they would say ‘a
Negro’. We are
black and we are proud of
being black,”
Smith said at a press
conference after
the event. “Black America
will
understand what we did
tonight.”
As
a result of their black power salute,
Smith
and Carlos were suspended by the
U.S.
Olympic Committee for a “willful
disregard
of Olympic principles.” In an
official
statement, the U.S. Committee
expressed
“its profound regrets” to the
International
Olympic committee, the
Mexican
Organizing Committee and to
the
people of Mexico, referring to the
black
power salute as “discourtesy” and
“immature
behavior.”
“The untypical exhibitionism
of these
athletes also violates the
basic standards
of good manners and
sportsmanship,
which are so highly valued in
the United
States, and therefore the two
men
involved are suspended
forthwith from
the team and ordered to
remove
themselves from the Olympic
Village,”
the statement continued.
The
U.S. Olympic Committee warned all
other
athletes, regardless of color, that
any
further protests would carry “severe”
penalties.
Smith and Carlos were
suspended
from the team and given 48
hours
to leave Mexico.
Ultimately,
Norman was punished by the
Australian
Olympic Committee and made
an
outcast by the Australian media.
Further,
he was not selected for the 1972
Munich
games, and was snubbed at the
2000
Sydney games, to which he was
not
invited to the opening or closing
ceremonies.
In 2006, after Norman died
of
a heart attack, Smith and Carlos
traveled
to Melbourne to serve as pall
bearers
at Norman’s funeral.
In
2012, the Australian parliament issued
Norman
an official posthumous
apology. “A protest like this, on a
global
stage, had never been done
before. At
the time, it was
electrifying,” said
Australian Member of
Parliament Andrew
Leigh issuing an apology to
Norman’s
family in a speech before the
legislature.
“In that moment Norman
advanced
international awareness for
racial
equality. He was proud to
stand with
Smith and Carlos and the
three remained
lifelong friends.”
Long
story short, we have to fight the
battles
against injustice wherever we find
ourselves,
because we have no other
choice
and no one else will.
