URI historian discusses racism in '68 Olympics

11/20/08 - Sports and politics are not a good mixture according to Robert Weisbord, a professor at the University of Rhode Island.Weisbord, who teaches African American history, Arab/Israel conflict and Holocaust classes at URI, gave a lecture last night in Lippitt Auditorium. The presentation, titled "Racial Questions in the Modern Olympics - The Case of Mexico City (1968)," was sponsored by the URI Center for the Humanities.

For the past 55 years, Weisbord has researched racial issues. His research has brought him to places like the International Olympic Headquarters in Switzerland, along the waterfront of Mt. Geneva and to the United States Olympic Committee Headquarters in Colorado Springs.

When visiting the archives in Mexico City, he found that the people "were a little less helpful than I had hoped."

Weisbord displayed a great sense of humor to offset the serious topics surrounding racism and the Olympics.

When visiting one Olympic stadium, "I went down into a sprinter's crouch and had a little bit of trouble getting up," Weisbord said, joking.

He began the historical aspects of his lecture by briefly introducing the 38 members of the audience to racial issues that began in the late 1800s. To give a general idea, the first modern Olympics were held in the 1890s. The United States hosted its first Olympics in 1904.

For pre-game entertainment back in those "Anthropological days, indigenous people were used to competing in mud-wrestling and greasy-pole climbing," Weisbord said. "People came to gawk [at them]."

In 1932, four African-American athletes were not allowed to compete because the Olympic track tryouts were to be held at John Hopkins University, which at the time was a very racist environment, Weisbord said.

Another case of racism he mentioned involved a team of Olympic women runners who had traveled to California. The black runners were not allowed to eat with their team in the hotel they were staying at and were forced to retreat into an attic to eat their meals.

"The Olympic Committee showed no interest whatsoever," Weisbord said. "Los Angeles, where the Olympic games were held in 1932, became dangerously close to an apartheid state [of being]."

In 1936, Germany hosted both the winter and summer Olympics, only three years after Hitler came to power.

Daniel Prenn, a Jewish man, was kicked off of the Olympic German Davis Cup Tennis Team simply because of his religion.

Simultaneously, Jews throughout Europe were being persecuted and once again, the Olympic Committee did not take action to move the location of the Games, nor did they care when Kristallnacht occurred on Nov. 9, 1938, he said.

No Olympic games were held in 1940 or 1944 because of World War II.

"There's been an argument going on for the last 70 years about the U.S.'s willingness to participate in the 1936 Olympics," Weisbord said.

On Oct. 16, 1968, African-American track athletes Tommie South, from the Southern part of the country, and John Carlos, from New York, brought attention to the racial issues surrounding African-Americans simply by silently protesting, he said.

Prior to the start of his presentation, Weisbord handed out a photocopied picture of the protest during the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. In the photograph, South, the gold-medalist, and Carlos, the bronze medalist, stood on the podium raising their arms and looked downward during the Star Spangled Banner. They were also shoeless and wearing black gloves as a symbolic reference to the poverty and suffering of African-Americans all throughout the U.S. during the 1960s.

"They told the truth about what was going on in our country," Weisbord said. "Smith and Carlos should be regarded as patriots in the best sense of the term. They, in their demonstration, were true Americans." The two were suspended from the U.S. team and ordered to leave Olympic village, though they explained they were trying to make a statement about black poverty and a racist America.

"Both Smith and Carlos paid a very heavy price for being in the Olympics," Weisbord said.

Each of them received countless threats; there was a divorce in Smith's family (most likely due to the hatred directed toward him because of his race, Weisbord speculated), and difficulties in finding work after the Olympics. Smith, for example, was forced to wash cars.

"It was the only job he could get," Weisbord said.

"When I looked at the corresponden, there was a tremendous volume of letters" written to the IOC, Weisbord said. Many of the people who wrote them had wanted Smith and Carlos deported from the United States and several had even linked them to Hitler and the Nazis.

"I believe there should be a link between morality and sports," Weisbord said. "I think that they mix and they should mix."

From 1952 to 1972, Avery Brundage, also called "Slavery Avery" by black athletes, was the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

"In 1936, Avery had nothing to say against the German Olympic winners," Weisbord said. They had given the 'Hail Hitler' symbol on the podium, yet Brundage did not care.

His issue was with the fact that two African-American track runners (Smith and Carlos) had lowered their heads in protest with the ruling of their own country, America.

"That's why we historians are here, we don't forget, nor do we forgive," Weisbord said.

Candice Hazel, a URI sophomore who is a political science major, attended Weisbord's lecture with her Kinesiology class.

"It's amazing how [my class] now realizes how politics play such a major role in sports, especially in the Olympic games," Hazel said.

The next guest speaker, Robert L. Hohlfelder, will present tomorrow at 4 p.m. in Lippitt, Room 402.