Tommie Smith
Tommie Smith is an iconic American athlete and civil rights activist, best known for his powerful protest during the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. Born on June 6, 1944, in Clarksville, Texas, Smith grew up in a large family of impoverished sharecroppers and later excelled in multiple sports during high school and college. At San Jose State College, he set numerous records in track and field and became increasingly aware of racial discrimination and social injustice, influenced by sociologist Harry Edwards and the broader civil rights movement.
During the 1968 Olympics, Smith won a gold medal in the 200-meter race, but his most memorable moment came on the victory stand when he and fellow athlete John Carlos raised their fists in a Black Power salute while the national anthem played. This act was a protest against racism and social inequality, which sparked widespread controversy and led to their disqualification from the Games. In the years that followed, Smith faced significant backlash, including job loss and threats, yet he remained steadfast in his convictions.
Despite the struggles, Smith's legacy has grown over time, resulting in numerous honors, including induction into several sports halls of fame and the recognition of his protest as a significant moment in Olympic history. His efforts have continued to resonate, especially in contemporary discussions surrounding racial justice, making him a respected figure in both sports and civil rights advocacy.
Tommie Smith
Olympic Athlete
- Born: June 6, 1944
- Birthplace: Clarksville, Texas
Track-and-field athlete and activist
Tommie Smith was a sprinter who broke a number of national and world records. After winning a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, he became one of America’s most famous—and controversial—sports figures when he raised his black-gloved fist while he stood atop the podium. This highly visible protest of racial discrimination effectively destroyed his athletic career but brought him much attention as an activist.
Areas of achievement: Civil rights; Social issues; Sports: Olympics; Sports: track and field
Early Life
Thomas C. Smith was born in the rural northeast Texas town of Clarksville on June 6, 1944. He was the seventh of twelve children born to impoverished sharecroppers Richard and Dora Smith, and as a child he was put to work picking cotton. When Smith was six years old, his family moved to Kings County, south of Fresno, California, in the fertile San Joaquin Valley, where they all labored in the fields.
Smith attended Lemoore Union High School, where he starred in basketball, football, and track. During his junior year, he ran the 440-yard dash in 47.7 seconds, the fastest prep time in the country. His exploits earned Smith an athletic scholarship to San Jose State College.
At San Jose State, Smith, now a strapping 6 feet, 4 inches and 185 pounds, continued to excel at sports. Once he began concentrating solely on track, he set world and American records in the 200 meters (20.0 seconds, 1966) and 400 meters (44.5 seconds, 1967). Smith won several National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) titles, was national champion in the 200 meters in 1968, and once owned eleven records at the same time. A sociology major, Smith also was a member of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) at San Jose State and briefly considered a career in the military. He married fellow student Denise Paschal and fathered a child.
One significant by-product of his higher education was a growing awareness of the effects of racial discrimination and social injustice. A major influence on Smith’s growing consciousness was former athlete, San Jose State alumnus, and sociology lecturer Harry Edwards. Edwards was a driving force in the creation of the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR), which lobbied African American athletes to boycott the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. The objectives were to demonstrate opposition to racism in the United States and denounce the policy of apartheid in Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) and South Africa. When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) barred the two offending nations from competing in the Games, talk of a boycott died down. Some Black athletes, such as basketball star Lew Alcindor (later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), refused to play nonetheless. However, there still was considerable discussion among African American Olympic hopefuls about making some kind of statement at the 1968 Games.
Life’s Work
The 1968 Summer Olympics came at a volatile time in national and world history. That year the United States witnessed the assassinations of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Police and demonstrators clashed violently at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The militant Black Panther Party garnered frequent headlines espousing the Black Power movement.
Internationally, conditions were equally troubling. In France, rioting students forced the University of Paris to close. In Czechoslovakia (later the Czech Republic), the Prague Spring uprising led to Soviet invasion and occupation. In Vietnam, the bloody Tet Offensive cost the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians and escalated American involvement in the conflict. Incidents flared in Asia, Africa, and the Americas as various movements—for national liberation, economic reform, and women's rights, and against war, poverty, and racism—arose to confront authorities and demand change.
Mexico City, host of the 1968 Olympics, was not immune to the worldwide upheaval. Just days before the games commenced, Mexican troops had used bullets to disperse a student rally at the national university, leaving hundreds dead or wounded. Tension underscored the opening ceremonies.
It was during Olympic competition that Smith came to personify the spirit of protest. On October 16, 1968, he and teammate (and San Jose State classmate) John Carlos ran in the finals of the 200 meters. Smith, despite a pulled groin muscle, took the gold medal and set world and Olympic records with a time of 19.83 seconds; Carlos claimed the bronze. On the victory stand, Smith and Carlos did something that shocked the world. During the playing of the national anthem, the two athletes stood with their heads bowed and black-gloved fists raised. Meant as a symbol of solidarity with the civil rights and Black Power movements and a protest against discrimination and racism, it was deemed a gesture of disrespect by many in the mainstream.
Official reaction was swift. The US Olympic Committee disqualified Smith and Carlos from further participation in the Games. They were expelled from the Olympic Village and immediately sent home. However, neither apologized for or distanced themselves from their actions and they remained proud of the statement they made.
Unofficial sanctions haunted the two Olympians for years afterward. Smith was fired from his job at a California car dealership and had difficulty finding other work. He received numerous death threats. He was called a traitor and worse privately as well as in the national media. He had bricks thrown through his windows; the family dog was killed and left on his porch. The stress of this treatment led Smith and his wife to divorce. A tryout with the Los Angeles Rams football team was canceled. Carlos's career was likewise adversely affected. Even Peter Norman, the White Australian silver medalist who shared the podium with Smith and Carlos, was similarly ostracized in his home country for showing solidarity with the protest by wearing an OPHR emblem during the medal ceremony.
In 1969 Smith signed on to play wide receiver with the Cincinnati Bengals of the American Football League (the team became part of the National Football League when the two leagues merged in 1970). In three lackluster seasons with the Bengals, Smith played little, appearing in just two games and catching a single pass for forty-one yards. In 1971 he coached track at Oberlin College in Ohio. The next year, he earned a master’s degree through Cambridge College in Massachusetts and afterward was hired at Santa Monica College in California, where he remained for twenty-five years as a coach and teacher.
After retiring in 2005 Smith relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, with his second wife, Delois. He remained active as a lecturer into the twenty-first century. Together with Carlos, Smith served as a pallbearer at the 2006 funeral of Norman. He released the autobiography Silent Gesture in 2007, detailing the reasons for his famous act of protest and the way it affected his life. In 2010, he placed his Olympic gold medal up for auction, hoping to gain funds to start a youth foundation. President Barack Obama included a tribute to Smith and Carlos, who were invited, in the White House ceremony celebrating the 2016 US Olympians. In 2020, a documentary in which Smith participated, titled With Drawn Arms, was released focusing on his raised-fist gesture on the 1968 Olympics podium, including his own story as well as the long-lasting impact of that moment as the film was released in a year of heightened protests over racial injustice. Aimed at younger readers, his graphic memoir Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice, cowritten with Derrick Barnes and illustrated by Dawud Anyabwile, was a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award in Young People's Literature and won the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction.
Significance
Smith sacrificed a great deal—including lucrative professional sports contracts and commercial endorsements—to exhibit the courage of his convictions. It was only much later that he was recognized and honored for his bold Olympic protest. He has been inducted into several halls of fame, including the National Track and Field Hall of Fame (1978), California Black Sports Hall of Fame, and San Jose State University Hall of Fame (1999). In 1999 he was also named California Black Sportsman of the Millennium. In 2005 San Jose State unveiled a statue of Smith and Carlos in their Olympic poses as a permanent symbol of the continuing fight against injustice. The duo also received the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage in 2008. In 2018 Smith was honored with the Dresden Peace Prize.
Bibliography
Brown, Oliver. "London 2012 Olympics: Tommie Smith and John Carlos' Famous Black Power Salute Still Resonates 44 Years On." Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 12 July 2012. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
Cosgrove, Ben. "The Black Power Salute that Rocked the 1968 Olympics." Time. Time, 27 Sept. 2014. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
Hartmann, Douglas. Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete: The 1968 Olympic Protests and Their Aftermath. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2004. Print.
Jackson, Angelique. "Olympic Gold Medalist Tommie Smith on How 'With Drawn Arms' Affirms Athletes' Right to Protest and His Own Legacy." Variety, 18 Jan. 2021, variety.com/2021/film/news/with-drawn-arms-documentary-tommie-smith-olympics-afshin-shahidi-glenn-kaino-caa-1234887457/. Accessed 19 July 2021.
Jackson, C. D. Jr. Why? The Biography of John Carlos. Los Angeles: Milligan, 2000. Print.
Seymour, Gene. "An Athlete and Activist Shares His Story with Kids." Kirkus, 14 Sept. 2022, www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/tommie-smith-victory-stand-interview/. Accessed 7 Dec. 2022.
Smith, Tommie, and David Steele. Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2007. Print.
"Tommie's Bio." TommieSmith.com. TommieSmith.com, 2010. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.