Sometime in 2016, American football quarterback Colin Kaepernick, playing for the San Francis 49ers in the NFL, sat down when the national anthem of the United States was played. Kaepernick’s actions (dubbed as ‘taking a knee’) didn’t go down well in certain quarters in his country but his wider message was clear: the 32-year-old was protesting against police brutality against the African-American community.
“There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder,” Kaepernick had said, as his actions drew the attention of the entire world, and it was not restricted within the sporting community alone.
Forty eight years before that, in darker times, there was a much-more enduring act of defiance from two African-American athletes, Tommy Smith and John Carlos. After winning the gold and bronze medals respectively in 200m at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, the two US sprinters sent shockwaves around the world.
When “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played with the athletes on the podium for the medal ceremony, Smith and Carlos raised their fists using a glove. The American duo’s actions were met with loud boos inside the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City. It soon resulted in a suspension from the Olympic Village. The US Olympic Committee suspended them. The press vilified Smith and Carlos, whose family were subject to abuse, received death threats and were largely ostracized by the American sporting bodies. They were never picked consistently for the national track and field teams.
Smith defended his and Carlos’s actions at the end of the presentation ceremony: “If I win, I am American. If not, a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a N****. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight.”
“In life, there’s the beginning and the end,” Carlos said later. “The beginning don’t matter. The end don’t matter. All that matters is what you do in between – whether you’re prepared to do what it takes to make change. There has to be physical and material sacrifice.”
The silver medallist on that day was a Australian named Peter Norman, who has a fascinating role too in this iconic moment.
Norman, who expressed his support to the duo, was also subject to taunts back home in Australia. He was left out of the 1972 Olympics squad despite qualifying thirteen times over. In recent years, though, Norman’s message of solidarity has seen him earn a cult-like status. Smith and Carlos were even the pallbearers at Norman’s funeral in 2006.
In the boxing ring, Mohammad Ali was blazing his own trail in the 1960s and also didn’t shy away from sending a message against racism. Smith and Carlos, while being controversial during their time, have gone on to be icons in recent decades. There were songs that were sung, mural and life-sized depictions that were painted in the years gone. It has since gone on to become one of the most significant political messages that was sent across from a sporting arena.
Smith and Carlos (and more recently, Kaepernick) are all heroes in their own right who used their status as a sportsman to speak up for the community they represent at great personal cost.
It is a moment that makes you wonder about things closer to home about the top Indian athletes choosing to be silent spectators. One cannot help but look back at a couple of gutsy gentlemen making their voices heard to the establishment with admiration. The ‘Black Power’ salute, more than 50 years later, still remains a poignant moment that transcended sport.
As one of the murals about the incident said, “it only takes a pair of gloves.”
Here’s a video of the moment itself from 1968:
Watch the story of the black power salute here:
(Also watch: Tommie Smith talks to BBC, 50 years after the incident, wondering if things have really changed.)
