'I was a troublemaker doing the right thing'
http://www.amestrib.com/articles/2011/03/04/ames_tribune/news/doc4d71c3ea74234096285011.txt
By Laura Millsaps
March 4, 2011
John Carlos said he saw it in a vision from God.
Carlos, who became a civil rights icon for raising a black power fist
salute on the 1968 Olympics podium in Mexico City, told an Iowa State
University audience Friday that he foresaw his historic gesture in a
dream when he was only 7 or 8 years old. He saw it all: the running,
the stadium, the podium, the medals.
It happened pretty much exactly as the young boy foresaw.
"I saw the happiness turn to anger, the joy turn to venom," Carlos
said, speaking at the 2011 Iowa State Conference on Race and
Ethnicity in the Memorial Union. "They started booing; they started
spitting; they started throwing things, they started calling names."
On Oct. 19, 1968, Carlos won a bronze medal in the 200-meter race.
Fellow U.S. athlete Tommie Smith won the gold medal in a world record
time of 19.83 seconds. An Australian, Peter Norman, who was white,
won the silver medal.
Smith and Carlos went to the podium shoeless to represent black
poverty. Both wore black gloves and saluted the crowds with a fist to
symbolize black solidarity. All three athletes wore badges of the
Olympic Project for Human Rights, an organization that had been
pushing for black athletes to boycott the games that year.
U.S. pride for the medal winners went instantly sour. Spectators
booed. The two were expelled from the games and sent home. For Smith
and Carlos, years of death threats, hate mail and personal struggles
resulted from that moment in Mexico City. In Australia, Peter Norman
was shunned by his countrymen and was not chosen for the 1972 Olympic
team despite finishing third in trials.
Carlos said he spoke out strongly against racism in his athletic
career in the years leading up to the event. As a student at East
Texas State University, he took his coach to task for expecting black
athletes to wait outside for food while traveling, because
restaurants would not serve them. He was also told by his coach that
black athletes were only superior runners because they had "extra
bones in their body."
"I told that coach, I'm a good athlete because I train, rain or
shine, morning, noon and night," Carlos said. "Ain't no extra bones
puttin' me down the track."
From a memorable meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. shortly before
King was assassinated, Carlos said he learned there was no disrespect
in being a troublemaker.
"I had been concerned a troublemaker was a bad name," Carlos said. "I
learned from Dr. King it isn't a bad thing to be a troublemaker if
you are doing the right thing."
Carlos was born in Harlem, N.Y. He attended East Texas State
University and then San José State University on track and field
scholarships. After the 1968 Olympics, he continued his education and
won the NCAA Track & Field National Championship in 1969. He followed
his track and field success with a brief career in the NFL, and later
worked for PUMA, the Olympics and the city of Los Angeles. He is a
track and field coach for Palm Springs High School in Palm Springs, Calif.
In 2005, San Jose State University erected a statue of Carlos and
Smith in honor of their 1968 Olympic podium protest.
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Laura Millsaps can be reached at (515) 663-6922 or [email protected].
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