Uploaded August 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
80 years Before Kap took his knee... 50 years Before Tommie Smith and John Carlos protested against racial discrimination at the 1968 Summer Olympics. Jesse Owens staged the greatest political protest in sports history... just by showing up!
OTD AUG 9TH 1936 Jesse Owens became the first American track and field athlete to win four gold medals at a single Olympic Games. The 100m, 200m 4x100m relay and the long jump. Owens equalled or broke nine Olympic records and set three WORLD records at the Berlin games.
The 1936 Summer Olymics in Berlin put Hitler’s Nazi Germany on the front page of every newspaper in the world. The games were an opportunity for Hitler to promote the myth of “Aryan” racial superiority. The most effective protest to Hitler’s racial policies came by having an African American quietly show up and win.
The U.S. sent a team of 312 members to Berlin, including 18 African Americans.
The Berlin games would be the first Olympic games to be televised and broadcast by radio to 41 countries. Hitler provided extensive funding for the Berlin Games. The Nazi government used sport as part of its drive to strengthen the “Aryan race,” But the dominance of an African American track star at the Berlin games shattered Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy
80 years Before Kap took his knee... 50 years Before Tommie Smith and John Carlos protested against racial discrimination at the 1968 Summer Olympics. Jesse Owens staged the greatest political protest in sports history... just by showing up!
OTD AUG 9TH 1936 Jesse Owens became the first American track and field athlete to win four gold medals at a single Olympic Games. The 100m, 200m 4x100m relay and the long jump. Owens equalled or broke nine Olympic records and set three WORLD records at the Berlin games.
The 1936 Summer Olymics in Berlin put Hitler’s Nazi Germany on the front page of every newspaper in the world. The games were an opportunity for Hitler to promote the myth of “Aryan” racial superiority. The most effective protest to Hitler’s racial policies came by having an African American quietly show up and win.
The U.S. sent a team of 312 members to Berlin, including 18 African Americans.
The Berlin games would be the first Olympic games to be televised and broadcast by radio to 41 countries. Hitler provided extensive funding for the Berlin Games. The Nazi government used sport as part of its drive to strengthen the “Aryan race,” But the dominance of an African American track star at the Berlin games shattered Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy
