Olympic Pride, American Prejudice

- The final of the 400 meters and here it is, Brown's in the outside lane there next to him, Williams, the American Negro.

Look at Brown's tremendous stride, but he's taking it easy.

He's holding his effort back rather unexpectedly.

Williams is a beautiful mover.

He's a black panther.

He's not waiting.

He's cutting loose.

He's coming up on the back stretch, very threatening.

He's gaining hand over fist.

Browns going well, but he's leaving it too late.

That Negro's dangerous going into the bend.

Williams will drive it home before they get into the straight.

Browns got to fight for it now.

The Negro's got it 20 yards from the straight.

Williams is ahead, he's going away.

Brown looks beaten.

Roberts and LuValle one the inside LuValle is going strong.

Roberts is challenging him, but Williams leads Oh, look!

Browns sprinting - We talk about sports being a place where you supposedly have a level playing field.

You have rules, you have an audience, you have judges and everyone competes equally.

So we try to take that and move it out into society and say, this is how society should be.

- At the most notorious sports event ever staged 18 African Americans challenged discrimination on the world stage.

Their presence in Berlin is a blow to racial prejudice on both sides of the Atlantic.

The unprecedented effort is largely unknown and their stories forgotten.

- I love my gold medal, but in history it's not as important as their medal.

There's just something so special about what they did and who they did it in front of.

- One of the great tragedies of the story is you have 18 athletes who were on the world stage.

One of them is remembered.

- An American fist won a victory, but it wasn't the final victory.

No, that victory's going to take a little longer and a whole lot more American fist.

We make mistakes.

We correct the mistakes and then plummet down into false needless depression.

- 250,000 - People are in Washington where Roosevelt is to take the oath of office.

- The funny little man called Hitler had come into power in June.

This nation is asking for action, and action now!

- 1936 is a time when you see America captured in the Great Depression.

You've got thousands of African Americans who have left the south to go to the north.

But by 1936 there was this real worry that African Americans would not be able to attain the American dream.

- Think about what was America like during that period.

This is a period long before civil rights era and marching.

It was not uncommon during that era that there'd be a public spectacle of a lynching and that people would come out for, you know, to picnic.

- African Americans were not considered full citizens.

When you have just an understanding of how African Americans are treated by the country, you know, through Jim Crow, it's very obvious that they were not considered full members of the nation.

- Well, practically anything that had any social implications was affected by the racial situation.

All my friends were mostly Caucasian.

They wanted me to be in the scouts with him, but I, I was told that that I wasn't eligible for obvious reasons.

I still felt resentful of it.

I was born in Oakland, California, got outta high school and the depression was definitely on and a friend of mine said, you know, can't get any good jobs, so let's go back to school.

I knew what Cal was all about.

We used to go up when I was, even before I got outta high school and sneak into the where the track guys were practicing and watch the real athletes perform.

So I went there and signed up for fall track.

Tuition was $26 a semester.

- During this period, new opportunities appear for black athletes.

A few universities in the north and west cautiously experiment with accepting small numbers of African Americans into their athletic programs.

- Dad had a pretty rough early life.

When they got up here, they discovered that the playground was a block from the crib.

That's where he picked up his nickname Rabbit.

He had no intention of going to college.

His idea was once I graduate from Tilden, I could get more hours at the fish market and helped my mom with the family better.

He was running in a track meet and Marquette's athletic director saw the boy run.

He said, that's our man right there.

Jennings offered him a scholarship.

My father said, well, I don't know.

Let me go talk to my mom about that.

And here's what she said.

She said, boy, if I've gotta get on my hands and knees and scrub these white people's floors, you are going to college.

- There was a dual life experience in this country, which included sports.

Basketball was considered a contact sport.

So there were black basketball teams and black baseball teams because there was no touchy, you know, that was not allowed.

So track was the sport that you could compete in.

- So I grew up in California.

I got into track and field purely by accident.

I was playing around one afternoon on the field and Eddie Lee says, Jimmy, I want you to run for six 60.

And I ran it and I beat the guy.

He said, you're a quarter miler no athletic scholarships available for track in those days at UCLA.

However, a young girl, I call her a snotty nose girl, looked down a nose at me in one day and said, you're dumb like all the other fellas, I'm much brighter than any of you.

And I spent the next two and a half years proving to her that I could beat her in every subject and that's how I became an all A student.

I should have graduated in February of 36 and I didn't really decide whether to try for the Olympics till that spring.

- The International Olympic Committee chose Berlin as the host city In 1931.

Two years later, Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor.

In the following years, Germany radically changes.

- The world is moving towards war.

Hitler is consolidating his power and so the Olympics was really right in the middle of that and became both tied to the domestic considerations but also obviously international considerations.

- His Nazi party builds a legal structure to enact Hitler's racist theories.

The Nazis passed the Nuremberg laws.

These laws stripped Jews, gypsies and blacks of German citizenship and prohibit them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of German blood.

These laws provide the legal framework for the systemic persecution of Jews and other minorities, - People began to understand who Hitler was and what his goals were and so there was a lot of discussion about what should happen and whether or not the US should be there.

- As reports of persecution in Germany, reach America, Jewish groups organize and launch a boycott of German goods and services in the Olympics become a part of the campaign to pressure the German regime.

- All the Jewish athletes were lobbied not to go.

So you would have the rabbis go and talk to the athletes and to explain to them exactly what was happening in Germany.

- There was a broad scale movement to boycott the Berlin Olympics, but arguments led by people who were very sympathetic to the games not being blatantly disrupted by political concerns.

Most certainly the American Olympic Committee led by Avery Brundage, they were in favor of going.

- Avery Brundage was an Olympian.

He competed in the 1912 games and he was a self-made success and became president of the A A U.

He believed that white was right and everything else was secondary.

He was determined to make sure that the team went to Berlin.

- There was a need to convince others that everything was gonna be okay.

There was not gonna be discrimination on the base of race or religion.

This meant in Germany that Jewish athletes would be given the opportunity to compete.

It meant that African American athletes would be safe if they went to Nazi Germany.

- One of the reasons for the discussion of the boycott was the fact that these laws existed and the fact that you didn't know whether or not you could protect African American athletes or Jewish athletes or other athletes in Nazi Germany or if they would be jailed for something that was made up by the German laws.

- I can assure you the discussion had more to do with whether the Jewish athletes should be able to compete or not, but it was not about the black athletes.

- Top Jewish athletes, including the entire Long Island University basketball team, refuse to participate if the games are held in Berlin.

Black athletes raise their voices and join the debate.

- My dad and Jesse Owens and the high jumper Dave Albritton wrote a letter to Avery Brundage saying that they wanted to compete in the Olympics.

They didn't want to boycott.

You Invested Your whole career in running, running has brought you prominence, running has brought you experience and exposure.

Now here come the Olympics and you know the heightened peak of track and field and we not going to go, let's go over there and dust these Germans who think they better than us - Being 17, 18 years old.

I think it would, you would really be torn not to want to put on display your hard work, your efforts.

The Olympics only comes once every four years and you never know what's going to happen.

So you can't take that time for granted.

- Walter White, the president of the NAACP, replies in a letter.

I realize how great a sacrifice it will be for you to give up the trip to Europe and to forego the acclaim your athletic prowess will unquestionably bring you.

But participation would I firmly believe do irreparable harm.

The moral issue involved is far greater than immediate benefit.

- The NAACP, their perspective was you're representing a racist country and, and so you're gonna go over to a racist country and represent another racist country and try to create the message that your racist country is better than their racist country.

- Walter White pleaded to stay out of the 1936 games, it would just bring more sympathy to the black cause.

But then you had a number of newspapers.

The Pittsburgh Curry in particular editor Robert l Van, made a huge case that African Americans should participate in the games.

He even sent the US Olympic Committee a check because they were being boycotted by some Jewish patrons and his argument basically was that here was an opportunity on the world stage to disprove white supremacy that would go much further than some kind of moral protest.

- The NAACP said not go and then of course the defender said to go, but the defender understood how politically powerful those moments could be.

- The black newspapers looked at it and said, you have an opportunity to open international doors and put actual African American athletes on an international stage and and allow people to see that we are human beings.

- They thought the 1936 games were just too important to pass up for black people.

- Telegrams, phone calls and letters demanding an official American boycott besiege Avery Brundage.

With a boycott camp gaining momentum.

Brundage and his chief supporter, general Charles Sherrill decide to travel to Germany to silence the opposition.

Hitler worries an American boycott will have a domino effect and destroy his plans to showcase the third reich to the world.

The Nazis give Brundage the VIP treatment.

Impressed with what he saw, Brundage upon his return reports no evidence of discrimination or persecution of the Jews.

He also carries assurances from the Nazis that Jewish athletes will compete on the German team and that black and Jewish athletes will be welcomed as equals.

- He definitely wanted to bring the team to Berlin and one of those ways was to make sure there was at least a token Jewish athlete.

- The Nazi regime knew where to look.

Gretel Bergman has fled Germany for Britain where she breaks that country's record in the woman's high jump.

She's preparing to compete for the British Olympic team.

Nazi officials eager to silence worldwide criticism of antisemitism.

Order Gretel back to Germany.

- Well I didn't wanna go back, but they tell my father, go to England and get your daughter because they wanted one Jew on the team.

You did what the nazis told you to do.

They told me to compete and I went and compete - With Bergman.

Now on Germany's team, Avery Brundage announces that the Nazis are fulfilling their pledge.

- We are the American Olympic Committee.

Believe that every red-blooded American will support the campaign.

The Olympic Games belong to the athletes and not to the politicians.

Never allow our athletes to be made martyrs to a cause not their own.

Boycott backers including New York Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia Members of Congress and many college coaches are not convinced.

Pro boycott newspapers called Brundage a Nazi stooge.

He argues that American participation in the game should not be held hostage to a Jewish communist conspiracy.

- There was a big surge in the discussion and there was a a vote on whether the US should send a team.

On December 7th, 1935, the bitter boycott battle comes to a head, the members of the AAU meet in New York to finally settle the matter.

After hours of angry verbal clashes between the executive committee, a preliminary ballot is deadlocked.

Realizing that he may not have the support to defeat the pro boycott forces.

Brundage postpones the final vote.

That evening, he launches an aggressive campaign to win support for American participation.

The next morning the rival of factions file into the meeting room to cast their ballots.

When the results are tallied, only two votes separate the sides.

The American team will go to Berlin, a win for Brundage... and for Hitler.

On July 11th, 1936, president Roosevelt and Mayor LaGuardia joined thousands of spectators on Randall's Island in New York City, the nation's top track and field athletes have gathered for the Olympic trials.

- The temperature was around a hundred.

There was no shade at all.

The only place you could find was underneath the bleacher.

People were dropping like flies in the hot weather, guys that were supposed to be sure things, but something happened.

US Peacock pulled her muscles, he would've made it.

- It was hot, humid.

I don't think a single athlete who participated in those games lost less than 10 pounds.

I know I lost almost 15.

- I remember that he told me about some of his competitors.

You know, Jesse Owens, Ben Johnson from Columbia University and Mack Robinson, Jackie Robinson's big brother.

All these people were challenging him.

And I said, but they weren't as fast as you were, they said, oh they were pretty fast.

- Jackie Robinson always looked up to his big brother Mack Robinson and Mack was renowned for having all of the titles at Pasadena Community College.

Mack Robinson had to believe in himself that if he could get to New York, he could make the team.

- Mack Robinson does not have a coach and runs in a battered pair of spikes that have already served him through two full track seasons.

A group of Pasadena businessmen raises $150 for Mack Robinson's train fair confident Mack tells reporters he's run faster times than both Owens and Metcalfe, but Metcalfe is no stranger to challenges on the track.

- In 32, dad was in the second photo finish in history in the a hundred meters - At the LA Coliseum, the 100 meters race becomes one of the most hotly contested races in Olympic history.

Two men crossed the finish line with times of exactly 10.38 seconds on the clock equaling the world record.

The American Athletic Union spends hours evaluating the results.

Metcalfe receives the silver but maintains he is the winner.

Observers and film evidence of the race support Metcalfe's claim Ralph will wait four years for another chance - In 1936 and when he went to the finals on Randalls Island, my dad failed to qualify in his favorite event.

The 200 meters he finished fifth and regurgitated after the race.

There was two tenths of a second separating the top five so he only qualified in the hundred for Berlin.

- Mack Robinson finishes second to Jesse Owens and both qualify for the 200 meter dash in Berlin.

In the broad jump competition, John Brooks hopes to make the team this time.

- You know, my dad wasn't allowed to compete in 32 even though he qualified because there was a white athlete that the team had decided they wanted to push and he told him, you cheated me but you won't get the chance to cheat me again.

I know he was upset and you know there's, there's definitely some negative feelings there.

He was born in Vidalia, Louisiana.

He came to Chicago to live with his aunt.

He got interested in track while he was in high school and that was the beginning of him trying to do records and that kind of thing.

My dad went to University of Chicago and Jesse Owens went to Ohio State.

They competed a lot - At the Randall's Island trials.

John Brooks falls just inches short of Jesse Owen's winning mark.

Both men will compete in the long jump in the Olympics and all 10 African American men run and jump past the other hopefuls to represent Uncle Sam in track and field.

Williams, Metcalfe, Brooks, LuVa Owens, Woodruff... Pollard, Johnson... Albritton, Robinson... at the women's trials at Brown University, only two black women land spots on the American team.

Hurdler Tidye Pickett and sprinter Louise Stokes.

- My mother was the oldest of a large family, eight girls and one boy.

My mother started taking up athletics, running, basketball, anything to do with sports.

After school she started racing the boys down the railroad track.

They would pick on her, tell 'em she wasn't fast, and what she would do in the morning before school is run the railroad ties every single tie.

So that's how she developed her quickness.

And then she became quite good at it and after a while she started beating the boys and you know after that they started leaving her alone.

- Mother didn't talk a lot, you know, and so we got bits and pieces of her history.

She was one of two children.

She has a, an older brother, two years older.

They were born on the south side of Chicago.

- We know that her and her brother were off and competitive and racing was one of the things that they loved to do.

And so it just seemed something that was pretty innate in her.

They were often stories told about who would beat who.

- Yeah, but she was fastest - Of course, of course - She was a star on the basketball team and that that takes some doing since mother was only like five, two and a half or five three, she attended the the recreational events and things at Chicago Park District on the south side.

She was discovered there so she started running for the park district.

- The story of these two women Tidye Anne Pickett and Louise Stokes is crucially important because of their involvement in 32 there was a real struggle to get these two black women into the games in 32, - Tidye Pickett and Louise Stokes forge a friendship by supporting one another through a string of indignities at the 32 games During a nap in their sleeping car on the train ride to Los Angeles teammate Babe Didrikson drenches them with a pitcher of ice water and just hours before they are to compete at the LA Coliseum.

The woman's track coach replaces Tidye and Louise with white athletes.

- My mother, bless her, didn't complain.

She didn't ever spoke a ill word about it or anybody.

She just came home.

Everybody said congratulations and without saying anything they understood.

She were like two peas in the pod trying to figure out their place in the world.

- By 36 they are now at really the peak of their own athletic abilities.

And there was great hope by achieving Olympic gold, which is what they set out for.

They thought it would also send a message about the role that black women play.

- Friends, neighbors, other coaches are put on fundraisers, anything they could to raise the money - In Chicago.

The boxing trials sellout 18-year-old slugger Howell King out punches Chester Rutecki with a series of powerful body shots as the majority white crowd boos an unprecedented five black boxers join America's hardest hitting mitt men on the Olympic team.

Boxers Clark, Johnson, Oliver, Wilson, King, and the first ever black weightlifting Olympian.

John Terry.

Round out the team.

18 African American athletes heading to Berlin resounds across black America.

African American communities focus on the Olympics for the first time.

Black newspapers send reporters to cover the happenings in Berlin.

Hailed as the Black Eagles They become instant heroes and a source of pride.

- Mr. Brundage, one of America's prospects in the forthcoming games, the 400 boys and girls who will march into the stadium on August 1st will constitute the finest team we have ever sent abroad.

- Brundage, having these black athletes participate in 36 Olympics, I think he understood what that represented.

You know, it wasn't going to necessarily guarantee a victory for the United States, but it was gonna guarantee success, and so he was using these black athletes as the auxiliaries that they were identified as.

This is for me that was very clear.

He took advantage of what was obviously opportunity - Just weeks before the Olympic team's departure for Germany, boxer Max Schmeling takes on Joe Lewis, the Brown Bomber.

America's most renowned black athlete, much more is at stake than just a champion's belt.

- Max Schmeling who was considered an over the hill German fighter, he carried the stigma of Nazism in Germany with him.

- Joe Lewis was revered.

Blacks would gather everywhere - Joe Lewis was revered.

Blacks would gather everywhere to listen to Joe Lewis fights.

The ebb and flow of the black community went with the Joe Lewis fights - In 1936 right before the Olympics.

Max Schmeling defeated Joe Lewis At that point the greatest boxer in the world had been defeated by a Nazi.

Hitler was able to reinforce this mythos that even a broken down over the hill Nazi could defeat an African American.

- What I do remember my dad, John Brooks talking about was if nothing else, he and the athletes that were with them only had one goal and that was to make sure that Hitler knew that African American athletes were not inferior.

I remember him mocking about, you know them saluting Hitler and he said, we just wanted to go and do like this.

But you know, that was his biggest focus.

You know, their passion was to disprove Hitler and to show him how incorrect he was.

- Mother was fearless.

I don't know that she had fears leaving her family or you know, any anxiety about that.

My grandmother, I don't think she liked the idea very much.

I think it was kind of a struggle.

It's my understanding that John Brooks went to my grandmother personally and asked for her permissions to let my mother go to Germany.

- Personally, I would've been afraid to let my son or daughter leave outside the four block radius.

You have to think about how people felt about us as a race of people.

If I let my daughter go, will she ever come back?

- Whether it be racism in America or in Germany, they want to get out on the track and say, Hey, we're African American, we can do this.

You can't let anything stop you - I'm sure we're going to bring home the bacon, aren't we girls?

Yes - To a symphony of cheering well-wishers, blaring ship sirens and the screaming of tugboat whistles, The American Olympic Squad, 400 strong, boards the luxury liner SS Manhattan, destination Germany and the 1936 Summer Olympics.

- Once you make the team, you got instant affluency.

They were sort of giving the old VIP treatment, getting ready to catch the boat and of course that's a big event 'cause the only boat I've ever been on in been the southern Pacific ferry boat, you know, going to San Francisco and there's this huge ship, you know with all the big chimneys and smoke stacks and horns blowing and even had a band playing.

And so the old boat pulls out and here we go.

- It was very close quarters.

There's first class and... We were more or less in in the bottom of the barrel the athletes 'cause there wasn't a lot of room.

All that press was on there.

The reporters were there.

Every, everybody was on the one boat.

We got to know each other much better this way.

They had parties and music and songs.

- Well we were always in and out each other's rooms.

It seemed Most of the guys that I enjoyed being around were those guys from Louisiana State.

Well we played cards and tell lies and and things like that.

Just, just we did expect a bunch of college kids I was a college sophomore.

Well there were a few older guys like Ralph Metcalfe, he was somewhat older.

It was just nice to be in the company of people that you'd read about.

- They all knew him.

He was a big celebrity and then a role model for most of them, including Jesse Owens.

And they were all tight and they get in the cabin at night and sing songs and start signifying on each other.

You know, just little teases and stuff.

- We spent a lot of time eating on the Manhattan on the way all afterwards trying to catch our weight up.

In fact, on the trip over we had to make a unscheduled stop at Plymouth England to get more food.

Of course most of this was due to Zini.

He was a big eater.

- During the stop in England, John Woodruff sends a letter to his fans back home thanking them for a $55 bank draft.

He writes, I never knew there was so much water on earth.

It seems endless.

I have a hard time getting used to the rocking on the boat.

The 10 day transatlantic voyage is a new kind of challenge for many of the athletes.

- Practically no training was taking place so we had to start from scratch.

We'd jog up and down the deck but it was kind of weird.

We'd do pushups and the weather was kind of cold and I got sick one day.

- He was kind of outta sorts on the SS Manhattan.

He was sleeping late, he was not working out but he did better than Tidye Pickett - On the ship.

One of mother's biggest problems.

But she was seasick from the time she got on the ship until the ship landed.

And so that depleted her physically.

So she didn't get to enjoy probably I'm sure the way she would've wanted to.

You know, a lot of the festivities on the ship and going there.

- Not all of the Olympians are welcome at shipboard activities.

- Sometimes you try to sneak up to go to the movies up in first class, but as soon as Steward saw you, they chased you out.

We resented you very much.

But it is one of those things we didn't resent it enough to probably mutiny.

- We weren't first class and they did manage to get all the brothers together as you know.

Don't you want to be with your own kind?

It seemed to me like it was kind of a put down since it's reminds you of like putting you down in the galley all together in the same room.

You could still get that feeling that there was something there that they felt they were doing your favor or maybe they were making it easier for themselves but it didn't matter 'cause we were all friends and some ways it might have been to an advantage.

I know a couple of boxers I used to go over and watch some out.

- One afternoon the boxing coach springs a surprise on Howell King.

If King wants to keep his spot on the team, he must fight Chester Rutecki again.

Howell jumps into the makeshift ring on the deck of the Manhattan and whips Rutecki a second time.

King feels this will not be the end of it.

- On one hand, there's no doubt that they were making friends across racial lines, but the reality is the tensions on the boat were the same tensions you would have anywhere in the United States.

That there were athletes, white athletes who were concerned about their black teammates, about the kind of interaction that being this close quarter would have.

There were sort of tensions between male athletes and female athletes regardless of race.

Many male athletes believing that these women had no role in the Olympics.

The Olympics was really about masculinity and athleticism that was beyond the female body.

And then you also have these 18 people coming together.

There are also tensions within that because you have competition.

The tensions on the boat merit the tensions in America.

- 18-year-old Marty Glickman is a Syracuse freshman set to compete in the four by 100 meter relay.

He and Sam Stoller of Michigan are the only Jewish members of the US track team.

Glickman tells Stoller, the antisemitism we might encounter in Berlin would be no worse than what I faced growing up in Brooklyn.

- Ralph Metcalfe, who was more seasoned and he had a certain authority and respect, he counseled all the members of this group not to worry about politics, to just focus on winning, winning for themselves, winning for their country.

He really said, you know, block everything else out that's that's going on - With the Americans on the high seas.

The Germans begin to renege on their promises.

- I remember when that letter came, nobody was home.

The dog was lying outside.

I still see that, everything.

It was a printed form letter.

Too bad you that you worked so hard you could make the team.

That's what they told me and there wasn't a thing I to do about it.

Nobody cared.

You couldn't.

If you didn't like it, get the hell out of here.

You know, it was not a good time.

Oh my god.

- The German track and field team claims Gretel Bergman is injured.

She's not only cut from the squad, but her high jump records are wiped from the books.

The young athletes pack the rails as the SS Manhattan glides into harbor.

The Americans watch the large and growing crowd of Germans not knowing what kind of reception to expect the young athletes disembark to a sea of swastikas.

- Well we arrived and then disembarked.

They took us up to the rot house and served us.

So each of us had a small glass of 25-year-old port.

Well, up to that time I'd never realized how delightful a good wine could taste.

This was excellent wine - In August, the Olympic games are held in Berlin, which Hitler has transformed into the showplace of the Third Reich on this occasion.

He intends that foreign visitors be impressed by Nazi efficiency and the material achievements of his new order.

The American teams arrived ready to show what they can do.

- We arrived in Berlin and there was this mob of young people, girls, well a lot of girls.

Oh its Jesse!

Oh, its Oh its Jesse! Remember that Jesse had set four world records here in the United States that year.

So they wanted to see him.

Well Jesse got off, these little girls had scissors and they started snipping off his clothes.

Jesse got back as fast as he could.

- How do you like the Olympic Village?

I think the Olympic village is one of the seven wonders of the world.

Do you get American food?

Yes, we have American cooks and the food is very fine and it cooked in American style.

- Looked like a country club.

The Olympic village was landscape and all the buildings were brand new.

In fact, it later was to become what?

A amount to our military academy and it was set up with the cottage type barracks and every country had its own dining hall.

And since we had one of the largest teams and we had all the goodies, all the foreign athletes wanted to be our friends.

Immediately the village had every facility that you could imagine.

For instance, things like barbershops.

I had a tooth fill there.

- It was kind of an unreal world because they had been so used to the reality of what was back home.

Jim Crow America, they were being treated as equals and they were being welcomed even by supposedly, you know, this very racist Nazi society.

I think for a lot of them it must have been a a huge relief but also a wonderful surprise.

- We all had some kind of a car which allowed us to ride anywhere in Berlin, free of charge.

And of course on the street the people recognized us immediately and they would come up to us for autographs and they'd want to talk and they'd invite you in to have a cup of coffee or something.

I felt that they were really were sincere with their warmth and with their desire to, you know, to make you feel at home.

- The Nazis orchestrate every detail to impress the visitors and athletes.

The German press receives orders to publish only positive stories about black athletes and all anti-Semitic signs and graffiti disappear.

Nazis caution Berliners to welcome all international visitors regardless of race or color.

- There probably was a pretty magical 10 days, but it still came down to the fact that this was a staged, choreographed directed environment created by the Nazis for political purposes.

- Initially Hitler was not interested in the Olympic games.

It was a good chance that he would've not wanted to invest in the Olympic games until Leni Riefenstahl who realized that this was an enormous opportunity.

- Leni Riefenstahl proves herself by making the Nazis most powerful propaganda film.

Triumph of the Will Leni in the Nazi inner circle persuade Hitler to think of the press as a piano keyboard on which they could play in the games, a world stage to show off the glorious new Germany and the Aryan master race.

- There were perfect storms coming together and Hitler wanted to use the games.

He had an agenda.

The agenda was to prove the Aryan race was better.

- On August 1st, 1936 with the magnificent airship Hindenburg flying low over the Olympic stadium, 110,000 spectators fill the stadium to witness the opening ceremonies and catch a glimpse of the Fuhrer - Through these flagged streets, rides Adolf Hitler host to the worldwide gathering of sport enthusiasts to open the 1936 Olympiad.

- On the opening day of the games, we were bussed down just in front of the Berlin stadium.

Saw people on each side... and in front of these people were at least a double row of brown shirts all in full battle regalia and in front of those a row of black shirts also in full battle regalia.

I felt that that day they could have marched to war right then and there - They had this big sort of a marshaling ground outside the stadium where all the things would be lined up.

We had our white flannel pants and our Pat Boone shoes and straw hat.

We were pretty close to the end.

Hitler and Gring and Goebells and all the so-called big shots were together there.

They had a part in the ceremonies so we were very close to where they were standing - From the archway of the marathon gates enter the athletes of 49 nations led by the Greeks, as is their right for having originated the games.

The others follow in alphabetical order with the French receiving the biggest applause then come the boys and girls of the USA.

400 strong second only to Germany in numbers.

They receive a cordial, if not overwhelming welcome when their massive columns appear.

But just as they arrive at the days, the German contingent comes into sight immediately The band stops the march it is playing and breaks into Deutschland ber alles The audience rises and promptly freezes into silent attention.

So the Americans marched not to applause but to the German national anthem.

- After we'd all assembled the nations who were there, the head of state can only say, I declare this Olympiad open - That is the only words he may utter for the whole Olympics.

He's not allowed to give a speech or to say anything else.

And he said that.

5,000 German voices sang the hallelujah chorus and they released carrier pigeons to go all over the world and tell 'em the Olympics is open.

That was a very thrilling moment.

- We had these navy blue coats on and so you know, it was kind of a mad scramble there for a few minutes while these pigeons were going around in circles trying to find where they're supposed to go.

A few guys got direct hits.

- A runner arrives holding high, a torch lit at the site of the ancient games in Olympia, Greece through day and night, rain and shine.

Over 3000 runners carry the flame to Berlin.

As he touches the torch to the cauldron, a mighty flame burst forth.

- So that's how the Olympics were opened - On Sunday, August 2nd, the track and field competitions begin for the next 10 days, the nations of the world will battle for athletic supremacy.

The Germans take an early lead.

Hans Wilke, a burly German shot putter captures the first gold medal.

He's the first German ever to win an Olympic track and field event.

Hitler congratulates him in his personal box.

The crowd cheers and salutes Hitler with each victory.

- With the first day drawing to a close, America has yet to reach the metal stand.

The last hope for the United States is the high jump Americans Cornelius Johnson and Dave Albritton face off against the world's best 110,000 mesmerized fans.

Watch the high jumpers defy gravity, - 2.03 meters high.

That's six feet, eight inches and Johnson of America, first, Johnson America.

A new Olympic record of six foot eight.

- As Cornelius Johnson and Dave Albritton take their places on the metal stand, Hitler abruptly leaves the stadium.

Reporters mistakenly write stories of Hitler snubbing, not Cornelius or Dave, but Jesse Owens.

In the aftermath of the incident, Olympic organizers ask Hitler to either receive all the medal winners or none.

He chose the latter.

However, Hitler secretly greets German winners and others he favors The combination of athletic triumphs and racial novelty turned the 18 African Americans into stars.

Louise Stokes becomes one of the most photographed women in Berlin and all taste of freedom and celebrity unknown to them.

Back home - I had a German Colonel invite me out to his home for dinner one night I had dinner with he and his two daughters and his wife.

Very pleasant.

Two or three of us went along.

We saw no sign of any intolerance of any type among the people.

Now among the Nazis, I don't know because I had very little to do with 'em.

- With the 100 meter race only hours away, Ralph Metcalfe focuses solely on avenging.

The 1932 decision, - The six fastest sprinters of the world are getting ready.

Owens, America, Borchmeyer, Germany and Metcalfe, America.

- My daddy took me to see the Movietone news version of the 1936 Olympics and I can remember going to a segregated movie, which we didn't do often, but he thought that was important.

So we climbed up in the balcony and we saw the hundred meters.

- Owens is ahead... Strandberg and Borchmeyer fight Osendarp challenges Wykoff Metcalfe comes up... and Owens wins... Second victor to America - Owens bests Metcalfe by one 10th of a second to win his first gold medal.

- He stayed out till four in the morning the night after he lost to Jesse in the hundred meters, hung up his cleats.

- More bad news will come.

Heavyweight Art Oliver loses in the second round.

Middleweight James Clark loses on a controversial call in the quarterfinals.

The American boxing coach mysteriously places Howell King and Joe Church on a ship back to Manhattan.

The coach offers homesick boxers as the explanation.

Howell attributes the dismissal to coaches wanting Rutecki in his spot - For the 400 meters that we had to run five races in two days.

Arch and I got through all our four, winning each one.

- The next day was finals on the way they had this German driver.

Coach Robinson pointed and say, go that way.

And the guy says no that way.

They kept arguing to the point where the guy says all the hell with it and he got out and was gonna walk away.

Well, Jimmy LuValle could speak some German.

He'd went out and conned him into taking us there, otherwise we wouldn't have made it.

- And here it is, Brown's in the outside lane there next to him, Williams, the American Negro Williams is a beautiful mover.

He's a black panther.

He's not waiting.

He's cutting loose.

He's coming up on the back stretch, very threatening.

He's gaining hand over fist.

Browns going well, but he's leaving it too late.

That Negro's dangerous.

- I timed it so that I hit my spurt.

We're coming off of the last turn and that was the only time when I was really worried.

At that point, the curve lanes merging with the straightaway lanes.

- Roberts, LuValle on the inside ... LuValles Going Strong Roberts is challenging him, but Williams leads We pull around to the final hundred yards, At that point I believe I was in the lead, but I made a couple of mistakes around there.

- Everybody was doing his best and started pulling up on me a little bit.

I managed to hold em off.

- First, Williams of America and here's LuValle, very happy to have taken Third place - Louise Stokes and Tidye Pickett live with other women athletes from around the world.

In a dormitory near the stadium, a hand picked group of young German women attend to every need of the female competitors, including Tidye and Louise.

- There's one small, small picture that we have of mother and she is waving from a window from Olympic Village.

They were very well received actually, surprisingly, I think they were surprised actually considering the experiences that they'd had here about how well received they were There was nothing in that part of her experience that she felt was a challenge.

Everyone from all across the world were very open and loving and you know, it was just a wonderful place to be.

- On the morning of the Women's 80 Meter hurdles, the sky is overcast.

The track, damp.

Tidye Pickett warms up preparing an assault on Babe Didriksons World record.

- One of the things that my mother used to do when she was going over the hurdles is she had a habit of dragging her her foot and in the United States it would hit and go over.

Mother started training with Jesse Owens to, to try to overcome that here and she did.

She'd done a really excellent job doing that.

- Tidye easily advances to the semi-finals where she draws the outside lane.

- When she got to Germany, however, the, of course they were stationary and so when she jumped over and dragged that foot, and I don't know if it was nervous or whatever, they, they were a little higher, I'm not really sure, but it didn't move and that's how she broke her foot.

- Louise watches the medics carry her friend off the field At that moment, She vows to win gold for Tidye.

- Everybody figured it was a no brainer.

Louise Stokes wasnt gonna run in the Olympics and the whole world will see - Stokes stretches and warms up on the morning of the women's relay.

Just minutes before Louise takes the starting blocks, the track coach pulls Louise from the race for the second time, a white athlete replaces Louise on the American relay team.

Louise Stokes will never run another race.

- Louise Stokes, the first black woman to make a US Olympic team.

Never got to show her stuff.

- Just imagine how hard it was.

Everyone knows how hard it was for the men just to imagine being a woman.

Absolutely no support and the guys on the team might have wanted to support them, but they had no leverage to say, hey, you know that's wrong.

She ought to be running.

I mean she's faster, she's better.

She's proven herself.

- My mother didn't compete because of lack of talent.

My mother didn't compete because of politics.

- Racial politics continue to be devil of the US team.

- They had brought four fellows over to run in the four times, 100 relay, Cromwell and Brundage decided to put Ralph Metcalfe, Jesse Owens, Wykoff and Draper in the four times 100 relay and the two other fellas, Glickman and Stoller, who had come over to run that race were told they couldn't run.

Well those boys were heartbroken and it was also quite obvious that it had not been done fairly - Angry and hurt.

Marty Glickman confronts the American coach, demanding to know, is it because I'm Jewish that I didn't get to run?

- They switched the Olympic team around to kick the Jews off to appease Hitler.

And it's ironic that that injustice was the enabling factor in him getting his only Olympic gold medal.

- The giant American negro Woodruff is favorite - And they take the lead - 120,000 people in the crowded stadium watched American athletes write a new chapter in the history of sports.

As the boys and girls of the United States track and field team carried all glory time and again to victory - When the Berlin Games conclude America's black athletes have dominated their events.

Uncle Sam's boys and girls have amassed a total of 167 Olympic points fully half of them earned by African Americans, including eight gold medals.

The Nazi newspaper Der Angriff, The Attack writes that if the American team had not brought along the black auxiliaries, one would've regarded the Yankees as the biggest disappointment of the games.

- Hitler thought that his athletes were just gonna take all the medals and he certainly didn't think that you know, African Americans, of course we weren't African Americans then we were Negroes then or colored people.

He certainly didn't think that they would beat his champions.

It did break the color barrier, - The Nazi regime.

They filmed everything and basically disprove their theory and in turn prove that African Americans not only had the the wherewithal but the ability to compete at the highest level as an African American.

And you disprove that theory.

You have something that you can hang your hat on at home to combat the Jim Crow laws in the United States at that time.

- Black newspapers sing the praises of the 18 black athletes, but the mainstream press focuses on Jesse Owens.

His four gold medals become legendary and an important tool in America's propaganda campaign.

The exploitive concentration on a single hero versus Hitler pushes the other black teammates into the background and ultimately out of the story, even Jesse Owens, the man did not receive nearly the recognition of Jesse Owens The myth.

- I mean if anybody refused to shake Jesse Owens hand, it wasn't Adolf Hitler, it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was vitally dependent upon the whites from the south for reelection.

There was no way that he was going to have a negro, not even a Jesse Owens to the White House.

- Avery Brundage banned Jesse Owens from any further competition because Jesse Owens didn't travel with the American team to other parts of Europe to make money for the A A U.

- The tragedy of it is that he was no longer able to compete as an amateur.

He never did make too much out of the fact that he won all these medals.

Well, nobody would offer him something that they should have.

- Stripped of his amateur status, Jesse Owens turns to running staged matches against race horses.

- That's the real tragedy.

And they came back to a country that they represented successfully and the country turned its back on them and closed its eyes and wanted them to drift off and and go away.

- The Germans knew who they were, but when it came back to the United States, it tells you a lot about American attitudes towards African Americans that really, if you won a bronze medal in the hurdles that didn't carry the same weight as the propaganda use of Jesse versus Hitler - At that time can just imagine coming back and then still not being recognized like athletes are now.

Now you can get on a Wheaties box, of course you know that wasn't possible, but John Brooks was more bitter about job opportunities and being in the United States and not being equal.

- Mac Robinson came back with a silver medal and a sad thing is he got a job sweeping the streets at night and it was cold and he would wear his Olympic jacket to keep himself warm.

- But you go in any black community, you're gonna find a hero.

It was something that was being heard about, read about, you know, you go into the black speakeasys, whatever have you, and that's what's on there.

That was on their lips.

It's great to be a star in a neighborhood.

My mother was and them stars, made stars and to make sure that it kept going.

- I think that if you had had that boycott, you would definitely not have had a Jackie Robinson 10 years later without Olympians in that era.

I just think that something like the mass integration of sports that occurs in the forties and fifties probably takes another decade or two longer.

- When you say it, was it a precursor to the Civil rights movement?

They go hand in hand.

That was a civil rights movement without it really being spoken or said.

What makes this also so important is that the mythology after the 36 games, as we go into the forties and fifties and sixties, people are looking for moments where African Americans have done something transformative is it says to people clearly in the United States, well you know what?

Maybe African Americans can play a bigger role in not only shaping who we are, but helping us achieve our ends.

- From that struggle for legitimacy, which became the foundation of the struggle for access, which became integrated into nonviolent direct action and so forth, priming the pump for Dr. King, - We overcame a lot of bridges to get to where we were in 1968 and those bridges in 1936 caused us to move like we did later on in life.

One bridge to the next, from 36 to 68.

- It all goes back to 1936, you know, all the years where they fought a different fight than we fight.

They fought too.

They fought to to win and to compete and to train, but they fought just to survive.

Just to be welcome.

- They were preparing to open the Holocaust Museum.

I felt strongly compelled.

I wanted to go there and they have a film that we could actually view and as they began to show the story, of course they showed the procession of the Olympic and to our amazement, we saw our mother.

It was pretty moving.

It was pretty moving.

When you think about your parent, all of them crossing barriers.

Here's someone else's history of their tragedy and their triumph and our mother was a part of that.

It's pretty extraordinary.

Sorry.

- Those 18 African American members of the US Olympic team had represented this nation.

They all are the ones who pave the way for those of us who are here today and we need to respect what they did.

We need to understand their experiences to not be treated equally must have been a horrible feeling and yet they persevered.

- None of us on the track team expected to continue in track.

When I came home, I spent a year at UCLA for a master's and then went on to Caltech and spent three years to get my doctorate.

- I got in the program in mechanical engineering and that's when I heard about Tuskegee Institute.

So I wrote down there and, and then they found out I knew how to fly.

I started off instructing in the civilian program and then I ended up instructing in the Army Primary Program - Theyre athletes who, who did something really important at a seminal point in human history.

Not African American history, not American history in human history.

It did something incredibly important.

- They not only showed them that they were human beings, but they showed them in an exceptional way that they were the best of the best.

No one believed we'd get this far Some say they dont know why we tried I guess its a matter of the mind I spent a lifetime of emotions Shed an ocean full of tears But still there is a moment of fear I will run right through it I'll run to prove it ain't no mountain High enough to ever stop me I will run right through it Find my victory Find my way The world doesn't know I have a name Theyre gonna see I made a way why would they say it can't be done When they dont know what Im made of I spent a lifetime of emotions Shed an ocean full of tears But still there is a moment of fear I will run right through it I'll run to prove it ain't no mountain High enough to ever stop me I will run right through it Find my victory Find my way Yes Ill Find my victory Find my victory Find my victory To learn more about the film youve just watched and more incredible stories from Coffee Bluff Pictures visit CoffeeBluffPictures.com