The Stand: How One Gesture Shook the World

(lively music) (dramatic music) Good morning to you, the Olympic Games are one week old today and yesterday, the sixth day, was the most dramatic so far.

(man) Don't you understand, he doesn't have anything to say.

(Tommie) You know, I feel a responsibility to stand up for humanity.

You had to be Black in this country to feel the hurt that we had to go through.

My name is John Carlos.

My name ain't "Boy."

(Tommie) I can be some type of positive substance to change.

I don't know how to say it.

I just felt it.

You know, I think we all felt at the time, back in 1968, that uh, in times of crisis you have to decide -to do something.

-"We the people in order to form that more perfect union" and it doesn't say "We the people with the exception -of athletes."

-We said, let's get a front row seat because something was going to happen.

(Harry) I think that it was a seminal moment in sports history.

(Richard) I was moved more than I think I'd ever been by anything athletic in my lifetime.

(Paul) None of us I think appreciated how lasting that act would be as a symbol.

(Patty) You know, oh sure, the National Anthem says, you know, "Freedom and justice for all" but it doesn't mean everything's hunky dory at home.

(man) The Olympic rings is to tie the world together -not tear it apart.

-What better place to have to whole world come together and talk about these issues.

What better place to take a stand.

(dramatic piano music) Oo, oo, freedom Oo, oo, freedom Oo, oo, freedom Over me And before I'll be a slave I'll be buried in my grave And go home to my Lord And be free Oo, oo, freedom Oo, oo, freedom Oo, oo, freedom Oo, oo, freedom Over me Over me And before I'll be a slave I'll be buried in my own grave And go home to my Lord And be free What I felt growing up, I think at that point you didn't see a way out of it.

So you sort of said, that's the way it is.

I felt that ever since I was a little kid I just didn't know how to explain it.

The feeling was there because when I saw what my father and my mother had to tolerate as we were growing up in the backwoods of Texas.

Things I remember, I could not go to the movies.

I couldn't sit on the ground floor.

I'd have to go to the balcony.

I could not use restrooms and department stores.

I remember trying to get some glasses fixed for my mother and in order to go to the optometrist I'd have to go to the back.

As we came to California on a labor bus in 1951 to Oklahoma where we stayed on labor camps until I was about seven or eight years old.

We worked in the fields, which I did until I went to San Jose State University.

I knew that I had a, uh, force to contend with as I moved through.

I didn't know what it was -but I just felt it.

-I grew up in the south.

See, my mom and dad from the old school, man.

You know, back in the old days they didn't rock the boat and my dad didn't rock the boat cause they were hanging people in Dalton.

We lived on the east side of the railroad tracks and everything on the east side of that track was African American.

The tracks were the line of demarcation and then the affluence set Whites lived on the other side.

Right across the street there's a White community.

One block and the other block was the Black community.

And the White kids wanted to play with us all the time.

Always wanted to slip and play with us.

Their parents wouldn't let them play with us.

I was asking my mother, "Why their parents won't let them play with us?"

And Mom said, "Well, that's the way things are."

That's all she could say cause she didn't know how to explain that to me back then.

In the south, the parents are very sure to educate their children about the social mores, particularly Black boys, so that they don't suffer the violence and the brutal ramifications of crossing the line.

In Laurel there was a guy named Sam Bowers.

B-O-W-E-R-S, he was the imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi.

He was the top guy.

I'm just not totally sure of how I...

I was able to handle it but I'm glad I survived.

I think the kids knew different but it was the parents that teach them to hate, you know, to not like Black people.

Say bad things about us, of the color of our skin and when the kids got it they grew up with it.

Somewhat embedded in them, Mom couldn't explain that to me.

"Things gonna be different" she said.

That's all she could say.

(Francoise) You're having young people with the promise of Brown V Board of Education in 1954 thinking that they will be coming of age in a moment of change and having this disappointment that their country, grounded on these principles of democracy and equality, are purposely and legally maintaining segregation.

It'd gotten so ridiculous down there, not just there in Commerce but throughout Texas.

I had a situation where I was in Austin, Texas and I was with a reporter and the photographer.

Two White guys for the school.

And we went into a bar to buy a beer, it was a hot day and I had to go to the restroom and I told the bartender, I said "Barkeep, get these guys what they want and I'll have a beer."

I go into the bathroom do what I gotta go, I come out.

They're drinking.

There's no beer for me.

(Francoise) This isn't actually happening, violence is increasing, the impatience is kicking in.

These people are now becoming parents themselves and wondering what is it going to take to change.

So I said, "Barkeep, where's my beer?"

He just ignored me, went on.

So then I said, "Hey, barkeep, I asked for a beer."

He said, "We don't serve in here."

(Francoise) Life was very demarked.

This is a systemic, purposeful system of oppression to keeping people separate in order to maintain social, economic, political dominance.

And then, it dawned on me that I was running all over the country with East Texas, Texas on my shirt, on my jersey.

So I'm not just representing East Texas State University.

I'm representing the state of Texas.

And here I am in the state capital and I go to a bar and merely because of the color of my skin I had to be disrespected and I can't be served.

(Francoise) And so with that comes all of the attendant problems in terms of separation.

The differences between the North and the South, racism is prevalent in both spaces but what you find in the south is that it's almost a line.

These young people coming of age in the '50s and '60s are coming of age when the world is changing.

In '67 when I was in Winnipeg at the Pan Am Games and I was walking down the street with Ralph Boston.

(Ralph) I do remember saying to her, "If we were in Tennessee right now we'd be in serious hooey 'cause you know, they don't particularly want you to do this."

"Wow, if we were back in Nashville right now we would be in so much trouble walking.

We would have to cross the street.

We would not be allowed to walk with you."

And I remember just going, "What?"

It sounded unbelievable.

Even though we were in to our Civil Rights movement and sit-ins and all of that we were--if this is the right phrase, progress was coming but it wasn't here yet.

When you think about it, it was three years after the Civil Rights Act and they said there were still many, many places in the south that said "Whites Only", drinking fountains and entrances to restaurants and things like that.

That was the beginning for me of some kind of understanding of what my teammates went through on a daily basis, -being African Americans.

-By 1968, it began to dig more deeply into more subtle hidden forms of discrimination.

So soldiers coming back from Vietnam were still encountering deeply segregated housing.

Either in law or certainly in form.

You had athletes like Mel Pender coming back from Vietnam and all they know is they've been fighting for American.

They've been fighting for freedom.

They've been fighting for equality.

I didn't sit behind an office desk in Vietnam.

I was in the jungles, man.

Mekong Delta.

I come home, Mom wasn't feeling well she said "I need to go to the doctor in Shamaley."

And I said, "Okay" so I put her in my car and we drove up there.

We drove in the back of this building.

(Francoise) And young men, young boys, teenagers going off to the war thinking that they're doing something noble.

Not only are they coming back changed but they're coming back with an impatience and a dislike and a necessity and a wiliness -to do something about it.

-I said, "Mom, what are we doing back here?"

She said, "This is where we have to sit."

I said, "We who?"

She said, "This is where I have to sit."

I said, "No, you don't have to sit back here."

So she went and got the doctor and he came out and threatened me and I said, "I just got back from Vietnam and I've seen some horrible things.

If you call me a boy again and say anything nasty to me in front of my mother I will hurt you."

I lost it.

I really lost it.

I start crying.

Momma was crying.

I got in the car.

(orchestral music) The mood had begun to shift away from this sort of ghandi-esque approach which King was taking to a more confrontational approach.

Because things were going to slow, that their attempts at non-violence were being met with violence.

King's death brought to the surface a difference face to the movement.

It's often hard to believe when you look back at anything in the past that it was really ever that way.

It is really incredible, Negros were not permitted to play Major League Baseball in the United States.

Not many of us White people were up in arms about it either.

And you wonder about which of our institutions today will seem as incredible 20 years from now.

It helps you understand the Black rage.

Not only against the White man but against some of the things today which are as unfair and un, what is called, American as all White baseball was in 1947.

(dramatic music) The inspirational mentor for John Carlos and Tommie Smith was Harry Edwards.

Harry Edwards came back to San Jose State where he had been an undergrad.

He can look around his own campus and see that the Black athletes were sort of in one corner and the rest of the campus was in another.

He started to recognize that there was power here to be had with athletics and the Olympic movement.

People in this country are beginning to recognize that Black people are human beings also and that they are determined to be treated as such.

One of the things that I'm attempting to do at this point is to bring this point across by whatever means is necessary.

I think one of those means that are necessary right now is Olympic Boycott Movement and the whole revolt of the Black athletes in this country.

That was his brain child.

The Olympic Project of Human Rights.

It started with him.

This was the post-Jackie Robinson era when everything was supposed to be okay in the locker room because the color line had been shattered.

Well, we knew that that was not the case.

So we raised the issue of why should we play where we can't work?

I totally agree with everything he say because it does exist.

He brings it out so fluently that White America just can't understand it.

He recruited people that he knew that was interested in equal rights.

(John) Phone rang, it was Professor Edwards.

He said, "There's some people who are having a very important meeting and they asked me to invite you.

You think you could get away?"

And I remember going down to the Americano Hotel right across from the old garden.

Like twenty minutes later, he opened up a back bedroom door and he walked out there man, and I was fit to be tied.

And I asked him, I said "Dr. King, why would you get involved in an Olympic Project for Human Rights?"

Let me say that I absolutely support this boycott because this is a protest and a struggle against racism and injustice.

This is what we are working to eliminate in our organization and in our total struggle..." (John) And he said to me, "The greatest thing about it is that you will wake the world up in a very non-violent way."

Why should we participate for a country at one hundred percent effort and to come back to our homes and are denied some of the rights -that should be given to us.

-We knew that where the sports establishment was concerned they were going to do everything they could to prevent us from having any input whatsoever into the Olympic movement.

Harry Edwards knew that the urgency of getting the message out, the urgency of equality, the urgency and the need for there to be voices lifted up to the cause, those were going to have to come from the athletes.

We worked very hard after the inception of the Olympic Project for Human Rights.

If certain issues were not heard and I think this was the first time in the history of athletics that a group of athletes stood together and made a stand.

One the one side, you have Avery Brundage, President of the International Olympic Committee, which is made up of 71 aristocratic, wealthy, moneyed members of the establishment from around the world pitted against Harry Edwards, an activist.

A Black man, the six-eight athletic, charismatic leader taking on an issue that to Brundage conflates sport and politics.

Which for him is the ultimate sin.

Avery Brundage really stood for and staunchly defended this notion that sport and politics can be held separate.

This can be traced to his stance around the 1936 games.

Which were integral to the Unites States eventually taking part in the Nazi games in Berlin.

(Richard) He came back from a study of what was going on in Nazi Germany to report there wasn't much happening in terms of Jews in Nazi Germany and held immediately the American Olympic Committee at the New York Athletic Club to have a final vote as to whether or not America could go or not.

Knowing that the Jewish members of the Olympic Committee couldn't enter the New York Athletic Club because Jews were banned from the club.

So was the unanimous vote to go.

That's Avery Brundage's history.

He represented that elitist, racist, White philosophy throughout his career and it carried into -the 1968 Olympics.

-When I first heard there was a potential boycott one of the demands was to boycott the New York Athletic Club Meet which was a historic meet that was on for many, many, many years.

We are calling on all Black people to come to Madison Square Garden tomorrow evening, Friday, February 16th, 1968 at 5:30 PM to protest the use of this facility by the New York AC which has clearly shown that is has no regard for Black Americans except to exploit their talents.

The one policy that they had, they wouldn't allow Blacks or Jews in the club.

It was a private club it was just for basically White guys.

The New York AC had rules that said at that time as a club, if you were a women, if you were Black, if you were Hispanic you couldn't actually enter the New York AC.

A lot of athletes boycotted that meet and it was becoming an awareness among the Black athletes that something was wrong.

When Harry formulated the Olympic boycott for Mexico City he took it to another level going at great person risk to himself at that point.

When you begin to deal with the Olympic Games and talking about coordinating a boycott of the 1968 Olympics you begin to attract some major attention.

There were many threats of my life before I started towards the victor stand.

I didn't want to be sacrificed.

I had that feeling more than once.

Resistance against entrenched dominant systems always appears to be irrational and unreasonable.

Precisely because dominance appears as common sense but from the perspective of Black athletes like Tommie Smith and John Carlos, at that point in time, they are there not only as sportsmen but they're also representing their people who are deeply engaged in a struggle -for basic human rights.

-There were a lot of meetings going on with Harry Edwards and the Black athletes on trying to unite these guys.

This wasn't--If I may use this term, a democratic process among the athletes.

You see, this wasn't a one-man show.

We had meetings.

A plethora of meetings.

We wanted them to know what it was about so they could make a decision before they got there.

I don't really know what's gonna happen if all the Black athletes do boycott then I probably will be affiliated with them.

Tom, when will it come to determination whether you, Lee Evens and others will or will not boycott the Olympics?

(Tommie) I wish I could tell you.

This is a question that I don't think I could give you and I don't think anyone else could give you.

It will be determined by the actions -of the community around us.

-We will let you know about the future of your Olympic team when we deem it proper and when we feel that you can handle that kind of information.

Right now we just don't think that you're ready.

To make the Olympic team is something you really, really desire to do.

You train for years and you have a small window of opportunity to make the team and it's very difficult to tell a guy "Boycott this, give up your chance -to make the Olympic team."

-So we needed to talk about why they proposed a boycott and we did.

A lot of athletes understood but still didn't want to sacrifice.

It's a great sacrifice to give up something you've worked so hard for just for a maybe.

I hope, there's a hope all along -that there will be no boycott.

-Press has said boycotting is one thing but is that what we mean when we say boycott, do we mean we're not going.

The informed guess is the athletes both Black and Negro will run to win at the Olympics in Mexico City in October.

As a gesture and it could be a dramatic one, they would then refuse to take the winners stand as representatives as the United States.

(orchestral music) Well, in 1968, as you recall it's one of those years when you really thought the world, was if not exploding, it was certainly changing.

We were here in Cambridge training.

We had a regular rowing season and we're trying for the trials.

At this time, the Olympic Project for Human Rights the word of this was spreading around and one of the teams it really started to grab hold of, this is an identity, this is a movement they wanted to be apart of, was the all-White Harvard crew team.

One of the sort of great points of discussing within the crew was, you know, how can we just be rowing when all this stuff's going on.

We tracked some of the protests that the Olympic Project for Human Rights engaged in.

So we were aware that there was a lot going on with respect to the issues of racial discrimination -and racial justice.

-So at the Olympic trials in California, here they had qualified for the Olympic team and the first thing they wanted to do was go see Harry Edwards.

We got talking to ourselves and said, you know, we really ought to learn more about what this is all about.

And Cleve and I called and made an appointment to go see Harry Edwards.

So we put on our summer suits and neckties and drove to San Jose and walked in and there's Harry Edwards and he was there in a black beret and black sunglasses and dashiki and a jumble of beads.

(Cleve) Harry's a very impressive man.

He really has a commanding presence.

So when Paul and I went into the room I can remember thinking that I was really looking forward to finding out what his thoughts were about how to basically use the Olympic Project for Human Rights to the greatest advantage in terms of addressing some of the issues that were really tearing -this country apart.

-This was a group of very, very sincere young White men who got it, -who understood.

-Harry was very open to helping us find a way to be involved in the movement.

We asked him if he could come back and talk with the crew.

And we said, you know, we couldn't commit to the team doing anything cause we didn't have a consensus and weren't sure we wanted to argue for a consensus and he said, "Well, I'm coming east next week and I'll come to Cambridge if anybody will make a public statement, I'm not going to come there -just to sit and chat."

-If he was going to help us to understand what was going on with the Black athletes he wanted to know that we were very interested in finding a way to provide them with support.

I was delighted to get the outreach.

I didn't hesitate to go back.

The only thing that I had committed myself to in going back was that I was going to be totally honest with where I was coming from, where I think the movement was going and what it was that they were buying into.

(Paul) Harry Parker, who was our coach, knew nothing about this.

The night before Harry Edwards was coming here we had spent all day discussing what we would do.

At about 8: 30, 9 o'clock at night we decided that we had a consensus.

We had to tell Harry.

We called up Harry who lived in a nearby suburb in Winchester and said we need to come and see you.

He said, "We have practice tomorrow morning, can't it wait?"

And we said, "Really, I don't think so, Harry."

And this was really, in many respects, Harry's finest hour, in my view.

We walked in and said, "We want to let you know that we've invited Professor Edwards from San Jose State to come in and to talk to the squad and some number of us are going to, later in the day, hold a press conference with him, announcing our support for they Olympic Project for Human Rights."

He didn't discourage us from having Harry Edwards visit but he reminded us that a responsible approach is one that really takes into consideration the interest of the other members of the boat.

And he said, "Well, I hope you guys know me well enough to know that I have no problems with the causes and the ideals that you're talking about.

Those are mine also."

And he said, "Well, I look forward to meeting Professor Edwards tomorrow morning."

Then we set about making the calls to The Boston Globe, The Herald, the other media and set up the press conference.

(Paul) We had a press conference in Kirkland House.

It got a tremendous amount of coverage.

(Cleve) Our captain, Kirk Cannon spoke on behalf of the six of us.

It was basically just a general message of support for what the Olympic Project for Human Rights was all about.

They could've gone along with 99 percent of the rest of White America who affectively felt what Avery Brundage's said, "Why are these Negros talking about a boycott of the Olympic Games?

The Olympics are the only forum where Negros and communists can stand on the same level as other human beings."

That was a very pervasive line of thinking -during that period of time.

-We decided we would do an individual letter to each member of the Olympic team as he or she was selected in whatever sport and say that we hoped that they would all start to talk to each other and to our Black teammates and to other teammates from other sports and see if we couldn't come to a better understanding about not only what our Black teammates were talking about but about what their experiences were and how they might be different from our own experiences.

At the time, I remember thinking this is a very modest sort of involvement and I think I was a little nave in terms of the impact that it would have, so it was well covered by the press -the next day.

-The Harvard University crew team is special and it's not an issue of giving them, quote "too much credit" it's an issue of recognizing the fundamental role that they played in this movement.

They were a group of young, White scholar athletes, student athletes who looked at a situation in this country and said, "We need to be part of that.

We need to join in that struggle."

(suspenseful music) (gun shots) (news caster) The troops have moved in.

It started off as a peaceful demonstration.

The army was circling this plaza called the Plaza of the Three Cultures.

They were holding a peaceful rally but now the troops have come and you can hear what it sounds like.

(gun shots) There were major disturbances with students and officials in Mexico City.

Many were killed because of it.

Some buried, some dumped in the ocean.

So the place would be clean of any social disturbances once we got there.

But sometimes it's kind of hard to clean blood off of cement so you still saw the stains once we got there.

So we knew that we were moving into a very dangerous situation.

(speaking Spanish) (applauding) (reporter) The Mexican president officially declares open the games of 1968... (solemn music) The last meeting we had before the Olympic Games the boycott was voted down and I was very happy it was a democratic process because I did not want to boycott.

(news reporter) I wonder if I could ask you, first of all, is the boycott itself dead now?

Is that finished?

(Tommie) I would say the boycott is off.

(news reporter) Now what about other things that might happen in Mexico City?

(Ralph) After we got to Mexico City uh, Black athletes, Black male athletes began having gatherings, talks of meetings.

We knew that at the end of the day it would come down to the athletes and that what Brundage started as the Head of the International Olympic Committee in 1968 -was irrelevant.

-The meetings in Mexico City were the meetings where the decision was made to do basically your own thing.

(Harry) Avery Brundage admonished them, "I hope that these athletes will not be stupid enough -to demonstrate."

-It was left up to everyone to their own choice to decide what kind of demonstration you were going to do, if you were going to demonstrate at all.

We did what the old American way at that time thought should be done, recognize America the way that you feel they recognize you.

Just by the grace of God, what happened to us in Mexico City was a spiritual thing.

God stepped in, everything felt right.

(Tommie) People begin to tell me, "That's not the right time to do it.

Athletics has nothing to do with politics or vise versa, politics has nothing to do with athletics.

It should be kept separate."

Which is absurd.

My own daily, you know, meanderings around the village and looking at events and so on ended up often in the stadium for track because Pete Axthelm, who had written these articles early in the summer was an old Yale Daily editor and he and I hit it off and I would go to the track meet with him.

That's where I was the day of the 200.

I walked in the stadium and he was sitting with two women who turned out to be John Carlos' wife and Tommie Smith's wife.

So he introduced me and we all sat there and watched their race which was pretty spectacular.

Well, I was there for all the events and when the 200 came, you know, you're with some friends and you're trying to pick winners and I kind of thought that Carlos would win it.

John was always this loud guy and a great guy.

Always full of fun and he could just run like heck.

He was a heck of a runner.

Being from a background like mine I always thought that helping man was what we were supposed to do.

So I felt responsibility to stand up for humanity.

(intense dramatic music) (Edwin) The semi-finals and the finals was the same day so you had to prepare yourself mentally and physically and emotionally for these races.

First race, I use it as just a warm up.

(announcer) World record holder, Tommie Smith of America, six-feet-three and forty stone.

(Tommie) I didn't want to be second in the race because anything could happen if you're second because somebody's already in front of you.

Somebody's already defeated you.

As I came around the curve I was going about 18 miles an hour and this left knee moved about two inches and that's what yanked that groin muscle out of track.

It felt like somebody had shot me.

As I was falling to the ground another athlete grabbed and held me up.

I went over to make sure he was all right.

You know, being a very close colleague of mine.

(Tommie) As I looked down there was no blood and I remember thinking, "Oh, it's just a muscle."

(Edwin) So I went over to him and took off his shoes -and helped him off the track.

-I might as well as been shot.

You know, because now my whole Olympic dream is over.

Olympic Project of Human Rights is out the door.

People will never think of me again.

I just went rampant.

(announcer) Going very close to world record, a disaster for Tommie Smith.

That could be the difference between the gold metal and nothing at all.

Everything is in doubt.

Everything is turned upside down by the fact he's limping to the finish line.

Yes, he finishes first, but just in a few hours away he's gotta run the final, and he knows that if he doesn't win this final, there is no moment.

Then, I was taken downstairs and ice was applied by my coach, Lloyd C. Bud Winter, called him Bud.

Came down and he said, "Tom Tom, how you--?"

He called me Tom Tom-- "Tom Tom, how you doing?"

And I said, "I'm doing fine, Coach."

Uh, stupid, and I'm just laying in with a pack of ice in between my legs, and I'm feeling fine then.

"Well, no, Tommie, you're hurt, boy, you're hurt."

This what I'm thinking.

I had 45 minutes, they took me upstairs out to the practice track.

I look back, look down at the stadium, 'cause we were up, stadium was down, and I thought, "It might be my last time."

Now I'm smoking, I'm really thinking, I'm really smoking out the ears.

And he and his coach, Bud Winter, go to the track next door, the warm-up track outside of the stadium.

Said, "Okay, Tom Tom, I'm going down here 40 meters, and I just want you work it up about, uh, 10 miles an hour."

"Okay, Coach."

(inspiring music) Got up and felt pretty good.

He said, "Okay, I'm going 80 meters now, do the same thing.

Give about 80 percent speed."

I walked back, 80 percent speed, and leg--now I'm conscious of this left knee.

Turn that sucker in about half a degree so the leg won't fly out.

You had this amazing moment where Bud is trying to instill confidence in him, and then you have the final.

Everybody's watching, everybody's looking to see, "Is Tommie Smith okay?"

(dramatic music) I could hear the track, just completely silent because I'm sure everybody was watching along with the rest of the world, because you know, "Tommie Smith is doing it because he might be a tentative starter in the 200 meters."

Everything went fine.

The commentators are wondering, "What is wrong with Tommie?

Is he gonna be able to-- to finish this race?

Is gonna be able to win this race?"

(Tommie) So, we walked down, walked across the track.

By the time I got all the way across the track over to where the 200 meter starts, athletes were already there getting ready to do their pre-starts.

I knew I couldn't do a prestart.

I had a strained groin area muscle.

You play with those muscles, they're gonna give out on ya.

So, I had to stand there.

I'm standing there watching John Carlos.

I'm watching Peter Norman.

I'm watching all these great athletes starting.

I saw some of the fastest guys in the world starting.

I said, "Oh, Lord, have mercy, what am I gonna do?"

And Tommie's just sort of contained, just sort of really thinking about the race, trying the best he can to sort of come with the confidence that he's gonna need when he gets in those blocks.

(Tommie) A guy said, "Uniforms off," and I knew it was time to start, and I'm standing there, cold really, because I couldn't take any start, I'm afraid to take starts.

The pulled muscle was certainly a deterrent of my getting to the victory stand, because you don't run with a strained muscle in a world-class competition and become victorious very often.

I was not afraid really.

I was mystified.

John looked like a massive competitor who no one would touch that day.

And then, here's little bitty me with a pulled muscle.

How am I gonna deal with this?

I had to look at it as running my race.

Psychologically, that freed me up.

Once the guy says, "On your marks," you only have about four seconds before the gun sound.

(atmospheric music) (gunshot firing) And when the gun sound, everything just stopped, and I--my mind went back to training at San Jos State.

(dramatic music) (announcer) There's Questad, it's a good start.

And Carlos, as usual, has burst out of the block.

I couldn't think until my third stride, then I begin to think, "Now how about six more strides with this left leg in this turn here?

If I'm in fifth place, I'm in trouble."

(announcer) And in lane 2 (indistinct) is strong.

On the outside it's Edwin Roberts.

Being six feet four at the time, about 178 pounds, I'm a skinny little guy, gosh.

Then, I would get that rush, and that's exactly what happened.

Once I got that rush and came up to almost a perfect running position.

And I remember Bud Winter, my coach, said, "Perfect positions, we always ran this in practice."

Perfect position, which is knees, which is ankle flip, which is head, which is elbows, which is everything perfect, and I felt that.

I was in third place.

On the straight away.

Third place with, what, maybe 110 meters to go.

(announcer) It's John Carlos right now, it's Carlos and Smith, and here comes Tommie Smith!

(Tommie) And that's when all of the practices came into being.

Not a thought, but a muscle memory.

But, it doesn't last long.

So, I held it long as I could, then I shut it off, I shut it down completely.

(Tom) He just sort of elevated his legs, lifted his legs, and ran away from everybody at the end.

(cheering) (announcer) Smith has done it, with his hands in the air!

(Tommie) By the time I hit the tape, I was finishing with a straight leg, meaning that your power had been cut off, and I cut that power off two strides before the end.

It was done.

(Tom) John turned and looked and saw that Peter Norman was coming.

I think he was surprised that Norman beat him for a second.

(Tommie) I remember saying, "It's finished."

The cotton fields, beating my sister Sally, working irrigate that night with my dad, going to San Jos State, beating home for the first time.

All of that was thought of like that.

Just-- And that was it.

And I hit the tape--look at my face when I hit the tape.

"Uh, now what?

Okay, I'm--I'm done."

Next page.

(intense music) We all hung over the side of the rail to congratulate him.

(Larry) They take the first three guys and hustled and went off the--to do the drug test thing.

So, the fourth or fifth guys, or sixth guys, were just hustled off the field, and you're done.

I went up and I found where my parents were sitting, and, uh, I went and sat by them.

(Tommie) I called it a dungeon, that's what I called it, I kinda named it the dungeon.

I guess it was the preparation room for medal winners before the stand, and, uh, yeah, John and I did talk.

We roughly had 25 minutes before we went out there to figure out exactly what we was gonna do and how we was gonna do it.

Demonstrations were not on our minds.

Whatever Smith and Carlos were thinking, planning, doing was unknown--unknown to us.

So, I wanted to make sure that something was done to close out that chapter of my life, the Olympic Project for Human Rights.

Yeah, that--that was a-- we couldn't do any more then.

When we decided that jointly we wanted to do something to make a statement.

You know, boycott is over, but we felt very strong, we had a strong conviction that something needed to be said.

I wanted to make sure that whatever I did, uh, was respectful enough, and not militant at all, to finish what we started nonviolently.

We came to the conclusion that by making a statement, we had to bring symbols to solidify the statement.

Tommie had a black scarf for all the sacrifice of Black people in the land.

I had beads, I wore the beads just for the simple reason that there was so many Black people that was lynched throughout the South for years upon years.

We wore the black socks with no shoes to illustrate poverty.

(Tommie) Those my Sunday socks.

I wore those socks to church two Sundays before then, I mean, I didn't have a whole lot of socks or suits.

Next preparations was the gloves that I had.

My wife brought the gloves when she came.

She said, "Gloves, for what?"

I said, "Will you just bring me some gloves?"

She said, "Sure."

They came back later on for their award ceremony, and at that point you could see that something was going on, but what I do recall, and, uh, remember pretty clearly is that, uh, this Australian, who quite frankly, but for his name being on the scoreboard, I had never seen or heard before.

He looks up at me and I-- and points at my Olympic Project button and says, "Hey, mate, you got another one of those?"

And I said, "I do.

Are you gonna wear it?"

Peter Norman I think quite innocently, with the best of intentions, said, "Yes."

I thought any White Australian who wants to wear and Olympic Project for Human Rights button, uh, on the stands with-- with our two guys, I'm not gonna be the guy who says, "You can't have one," and I took it off and handed it to him.

And I asked Pete, I said, "Man, do you believe in human rights?"

And that's when Peter began to tell me about his mom and his dad with Salvation Army work through all of his life.

"Of course I believe in human rights."

(Paul) And sure enough he put it on his tracksuit and--and they marched out for their demonstration, and at that point I had no clue what they were gonna do.

I'm not sure anybody in the stands had a clue.

I don't even think, truthfully, their wives knew exactly what they were gonna do.

I was, uh, directly above them, looking straight down about 20 rows to the awards stand.

Everybody was wondering what was gonna happen, so we went and got front row seats.

We couldn't wait to get there.

I didn't know what I was gonna do, but it had to be something, I didn't know what.

I didn't know.

But, it had to be visual, and to me, respectful.

(uplifting music) Each step, I felt the same way each step.

Notice we approach the victory stand from the rear.

It was a step up on the victory stand.

We stepped up and there was the crowd, and both my hands went up.

And, uh, that was a whole different view to me.

I had never done that, that was new.

Tommie Smith, gold medal, there's only one of 'em, and it was mine.

(indistinct announcements) I was a church-going kid, so I prayed a lot, and my daddy always told me, "When you pray, boy, bow your head."

(cheering) So, my head was bowed, my arm was stuck.

I guess I was in the limelight of watching my mother get happy in church and throw her arms up, I don't know, but I felt something was needed to emphasize solidarity and strength.

Not Black Power sign, not that at all.

Solidarity and strength.

That's what that was about, it wasn't about destruction and turning America down, or blowing up the Statue of Liberty.

We was just letting them know that we're a powerful force, not just merely on the track, but in society, and you're gonna have to accept us as being a part of society.

(Tommie) First time I counted the seconds of the National Anthem, how long it was.

A minute and 30 seconds exactly.

But, that night it sound-- it seemed much longer.

("Star Spangled Banner" playing) (John) I thought of my father, a Black man after they served in the war, to come home and how they were treated.

I thought about my days there at East Texas State.

I thought about my era in New York in Harlem in terms of how they dropped the drugs on Harlem to solidify what I was doing in my mind to make me sound and know that what I was doing -was the right thing.

-My feeling was, one, of elation and tremendous pride.

I was concerned about the--their safety.

(Paul) My thoughts were not a whole lot different than a lot of other people's thoughts, which was, "This is really something different.

This hasn't happened before.

Gee, this is-- this is extraordinary."

My first gut feel was that I wasn't so sure that the Olympics was the right place to have a demonstration like this.

These guys were serious in what they were doing.

They wanted to bring to the world what injustices there were, and, um, they pulled it off, they really did.

I was absolutely devastated that the political arena had reached into the grounds of the Olympic Games.

It immediately struck me as, um, one of the most powerful pieces of performance art, uh, that I think has ever been created.

(Mel) I was so proud of them.

They let America know, let the world know, "Hey, we're tired as hell, we're not taking this no more."

It was the place to do it.

Everything was pride on the victory stand.

Everything was pride.

And when it all culminated, when everything was said and done, my last thing that went through me was, "They can never, ever put shackles on John Carlos again.

I'm a free man."

(triumphant music) (dramatic music) Good morning to you, the Olympic Games are one week old today, and yesterday, the sixth day, was the most dramatic so far.

After we were released from the ceremonial issues, and walked down off the victory stand, and took a right back across the track, I took a quick look up in the stands and I heard boos, cat calls, and I saw some very unhappy faces, and one last time I hoist my fist to the sky, and then we disappeared.

After the ceremony, you know, he came back to our room, in our dormitory, and he was quiet, and I didn't say much to him.

I just said, "John, you okay?"

He says, "No, I'm not okay."

I said, "But, let me tell you something, John."

That's what I said to him, I said, "You'll always be my brother, and I'll always love you for what you just did."

(Ralph) I remember walking through the Village, and I met Lee Evans, who said, "Did you see what John and Tommie did?"

And I said, "No, what did they do?"

And he said they had gloves and so on, and he described the situation.

At a point, uh, it seemed like it was just something that people were gonna say, "Okay."

Like my mother's-- one of her favorite sayings was, "Pouring water on a duck's back, it just rolls off, and we were gonna go on."

Avery Brundage was not gonna let this happen at the Olympic Games, and he was going to -make his own statement.

-I had said that if there were any demonstrations at the Olympic Games by anyone, the participants would be sent home.

Then, all of a sudden, it catches fire, and Brundage gets into it, and the next thing I know John and Tommie are being ushered out of the Village.

(announcer) The Black Power disciples, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the Olympic 200-meters gold and bronze medalists, have been suspended by the United States Olympic Committee, and given 48 hours to leave Mexico.

I think the swirl that followed immediately after within the Village, and the-- the whole set of confusion as to--with the-- with US Olympic Committee trying to figure out what to do, and--and then the International Olympic Committee saying, "Here's what you're gonna do, you're gonna send 'em home."

Then, it was the threat that Brundage was gonna send the American team out, get rid of the American team, unless these guys were gone.

They imparted to me that probably our entire United States Olympic Committee would be taken from the Games.

If this thing is gotten out of-- gets out of hand here, and--and this-- these demonstrations on other matters than Olympic matters persist and continue.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos would be sent home because of the un-American activities, and politics had nothing to do with athletics, and therefore they would be banned from any further competition, kicked off the Olympic team, and sent home.

(Michelle) By sending away Tommie Smith and John Carlos, it amplified what they were doing.

It created a much greater global attention on that protest.

In effect, his intention to separate sport and politics actually brought the two much more closely together than ever before.

Didn't bother me at all about being sent home.

Kicked off the team was a problem for me because I worked hard to represent America.

(Tom) There was a whole mob scene at the airport when these guys were leaving.

It just amazing to see the reaction that the US and the world had.

(Selena) The press is really coming down on them pretty hard, just like the crowd had earlier with the boos, and John Carlos is still defiant.

(announcer) John Carlos was even more defiant after the American Olympic Committee ordered him off the team.

Before leaving the Olympic Village here in Mexico City, Carlos made a last angry statement.

(John) I'm telling y'all for the last time, y'all better tip and leave me alone.

I'm pretty pissed off already with a lot of White people, so leave me alone, okay?

I'm asking you the last time.

The next man come up and put a camera in my face, um, speak up in my face, I'm gonna knock him down and jump on him, man.

Now believe me, I'm telling you, if you know what's good, go out and see if you can talk to one of the coaches.

Just leave me alone, all right?

Result afterwards, after their departure, was stunning.

I mean, the entire team, and certainly every Black athlete on that team was shaken to their core.

We were scared for him.

We were really afraid for those--for those guys, what was gonna happen to 'em when they got back.

(Patty) When we found out that they were being thrown out of the Village, you know, everybody was wondering what to do, and--and should we all-- should we all boycott.

If there's any country which should, uh-- which should support social consciousness on the part of its athletes, it should be the United States.

And the suspension of these athletes for-- for symbolically expressing their feelings of the existence of a problem, to me, indicates an hypocrisy on the part of-- of our Olympic organization.

I remember thinking, you know, "You're--you're-- the press is really missing the major point," that the beauty of this protest was that, uh, it really-- it didn't have to be explained.

For anyone who was aware of the--of the racial issues that were dividing this country at the time, you didn't need an explanation.

(Tommie) En route back, we landed in Los Angeles, and a lot of camera was there.

I didn't know what the camera was there for, I found out that once I got off and cameras started the lights, I knew it was because of Tommie Smith and John Carlos.

They wheeled us into the airport, they wheeled us out the back, put us on the plane, sent us to San Jos, where there was nobody to pick us up, you know, that--that-- that really bothered me to a point that our protection was zero.

But, I talked to Daddy right after I got back.

He just was still feeding his hogs, and I went out to him, he said, "Hey, boy," as he straightened up, he had the dungarees on, six feet, cold Black, 'cause he had a-- he had a Madagascar background.

He said, uh, "I heard that, uh, you did something that people didn't like what you did."

I said, "Yeah, Daddy, I was at the Olympic Games, and, uh, I stood how I was raised, and people didn't like what they saw."

He said, "What did you do?"

I said, "Oh, mama," I said, "I'm in trouble now."

I said, "I stood on the victory stand, raised my fist to the sky, and I prayed-- prayed a prayer for-- for the country."

He said, "You did that?"

I said, "Yes, sir."

He said, "Well, that ain't bad."

He went back to feeding his hogs again.

I said, "Phew."

And that was that.

(John) I think about New York here when I came through, when I broke the world record at the trials.

"John Carlos, our own New York John Carlos, great!"

30 days later, after the demonstration, same paper, "John Carlos, neighborhood bum."

My father's in the hospital dying, he's got tears in his eyes.

"Why did you do those bad things based on the headlines in the paper?"

But, you know, I said to my father, I said, "Pop, read the paper."

I said, "You don't know Rap Brown, you don't know Stokely Carmichael, you don't know Professor, well you don't know Tommie.

Do you know John Carlos?"

"Yeah, son, I know."

I said, "Well, the same thing they're saying about those individuals they're saying about me.

Nobody knows John Carlos on this planet better than you."

My father started crying, I started crying.

I was hugging my father, tears running down my eyes, tears running together, and I'm saying, "Man, if they can bamboozle my father, I could imagine what they're doing to just the grassroot people in society."

(Brian) That is what fighting for human rights means, means that the vast majority of people don't understand exactly why, and that you pay the price for your principle.

(announcer) Since 1968, Carlos's life has been a series of false starts.

Employers were reluctant to be associated with him.

His marriage fell apart.

Carlos is now working for a Los Angeles councilman after years of jobs he considered demeaning.

Among other things, he was forced to work as a park groundskeeper and a nightclub bouncer.

(interviewer) Do you think you've changed since '68?

Have you grown less militant?

Uh, what does militant mean?

(interviewer) Don't spar with me, we're not going back to '68, tell me.

"Militant" means a guy who speaks out in protest whether by physical symbol or vocally with a truculence attached to his tone of voice against the existing establishment and its procedures.

Now with that premise, have you changed?

I'm a militant.

(contemplative music) Politics should not be a part of the Olympic Games, if you feel that, that's--that's-- that's--I think that's your right.

There are politics, whether we like it or not.

(Franco) It's really important to understand that patriotism means different things to different people.

Freedom means different things to different people.

So, for athletes, who represent their country, they love the country they represent.

As soon as I saw Colin Kaepernick's action the first time he did it during the National Anthem, my first reaction was, "That's the end of his career."

These athletes today who are protesting against injustice stand on the shoulders of giants.

Their message is critical, and it's not about the flag, or the National Anthem, or disrespecting the soldiers.

What the soldiers fight for is their right to protest for our right, their right to be involved in a movement.

(Colin) You know, this country stands for freedom, liberty, justice for all, and it's not happening for all right now.

Those in power have said, "No, we won't-- we won't deal with Kaepernick."

And so, an excellent football player, because he decided to protest something he thought was wrong, um, that--that's-- he's not allowed to play.

The first thing I thought of, of course, was Tommie and John, and--and their salute.

Colin was making a statement, the same exact statement that John and Tommie made, that things are not hunky dory in our country.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought that's what we do when we go to the polls to vote, we vote for something that we are in favor of, um, that we want to see happen.

Uh, I think in my mind Colin Kaepernick was casting a vote.

I hope that makes sense.

(Harry) So, when you see the athletes taking the knee today, when you see people protesting for our right today it's because the soldiers gave us that right.

That's what that flag really stands for.

And I couldn't be prouder than to-- to, uh, wear a USA uniform and compete all around the world like--as we did.

But, the social injustice that goes on in this country is--it's--we need to take a stand, we need to do something about it, we need to have a national discussion.

There has been change.

Whether or not there has been progress is a different question.

It pains me to know that these kind of things still go on, and, um, we need to do something about the inequality -in this country.

-We still don't have freedoms in America for Blacks, but I'd die for this country today.

Put me a uniform on and send me over to war, I'll still die for this country.

This is my country, too.

Hopefully this will get people to thinking, and talking, and--and trying to figure out some way to, um-- to heal our country, and--and come together as one people.

There is no reason why we can't.

No reason.

We felt a necessity to stand because we were kept in that prone social position before, meaning slavery and meaning not having because of a color.

It wasn't received as well as I thought it should have, but the beat goes on.

(inspirational music) I figured that getting on the stand was much easier than getting off the stand, and it really was.

This demonstration for-- was for people to be treated as human beings, to be civil amongst one another, to give everybody the same opportunity that you want for your kids.

I'll be forever grateful to Tommie, and to John, and to Peter Norman as well, for inspiring me with their courage.

As someone who is interested in politics, and really interested in track and field, I was very moved by this.

These athletes were my heroes.

(Tommie) He wore the button because he believed in civil rights.

He did not wear the button, in my beliefs, to back John Carlos and Tommie Smith.

I give Peter more-- more respect than that.

Just respect me as a human being, as a man.

Don't look at me as my color.

Look at me as an American.

(electronic music)