April 12, 2008
Olympics: Tommie Smith and John Carlos warn of the price of protest
Owen Slot
Their iconic black-power salute enraged a nation but became a global symbol of the fight for equality. Now, 40 years after raising their arms aloft at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, Tommie Smith and John Carlos say that nothing has changed.
In interviews with The Times, both Smith and Carlos accused the International Olympic Committee of ducking the controversial issues in awarding the Games to Beijing.
“It doesn’t appear that we’ve learnt anything,” Carlos said. “Forty years have passed and we’re back in the same situation.”
Carlos encouraged athletes to follow his example and “go with their hearts and minds” if they wanted to make statements about human rights.
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Smith, however, gave warning that athletes who crossed IOC laws and used the Games as a political platform would be forced to make “sacrifices”.
The sacrifices Smith and Carlos made were huge. On the medal podium after the 200m final, their raised, gloved fists representing black unity and strength formed a statement of such power and eloquence that the repercussions shaped their entire lives.
After the medal ceremony, the IOC insisted that they be expelled from the Games and banned from further competitions. The white America to which they returned home vilified them; backs would turn on them when they looked for work, and their families suffered too. Smith’s mother died of a heart attack in 1970 when local farmers sent her manure and dead rats in the post. Carlos was reduced to chopping up his furniture for firewood. He says that his wife committed suicide because life as an outcast was so insufferable.
Both have retired from the careers they eventually found in education and they look with weariness upon the mess that they see in the Beijing Games. Neither will attend the Games.
“Even if I had the money, I wouldn’t go,” Carlos said. “I wouldn’t want to be a part of that. I couldn’t be a consumer at that place. Maybe the IOC needs to devise another formula to work out what nations have the right to host the Games. I’m not disenchanted with the Olympics, I’m disenchanted with the policy of the Olympics.”
Smith said: “This is probably the most political Games in the history of the Olympics. We need to know why the IOC brought the Olympics to a country with a one-party system. Don’t pretend that money had nothing to do with it. But the IOC has responsibilities. This was a decision that needed more thought.”
Their only involvement with these Games has been the torch relay that Carlos ran in San Francisco on Saturday. This was not the official Olympic torch relay that went through the same city four days later, but its political alternative: the Human Rights Torch Relay whose mission was to raise awareness of China’s human rights violations.
“I carried the Olympic torch before the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984,” Carlos said, “and that was very emotional. I carried the Human Rights Torch this time and that was sensational too; I felt empowered by the experience.
“I would never advocate a boycott of the Games, but what I do advocate is the passing-by of the opening ceremony by the French and German presidents. And for the athletes, what I suggest is that they study the situation and go with their hearts and minds, be it in talking to the press about the situation or taking it to another level the way we did.”
Smith said that the IOC still had the capacity to hurt athletes who crossed it. “There are big similarities between 1968 and now,” he said. “I would never warn athletes not to make a stand, but I would warn them of the sacrifices. In 1968, I may have become infamous overnight, but I couldn’t find a job when I got home.
“If you make a stand at a world event, you will sacrifice a great deal. I do believe the IOC would punish the athlete, possibly even more than we were in 1968.”
The third athlete to share the podium with Smith (gold) and Carlos (bronze) in 1968 was Peter Norman, the Australian who won silver. He died of a heart attack a year and a half ago, aged 64. Norman wore the same civil-rights badge on the podium as Smith and Carlos to show allegiance to their cause.
Three years ago, Norman gave an interview to The Times in which he said: “The issues are still there today and they’ll be there in Beijing and we’ve got to make sure that we don’t lose sight of that. We’ve got to make sure that there is a statement made in Beijing, too. It’s not our part to be at the forefront of that, we’re not the leaders of today, but there are leaders out there with the same thoughts and the same strength.”