SAN JOSE, Calif. - It has been 37 years since sports and politics collided in one searing image during the 1968 Olympics: Sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos silently protesting racial injustice with a black power salute on the winners’ stand in Mexico City.
The two men returned to San Jose State University on Friday to break ground on a larger-than-life statue that will capture the monumental event for decades to come.
They returned to the campus where the grass-roots movement that sparked their Olympic protest began, goatees and sideburns touched with silver, their bodies still trim after all these years.
They were honored by former track teammates, former classmates and current students who were too young to have witnessed the act that earned them both scorn and admiration across the nation.
The statue, which is the result of the efforts of the school’s Associated Students organization, will be erected Oct. 16, the anniversary of the controversial salute. With a core of fiberglass reinforced by steel, the bronze likeness will rise 23 feet, twice the height of the men themselves.
It is extraordinary to me,'' Carlos, 60, said. To be remembered so long after I’ve left this earth.’’
The indelible image was created during the medal ceremonies for the 200-meter race as the American flag rose and the national anthem played. Smith had won the gold medal; Carlos the bronze. They stood, black-gloved fists raised to the sky. Heads bowed. Black sock-clad shoeless feet planted on the dais.
I was praying,'' Smith, 61, recalled Friday of his thoughts during that moment. And I was scared.’’
Their actions got them expelled from the Olympic village and ordered out of Mexico. On their return to the United States, they were labeled as racists and Communists. No sponsorships or jobs came from their Olympic victories. Instead, they got death threats.
Even today, the planned statue has been criticized by those who are still offended by the action. Alfonso De Alba, executive director of Associated Students, said that’s OK.
We don't want everyone to agree,'' he said, adding that the statue is part of a larger, $300,000 project to encourage student activism. We want people to have a dialogue, and maybe, through that, people who are afraid of what Smith and Carlos represented will understand it now, the second time around.’’
Smith has always lamented how much of their message was lost in the controversy. The world concentrated on the raised fists and saw a singular message of militancy, but it missed the shoeless feet that represented black poverty, the black beads around Carlos’ neck signifying lynchings suffered by blacks; the olive sapling under Smith’s arm, a gesture of peace.
The protest had its roots years earlier at the school when sociologist Harry Edwards organized the black athletes on campus around inequities faced by blacks at San Jose State, as well as on the nation’s playing fields, in its classrooms and in its communities.
Edwards and the athletes considered the Olympics to be an appropriate international stage for their message. Originally, they called for a boycott of the games, but it never materialized. Instead, individual athletes were left to decide whether and how to protest as part of Edwards’ Olympic Project for Human Rights.
On Friday, Edwards, now a professional and collegiate sports consultant, attended the ceremony but stood in the back of the crowd, not wanting, he said, to detract from Smith and Carlos’ moment.
It has taken until now, Edwards said, for the country to move beyond the rawness of that historic day. Even so, he said, the country’s understanding of it continues to evolve.
One hundred years from now, people will look at that statue and they will have to ask the question, 'What was that about?'''' Edwards said. And at that point, I think they’ll have a much clearer vision of what happened and why. It’s funny. The more distance you get from controversial events, the clearer they appear.’’