John Carlos Quotes
I think the Olympic Games have been married to political statements. If I go back to Berlin in 1936, it was very politically orientated then, just with the Nazis.
Hitler and the Nazis assumed that they would dominate the world. The 1936 Olympics in the stadium in Germany was to be the first and only that Nazi Germany would entertain.
The Germans were planning to use the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin as a propaganda platform for their Nazi approach. Their perverse notion that the German Arayans were the most superior people and Blacks, Jews, Gypsies at the lower end of the spectrum was called into question by the fact that two of their own champions were Jewish. Goebbels gave orders that no newspaper could mention that fact. Mayer refused to participate. However the Nazi plan backfired when Jews and Blacks won many of the medals. Jessie Owens of America alone won 7 Olympic medals. Adolf Hitler, in order to avoid the “embarrassment” of shaking hands and congratulating Black and Jewish winners, refused to meet any of the athletes.
John Wesley Carlos is an American former track and field athlete and professional football player. He was the bronze-medal winner in the 200 meters at the 1968 Summer Olympics, and his Black Power salute on the podium with Tommie Smith caused much political controversy. He went on to tie the world record in the 100-yard dash and beat the 200 meters world record (although the latter achievement was never certified). After his track career, he enjoyed a brief stint in the Canadian Football League but retired due to injury.
