Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete: The 1968 Olympic Protests and Their Aftermath (review)

At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, United States sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos used their time on the victory dais less to celebrate their athletic accomplishments than to draw attention to continuing racial inequities in the country for which they competed. In what became known as the "black power salute," both athletes, heads solemnly bowed, held a black-gloved fist in the air during the playing of their national anthem, angering public officials in the United States as well as those from other nations whose primary responsibility, as they saw it, was to keep the Olympics free of political demonstrations. Douglas Hartmann, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, suggests in Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete that this demonstration was not a militant act on the part of two radicals, as Olympic and public officials would repeatedly portray it as, but a much deeper gesture intended to symbolize an ongoing struggle for civil rights among African Americans in the very land that reaped economic and political benefits from their athletic talents. The "salute" was not a spur-of-the-moment act of defiance, the author suggests, but the "final exercise" of a failed African American boycott of the Mexico City Games.

Hartmann offers a well-researched, balanced treatment of the 1968 demonstration, situating the protest in socio-historical context and not pulling punches where others might. As an example, while he credits those who really did take a bold and brave stand that year — who used their success in sport to draw attention to the plight of African Americans, and who risked the loss of lucrative contracts in professional sports following their amateur careers — the author also recognizes instances of self-serving demagoguery, sketchy details of certain events, and dubious assertions of accomplishment. He also points to one of the great ironies of the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR), from whose organizers the idea for a boycott had originated: While the OPHR purported to advance the cause of civil rights, some of its organizers were not above attempting to intimidate, embarrass, or humiliate athletes and coaches who did not support a boycott, portraying them as race-traitors and "Uncle Toms." Additionally, black women were not welcome to participate in the highly masculinized, almost misogynistic, OPHR movement for equal rights under the law. Such ironies help to explain why the OPHR ran out of steam before the Olympics took place, leaving it to athletes, as individuals, to protest.

Hartmann also discusses a more general irony of the Olympics, observing that while athletes from throughout the world assemble every four years for the Games, and that such an assembly purports to celebrate diversity across cultures, the athletes tend to be identified only with the nations they represent. "Olympic symbology," the author suggests, "provides no formal space for representing various nonnational social categories such as race, religion, region, ethnicity, or gender, the collective identities and social solidarities that for many Olympic participants define most fundamentally who they are, the very essence of their being" (17). Thus, minority athletes, who must cope with social and economic inequality on a daily basis, are expected to suspend that reality and accept the "honor" of representing their country on an international stage. When members of marginalized groups do speak out, public officials often characterize such communication as the efforts of "radicals" or "unlawful extremists," ultimately minimizing possibilities for change.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the 1968 demonstration is the fact that little has changed in the world of sport; in some respects, the situation has worsened. Athletes of color, although handsomely compensated at the elite levels of sport, continue to serve as athletic commodities, either helping a team win or being forgotten about altogether. Moreover, relatively few African Americans can be found in the coaching and executive...