Black Power Salute

Critical Review of “Black Power Salute”

The BBC commissioned documentary “Black Power Salute”, produced by Tigerlily Films and directed by Geoff Small in 2008, is a fascinating and insightful account of the events leading up to, during, and immediately after the famous raised gloved fist salute of black American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, when they received their medals on the podium for finishing first and third respectively in the men’s 200 metres at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. The documentary managed to show that the struggle against the power structures in America, South Africa and at the Olympics, were all part of the same universal power struggle, and that Smith and Carlos were not the only protestors at Mexico, although the image of their raised fists is an iconic one in the merging world of sport and politics.

It is a powerful piece of oral and visual history that contains testimonies not just from Smith and Carlos, but also other American athletes with Lee Evans, Bob Beamon and Ralph Boston being the major contributors; students from the San Jose State University where Smith was a student at the time; the lecturers at San Jose, most notably Harry Edwards, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley at the time of filming, but in 1968 Harry Edwards was a lecturer at San Jose and one of Tommie Smith’s lecturers; and present day historians and journalists.

As well as these interviews, the documentary also contains coverage of the Olympics, newsreel of various black power figures such as Malcolm X the Black Panther Party, and interviews with the athletes taken at the time, most notably the BBC’s David Coleman questioning Smith and Carlos after the event.

The two most interesting aspects of the documentary was how Smith and the other athletes and students became politically active and militant; and expectations of the political actions of the athletes in Mexico by their peers, their lecturers and themselves which reflected that of Black Nationalists in America during the period.

Like many Black Americans from the South, Tommie Smith and Lee Evans had both been children of sharecroppers in the South, picking cotton on rented farms that were financially beneficial to the landowners and in conditions that reinforced a racist, segregated lifestyle for Black tenants, which according to the narrator Colin Salmon ‘sowed the seeds for revolt.’ Both Smith and Evans attended San Jose State University – Smith entered in 1963 and Evans in 1964 while Harry Edwards left San Jose for postgraduate study only to return in 1966 to teach both students. Harry – six feet eight inches tall and weighing over two hundred pounds – was an imposing figure and dressed in a similar manner to Black Power groups such as the emerging Black Panther Party and had an effect on not just Smith and Evans but also on the white students in his sociology classes, inspiring the black students to question their role in American society, and by intimidating the white students and with his appearance. Smith’s relationship with Lynda Huey, a white fellow student, was overshadowed by concerns over interracial relationships in the 1960s, with Smith wishing to keep the relationship private. Smith, Huey explained, was worried not just about the White populace’s reaction to their relationship, but also the anger of the Black Nationalists, especially those who followed a separatist philosophy such as that espoused by the Nation of Islam. Huey also explained that she was often the representative for many Black students when they went to get private rented accommodation: it was only when Huey rented the properties personally that Black students could be housed.

The documentary attempted to compare the actions of Tommie Smith and Muhammad Ali: both were recognised as being potential role models, but had different reactions to the war in Vietnam and the role of the Black soldier. Smith ‘served his country’ by joining the Reserve Officer Training Corps, although not serving abroad, while Ali famously refused to enlist citing his view that the Vietnamese had never threatened him personally and therefore he saw no reason to take up arms against them. And Smith’s threat at the 1967 Tokyo University games to boycott the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City is the first expression of Smith’s developing Black Nationalist politics. Smith was mirroring the essential struggle of Black Americans – that of identity in the USA. It was something that Black Nationalists had been debating for over 70 years, especially since W.E.B. DuBois had talked about the ‘double consciousness’ of the Black man in America. In much the same way as DuBois was asking whether a Black man had a place in American society, Smith was questioning whether a Black athlete should represent a country that did not treat him as an equal. As he and most of the other American track athletes were Black, Smith’s suggested boycott would not only withdraw America’s best medal hopes from the Olympics, but also embarrass America publicly.

For Harry Edwards and Ken Noel – the chief organiser of the Olympic Project for Human Rights – questions similar to those raised by Stokely Carmichael and Charles V Hamilton in “Black Power” (1967) about institutional racism needed to be asked not just of the San Jose athletic department, where white colleagues of Smith and Evans would be in white-only fraternities, but also of the Olympic Organisation itself as led by Avery Brundage. In Harry Edwards’ mind Smith was protesting against the same power structure that oppressed him at home in San Jose, that oppressed the Black majority in South Africa, and potentially at the Olympics in Mexico; and for Harry that protest had come as a result of the classes and discourse that originated on the San Jose State University campus. Just like the Black Nationalist movements such as the Black Panther Party, peaceful opposition to the inequality that Smith and other Black Americans faced had changed to a contentious and provocative one.

Despite it being supported by both the Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King and the more radical Black Power advocates Stokely Carmichael and H Rap Brown, the OPHR, much like the Black Nationalist movements of the previous 70 years failed to present a united black front. Athletes like long jumpers Bob Beamon and Ralph Boston refused to participate or support a boycott because for them it was the end of their careers and to not attend the Olympics would hinder them financially in later life. After threats from Avery Brundage and the American Olympic committee, Smith withdrew the threat of an Olympic boycott but said that there would probably be a protest of some form. Despite the withdrawal of the boycott, like many prominent Black Nationalists, Harry, Smith and Evans received death threats through the post, and the FBI had also followed Harry Edwards and Ken Noel.

After qualifying to represent the United States Smith and Evans both ran at Mexico. Taking the bronze in the final was fellow Black American John Carlos. Of the two athletes Carlos was considered the more politically active than Smith. When they raised their gloved fists as the Star Spangled Banner played, back in San Jose they shocked their peers: Tommie had appeared the less militant of the two despite his threat of boycott. With both athletes barefoot – Smith later explaining that it was ‘so the whole world can see the poverty of the Black man in America’ – Carlos also wore beads to symbolise the lynching of Black men and women, and with his jacket undone, which was against Olympic protocol, he was recognising the hardships facing White and Black blue collar workers. For the film makers the presence of John Carlos as they made their gloved salute ‘moved it from being a symbol of civil rights to black power.’ However was not Tommie Smith’s intention although he was quick to recognise that it could be construed as that. ”I held my hand up in a cry for freedom… ‘What are you in need of?’ Justice.” Despite this explanation from Smith the film still claimed it was part of the militant struggle and protest, however conversely in an article in the Guardian on the day the documentary was first shown, director Geoff Small stated that “while the gesture was redolent of the militant Black Panthers, it was actually a plaintive cry for civil rights.”[1] Whilst this was not made evident in the film nor the irony that this appeal for civil liberty became the symbol for black power groups and protestors worldwide, what was made clear was the revelation that this was not the only protest at the Mexico games by black athletes.

There was a further protest after having set a world record jump when Bob Beamon and Ralph Boston who had previously been worried about reaction at home and their chances of financial security, received their long jump medals by rolling up their trousers and showing black socks.

Avery Brundage, head of the International Olympic Committee and a staunch believer that politics had no part in sport, sent 1936 Olympic champion Jesse Owens to speak to Lee Evans before the men’s 400m event. Evans sent Owens packing calling him an Uncle Tom, stating that conditions at home couldn’t get worse than they were already. Owens left in tears and Evans remained adamant.

Evans led home a Black American one-two-three in the 400m and led out the three medallists wearing berets and sunglasses, carrying their shoes. Fearing that he may be shot – Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King had both been assassinated earlier in the year – Evans smiled as much as he could in the belief that a smiling target was emotionally harder to hit. When the American anthem started the three athletes removed their berets, for some of their peers it was a disappointment that their protest wasn’t radical enough; for the White people in America the protest was too much. Evans was a symbol of the problems faced by Black Nationalism – for the White power structures any form of protest was too much; for many Black protestors it could never be radical enough for their needs.
Ralph Boston said that the protests at the Mexico games gave other athletes a confidence about being black, but the legacy for Smith and Carlos was terrible in terms of their relationships – Carlos’s wife committed suicide and Smith’s marriage broke up. The programme did overplay the penalty to their careers that these athletes had immediately afterwards, with no mention that Smith played professional American football and then went onto a professorship at Oberlin College[2]. It would be more accurate to say that the Black athletes did not get the recognition they deserved for their efforts in bringing Black Nationalism and Civil Rights onto the world stage. It was also inaccurate of the programme to state that the salute was planned, when Smith claims that he didn’t know what he was going to do until he walked out to get his medal. The program could have been even more powerful in relaying its message had it used present day interviews with John Carlos to support Tommie Smith’s testimony.

Black Power Salute is an informative and at times exceedingly powerful oral history, with essential interviews for historians of the period not just of Smith, Evans and Boston, but of Harry Edwards too. It is historically accurate although it is biased towards portraying the Black athletes as unjust victims of the establishment after the games and overplays their ‘martyrdom’. It showed that not all of the Black American population agreed on how to further their own cause, and gave good examples of how the white hierarchy reacted to challenges to its power structure.
[1]‘Remembering the Black Power Protest’ Geoff Small found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/09/olympicgames2008.humanrights (retrieved 13th November 2012)

[2]Information taken from http://www.tommiesmith.com/bio.html