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JESSE OWENS 
"The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself - the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us - that's where it's at."
James Cleveland "J.C." Owens was born in Oakville, Alabama on September 12, 1913, the seventh child born to a poor sharecropper family and the grandson of a slave. He would go on to be one of the greatest, most famous and most significant athletes that the world has ever known. His mother was a devoted Baptist and made the young J.C. memorize a Bible verse every day and gave him visions of a world without racial limitations. When he was eight years old, the family moved to Cleveland in order to look for better opportunities. On his first day at his new public school, his new teacher misheard J.C. as Jesse. He was called Jesse from that point on. At high school, he either equalled or beat national high school records at 100 yards, 220 yards and the long jump. After graduation, many colleges tried to recruit Jesse and he chose to attend Ohio State University. Segregation was a fact of college life, and black athletes were not allowed to live on campus with the white students. They also had to eat in "blacks only" restaurants when traveling on the road with the team and could only stay in "blacks only" hotels. Two weeks before the 1935 Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Jesse slipped and injured his tailbone as he fell down a flight of stairs. It was doubtful right up to the start of the meeting as to whether he would be able to compete. However, as he settled into his crouch for the start of the 100 yards dash, the pain "miraculously disappeared" and astonishingly he tied the world record of 9.4 seconds. Ten minutes later, he set a new long jump world record of 26 feet 8 and a quarter inches, this record would last for 25 years. A further nine minutes later, he set a new world record in the 220 yard dash of 20.3 seconds. Finally, 26 minutes later he became the first person to break 23 seconds for the 220 yard low hurdles, setting a new world record of 22.6 seconds. In the space of just 45 minutes, Owens had set 3 world records and equalled another. The following year, in 1936, Jesse was selected to represent the United States at the Berlin Olympics. Hitler had described the black athletes who were representing the United States as "black auxiliaries" and "non-humans" and confidently predicted that the games would be a display of "Aryan superiority". But Owens single-handedly blew that thought away by winning four gold medals in the 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump and the 4 x 100 meters relay. In the process, he became the star of the games and won the adoration of the German public. When the Olympic team  returned to the United States, Owens was given a ticker-tape parade. However, being the nation's hero did mean that he avoided segregation, and he was made to ride the freight elevator to his reception dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria.
He commented "When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus, I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either." When the furor from the Olympics died down, Jesse struggled to make a living and he toured the country publicizing himself running against such things as local sprinters, race horses and dogs. He also had a fairly lucrative career as a public speaker and spent some time as a jazz disc jockey in Chicago. In 1976, he was presented with the Medal of Freedom by President Ford, which is the highest honor that can be bestowed on a civilian in the United States. On March 31, 1980, Jesse Owens, who had smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for many years, died of lung cancer at the age of 66. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Bush in 1980 and also had street named after him in Berlin four years later. Links To Other Jesse Owens Internet Resources: The Official Jesse Owens Web Site. The Jesse Owens Foundation. ESPN.com - Owens pierced a myth Wikipedia - Jesse Owens. Creative Quotations - Jesse Owens. SIGN UP TO OUR EMAIL NEWSLETTER If you would like us to keep you updated with changes and improvements to thatsalabama.com, please enter your email address here: If you would like to support thatsalabama.com with a donation via paypal, please click on this button: |
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