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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/oct/17/smith-and-carlos-embodied-many-african-americans-summer-of-love-and-reckoning">https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/oct/17/smith-and-carlos-embodied-many-african-americans-summer-of-love-and-reckoning</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Smith and Carlos embodied many African
Americans' Summer of Love and Reckoning <br>
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<div class="credits reader-credits">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar -
October 17, 2018<br>
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<p><span><span>I</span></span>n the summer of 1967,
100,000 fashion-forward and social-forward youth
gathered in San Francisco in what has famously been
called <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/jun/03/san-francisco-summer-of-love-50th-anniversary-hippy-movement"
data-link-name="in body link">the Summer of Love</a>.
Similar gatherings occurred throughout the US, Canada,
and Europe, all in an effort to reject the Vietnam War,
consumerism, and governments who had proven less than
forthright, while promoting the ideals of love,
kindness, and compassion. The Summer of Love has been
branded and celebrated as a symbol of the 60s. African
Americans had another name for that summer: <a
href="https://www.britannica.com/story/the-riots-of-the-long-hot-summer"
data-link-name="in body link">the Long, Hot Summer of
1967</a>. During that time, 150 black communities
burned in riots, with 26 people killed in Newark, New
Jersey, <a
href="https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/1967-detroit-riots"
data-link-name="in body link">and 43 in Detroit</a>.
By the following summer, Dr Martin Luther King Jr and
Bobby Kennedy, two guiding lights in civil rights, <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/04/martin-luther-king-last-31-hours-the-story-of-his-prophetic-last-speech"
data-link-name="in body link">had been assassinated</a>.
Black people were not feeling the love. That’s the
context for the 1968 Summer Olympics when, 50 years ago
this week, Tommie Smith and John Carlos <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/30/black-power-salute-1968-olympics"
data-link-name="in body link">raised their gloved
fists</a> from the podium in Mexico City, medals
dangling from their necks, while the US national anthem
played. To many African Americans, <em>that</em> was
the Summer of Love – and Pride, and Reckoning.</p>
<p>I was 20 when this happened. I’d been invited to join
the Olympic men’s basketball team and had anguished
about it for weeks. I gathered with several other black
athletes to discuss our misgivings with sociology
professor Dr Harry Edwards, who urged us to boycott the
Games. We discussed the turmoil in the cities and the
systemic oppression. The Vietnam War was also on our
minds. We were the same age as many of the soldiers
fighting and dying. One Air Force report confirmed what
black soldiers already knew: “Unequal treatment is
manifested in unequal punishment, offensive and
inflammatory language, prejudice in assignments of
details, lack of products for blacks at the PX,
harassment by security police under orders to break up
five or more blacks in a group and double standards in
enforcement of regulation.” Military discrimination had
harsh consequences: by 1966 over 20% of US combat
casualties in Vietnam were black, which was a much
higher percentage than the total of blacks in the
military.</p>
<p>We had a lively debate, with some athletes explaining
that this might be their only chance to compete at this
level. Dr Edwards was for the boycott. As he later told
the New York Times Magazine: “For years we have
participated in the <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/olympic-games"
data-link-name="auto-linked-tag"
data-component="auto-linked-tag">Olympic Games</a>,
carrying the United States on our backs with our
victories, and race relations are now worse than ever …
[I]t’s time for the black people to stand up as men and
women and refuse to be utilized as performing animals
for a little extra dog food.” In the end, we decided
that a mass boycott wasn’t the answer. Given the rampant
racism of the time, I couldn’t see me competing to
glorify the country that was working so hard to keep
black Americans from having their constitutional rights.
The hypocrisy didn’t sit right with me. Instead, I took
a job in my hometown of New York City, teaching
basketball to inner-city kids.</p>
<p>Fast forward to 16 October 1968. Smith and Carlos,
after winning first and third in the 200m dash, raised
their black-gloved fists from the medal podium and bowed
their heads during the playing of The Star-Spangled
Banner. It was a shout-out heard ‘round the world. The
reaction wasn’t just a matter of race: conservative
whites and blacks were disgusted and liberal blacks and
whites were elated. Jesse Owens had been sent to talk to
the black athletes before the games to dissuade them
from showing any form of protest. He was angry that it
hadn’t worked. Some blacks thought that such overt
displays of frustration and anger only goaded racist
America to justify their bigotry. Others, in contrast,
were convinced that civility and manners had resulted in
very little progress.</p>
<p>For me, the sight of those two proud athletes raising
their fists to call attention to social injustices,
knowing they would face death threats and probable
expulsion from the Games, made my heart swell. The
public backlash only proved their point: on one hand,
you had voter suppression, police brutality, poverty,
starving children, lesser education, lesser job
opportunities, and a government doing very little to
change it. On the other hand, you had people worried
that their enjoyment of a sporting event was momentarily
“ruined” because someone silently expressed a shameful
truth.</p>
<p>Sadly, here we are 50 years later facing some of the
same shameful truths and witnessing some of the same
shameful reactions. Tommie and John came home heroes to
the millions of Americans who they had spoken up for and
villains to the millions they had spoken to. The
outspoken athletes of today – like Colin Kaepernick,
LeBron James, Steph Curry, and many others – face the
same hostility from good people who are just ignorant of
the facts, from those who are terrified of the gradual
browning of America, and from those who profit from
social disparity. They already have a voice in the White
House under the most <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jun/11/kareem-abdul-jabbar-donald-trump-anthem-protests"
data-link-name="in body link">dishonest, racist, and
reactionary administration in modern history</a>.</p>
<p>We all long for the day when no athlete will raise a
gloved fist or take a knee or <a
href="https://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/12/kyrie-irving-i-cant-breathe-t-shirt-before-cavaliers-eric-garner-lebron-james"
data-link-name="in body link">wear a t-shirt that
says, “I can’t breathe.”</a> But most of us want that
day to come about because there’s no more need for those
gestures, because America has finally committed to
following its own Constitution. Until that day … well,
you know.</p>
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