People around the globe and here in the U.S. will watch today’s closing ceremonies for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. Looking back over the headlines garnered by black athletes and other athletes of color made me think hard about how far we have come—and how far we still have to go on issues of race and racism in sports, and in the societies that they reflect.
Athletic competition, whether amateur or professional, has garnered public interest since sports were invented in the ancient civilizations of Africa, Asia, and Europe. In the modern world where we suffer under a yoke of societal ills, many caused by racial, ethnic, national, and religious divisions, sports competitions have often been the venues to symbolically lessen hostilities and bridge barriers between and among diverse groups of people in the global community.
Sports have often been the means by which individuals from groups who have been historically suppressed and subjugated rise up to fame and acclaim, becoming champions for the groups they represent. We hear athletes talk of hope and dreams that their individual victories will make a dent in the walls of hate, fear, and mistrust that societies have constructed around groups who are on the bottom rung of hierarchies in race, class, ethnicity, and gender.
We have just had the opportunity to watch American competitors like Simone Biles (gymnastics), Simone Manuel (swimming), and Michelle Carter (shot put) capture gold medals in sports that only recently were devoid of black female gold medal winners. We have also had to observe the excoriation of our gold medal Olympic champion from 2012, Gabby Douglas, for trumped up charges about her lack of displayed “patriotism” (see Chitown Kev’s commentary for Black Kos).
The road to the Olympics and sports fame has been a rocky one for athletes of color, and we have not completed society’s marathon run against racism—yet.
Looking back over Olympic games history through a U.S. lens, all too often we overlook a certain Olympian. We claim him as a hero yet have erased the challenges he faced, which continued through the decades after his death and are still ongoing.
A look at Wikipedia’s biographical notes for Jim Thorpe does not tell his whole story.
James Francis "Jim" Thorpe (Sac and Fox (Sauk)): Wa-Tho-Huk, translated as "Bright Path"; May 22, 1887 – March 28, 1953) was an American Olympic athlete and gold medalist. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe became the first Native American to win a gold medal for his home country. Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, played American football (collegiate and professional), and also played professional baseball and basketball. He lost his Olympic titles after it was found he had been paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, thus violating the amateurism rules that were then in place. In 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored his Olympic medals.
Thorpe grew up in the Sac and Fox Nation in Oklahoma. He played as part of several all American Indian teams throughout his career, and "barnstormed" as a professional basketball player with a team composed entirely of American Indians. From 1920 to 1921, Thorpe was nominally the first president of the American Professional Football Association (APFA), which would become the National Football League (NFL) in 1922.
He played professional sports until age 41, the end of his sports career coinciding with the start of the Great Depression. Thorpe struggled to earn a living after that, working several odd jobs. Thorpe suffered from alcoholism, and lived his last years in failing health and poverty. In a poll of sports fans conducted by ABC Sports, Thorpe was voted the Greatest Athlete of the Twentieth Century out of 15 other athletes including Muhammad Ali, Babe Ruth, Jesse Owens, Wayne Gretzky, Jack Nicklaus, and Michael Jordan.
It does not mention the ugly impact of Indian boarding schools like Carlisle—which Thorpe attended and were set up to wipe out Native culture, nor does it cover the story behind the removal of his medals and the battle to get them back.
Hollywood created a fantasy Thorpe in Jim Thorpe—All-American, a 1951 biopic which starred white actor Burt Lancaster as Thorpe. The irony in this all-American tale is:
At the time Thorpe won his gold medals, not all Native Americans were recognized as U.S. citizens. (The U.S. government had wanted them to make concessions to adopt European-American ways to receive such recognition.) Citizenship was not granted to all American Indians until 1924
PBS aired a much more comprehensive documentary, which you should watch.
This is a film about a man who used his amazing physical prowess as a way to affirm his American Indian identity in the face of unrelenting efforts to eradicate Native American culture. It is the first documentary film to tell the story of Thorpe’s life outside of his well-known athletic victories. The film uses in-depth interviews with Thorpe’s surviving children, some simple recreations and images culled from over seventy-five archive sources, both stills and motion picture.
The struggle over Thorpe’s legacy continues. Blogger Aji wrote here about the battle over his remains, which are in a town called “Jim Thorpe” in Pennsylvania.
And speaking of death, the unseemly battle over the remains of the late Indian Olympian Jim Thorpe (Sac and Fox) turns ever uglier. The former Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania - merged towns with virtually no Native population of their own - have been known collectively for the last 60 years as Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Why? Because after Mr. Thorpe's death in 1953, his third wife, incensed that Oklahoma did not create a memorial for him, made a deal with the two economically depressed Pennsylvania boroughs: She would help them attract tourism by selling his remains to be buried there; in turn, they would build monuments to her late husband, and merge and incorporate under the town name of "Jim Thorpe."The tenuous connection upon which the whole project hung? Mr. Thorpe's attendance, decades earlier, at the Carlisle Indian School — which, of course, was located some 100 miles away. Oh, and the money the widow received from the sale of her late husband's bones.
Three years ago, Jim Thorpe's son Jack (himself now deceased) filed a NAGPRA lawsuit, demanding that his father's remains be repatriated to his native Oklahoma, where, he insists, his father wanted to rest with his ancestors. His surviving brothers have joined him in the suit. [On this issue, the linked article is badly written, making it appear from an out-of-context quote that Jack Thorpe wanted his father's body to remain with the town, but that is not the case.] NAGPRA, acronymic shorthand for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, provides a legal mechanism for tribal members to force repatriation of the remains of other members (and associated artifacts and objects) that are being held illegitimately in museums or other sites. Last month, a federal judge in Pennsylvania gave Mr. Thorpe's survivors the green light to pursue repatriation under NAGPRA.
Time for some editorializing: The whole scheme was absolutely repugnant and positively ghoulish. My guess is that, were Jim Thorpe alive to make his wishes known, he'd support his son Jack's efforts to repatriate his bones back home. After all, he never so much as visited either Mauch Chunk or East Mauch Chunk while alive, and had no connection to the area whatsoever. I suspect that the Sac and Fox feel like many of our tribal nations do about what should be done with their members' earthly remains: When a person walks on, the remains are to be treated in accordance with tribal spiritual tradition, and then laid to final rest (whether buried, cremated, or something else) in the lands of their ancestors — not to be exploited as a money-grubbing tourist attraction for the exclusive benefit of non-Indians.
When talking with Aji, this week, she brought to my attention another piece of Indian sports history, titled “How Racism Kept The World's Fastest Swim Stroke Out Of The Pool.”
On April 20, 1844, two men from North America jumped into the Bath in High Holborn, a 130-foot pool in London. They were there to show how fast they could go. The British Swimming Society had invited the two men, Wenishkaweabee and Sahma, Ojibwe people from Canada, to compete against each other for a silver medal. Both times that the two swimmers raced the length of the pool, Wenishkaweabee won; in the first race, he was seven feet ahead. But the contest between the two men was less significant than the speed with which they both crossed the pool, in under 30 seconds.
Far from being wowed by this very impressive time, though, the British press found the two swimmers’ movements “grotesque.” The Ojibwe men hit the water “violently,” one paper reported, with their arms thrashing, “like the sails of a windmill,” as they “beat downward with their feet.”
The real contest that day was not between the two swimmers, but between their style of swimming—what we now call front crawl, or freestyle—and the breaststroke favored by the British.
Swimming has been in all the Olympics headlines over the last weeks, though not in reference to First Nations people and the freestyle. Simone Manuel’s win in the 100-meter freestyle, sharing gold in a tie with Canada’s Penny Oleksiak, has sparked a slew of articles on black folks and swimming, since Manuel is the first black American woman to win a gold medal in an individual swimming event.
She has also gotten attention for her remarks on race.
Manuel said that her victory was extra special in the context of ongoing race issues in the U.S. “It means a lot, especially with what is going on in the world today, some of the issues of police brutality,” Manuel said. “This win hopefully brings hope and change to some of the issues that are going on. My color just comes with the territory.” …
For Manuel, the victory could not have been sweeter. In the lead-up to the event she forced herself to briefly distance herself from the significance of being a rare black swimmer representing the U.S, in order to focus on chasing victory.
“It is something I’ve definitely struggled with a lot,” Manuel said. “Coming into the race I tried to take weight of the black community off my shoulders. It’s something I carry with me. I want to be an inspiration, but I would like there to be a day when it is not ‘Simone the black swimmer.’
As with many sports which only recently have seen black athletes claiming medals, there have been corresponding pseudoscience myths (and studies) purporting to explain why black folks can’t swim as well as white folks. The racial arguments were also used for distance running, which I discuss below.
More relevant is the history of racism and swimming pools. Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America, written by Jeff Wiltse explores this subject in-depth.
From nineteenth-century public baths to today's private backyard havens, swimming pools have long been a provocative symbol of American life. In this social and cultural history of swimming pools in the United States, Jeff Wiltse relates how, over the years, pools have served as asylums for the urban poor, leisure resorts for the masses, and private clubs for middle-class suburbanites. As sites of race riots, shrinking swimsuits, and conspicuous leisure, swimming pools reflect many of the tensions and transformations that have given rise to modern America.
"It quickly becomes clear that Wiltse's Contested Waters isn't a dreary historical catalog of shapes and styles of swimming pools vast and small. It's the colorful story of America's municipal swimming pools in the 19th and 20th centuries. Against that backdrop it becomes a story of America. It's all here: a sense of this country's benevolence, its community relations, civic wars, social strata, sexuality and sexism as well as our capacity for having a good time. Chronicled along with these are our ill-feeling prejudice, ignorance and racial strife. . . . [Contested Waters offers] a good course in America. All its traits, fine and lamentable are found here--the most vivid being, alas, our stinking racism."
--Dick Cavett, New York Times Book Review
You can listen to an interview with Wiltse about pools, gender, and race here.
Walter Einenkel wrote about some of that contested history in “Remember when a racist poured acid into a pool to get black people out?”
There was news coverage of the Philadelphia-area Valley Swim Club which barred black summer campers, and of a pool party assault by police of black swimmers in McKinney, Texas, which Wiltze wrote about for the Washington Post:
Last weekend, a harrowing scene unfolded at a private community swimming pool in McKinney, Tex. Several white adults taunted a group of black teens, telling them to “go back to your Section 8 homes.” Another reportedly referred to one of the teens as a “black effer.” The police were eventually called in, responding with aggressive and unreasonable force.
Americans were shocked by the scene, which was caught by camera phones. But I wasn’t surprised.
Swimming pools have long been contested spaces where Americans express social prejudices that otherwise remain publicly unspoken. (Though the McKinney pool isn’t open to the general public, it was being used by a resident to host a party with friends from outside the neighborhood, like someone might do at their own neighborhood pool.) They provide insight into the state of social relations in America, both past and present.
I think back over my own family history, and realize that I learned to swim because both of my parents had access to pools and beaches, and passed on the interest in swimming to me. My mom used to work as a waitress in an Atlantic City hotel when she was a teenager and learned to swim at the segregated beach there, as did many local black Americans. My dad learned to swim in a white pool in Chicago. As a teenager in New York City, the recently integrated high school in my Queens neighborhood had a pool (rare for NYC schools), and consequently young black men wound up on the swim team. The swim meets they went to were devoid of black swimmers, since the schools with pools were in the white suburbs.
When swimmers in competition are being discussed, much of black history is still not part of it. I learned something new when I read through this article on black swimming history. We forget that civil rights activist and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young was a swimmer. Few people remember Jim Ellis and the film Pride, which depicted his efforts at coaching an inner-city swim team.
I often forget that world famous basketball star Tim Duncan started out as a swimmer, and that his older sister Tricia swam in the 1988 Olympics, representing the Virgin Islands. I do remember homeboy Cullen Jones bringing home the gold in 2012.
Given the data on race, ethnicity, and drowning, we need to do a lot more to teach young people of color—black and brown—to swim and get them better access to pools. I’m hoping that Simone Manuel’s win will spark not only conversation, but action.
In “Sports, black athletes and Olympic memories of Jesse Owens,” I wrote about one of the most powerful moments in Olympic sports history.
My earliest memories of family discussions centering on the Olympics are of Jesse Owens. Though I wasn’t even dreamed of by my parents in 1936 (they were not even married then) I remember the pride with which his name was mentioned. He showed Hitler something. He was “our champion” against the hateful Nazis.
By the time I was a teen and attending track meets like the Penn Relays in
Philadelphia, my interest was in sprints and hurdles. I remember being surprised at age 13, when the sports world was rocked by the victory of a black long distance runner from Ethiopia named Abebe Bikila, who won the Olympic marathon—twice.
Abebe Bikila was born in Ethiopia on 7 August 1932, the day of the Los Angeles Olympic marathon.
Twenty-eight years later, he entered the marathon at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. He and his coach, Onni Niskanen, decided that Bikila, who ran barefooted, should make his final move a little more than one kilometre from the finish line. It was at this point that the course passed the obelisk of Axum, a monument that had been plundered from Ethiopia by Italian troops and hauled away to Rome. When Bikila reached the obelisk, he was running even with Rhadi Ben Abdesselem of Morocco. Bikila successfully pulled away and won by 200m.
Although no one had ever won the marathon twice, Bikila returned to the Olympic Games in 1964, even though he had undergone an appendectomy 40 days before the race. This time he ran with shoes and socks. Bikila took a clear lead by the halfway mark and steadily pulled away to win by more than four minutes. His time, 2 hours 12 minutes 11.2 seconds, was a world best for the marathon.
What was fascinating for me as a track and field fan was that he broke a myth I had grown up with: blacks don’t (and can’t) win long-distance races. Looking back, I realize that the so-called science was bullshit, and that our noted “lack of stamina” made little sense. The guys and gals I knew and admired were running sprints. Like Wilma Rudolph, who was one of my sheroes.
Born on June 23, 1940, in St. Bethlehem, Tennessee, Wilma Rudolph was a sickly child who had to wear a brace on her left leg. She overcame her disabilities to compete in the 1956 Summer Olympic Games, and in 1960, she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field at a single Olympics. Later in life, she formed the Wilma Rudolph Foundation to promote amateur athletics. The Olympic great died on November 12, 1994, following a battle with brain cancer.
I admired her not just for her winning on the track, but also for the fact that she stood up against segregation.
Watching her win in 1960, and at the same time seeing the victory of Bikila, it never occurred to me that my education about black long distance running was deficient.
I had never heard of Frank Hart, known as “Black Dan.”
In the late 1870’s and early 1880’s, the sport of “six day, go as you please” endurance racing gripped the United States and Great Britain. The participants in these events were called pedestrians, and they were free to run or walk around an indoor track for as long as they could stay on their feet. The top pedestrians survived on less than four hours of sleep a day and slept on cots inside the track’s oval. Fans followed these six day contests of endurance with all the fervor of today’s NFL fans. They also placed bets on prospective winners.
On April 10, 1880, an African American pedestrian, Frank Hart stood atop this international craze for six day racing. His given name was Fred Hichborn but he changed it to Frank Hart when he turned professional. Hart had just won the prestigious O’Leary Belt competition and smashed the world record, after covering 565 miles in six days of racing. He earned about $17,000 in prize money, which was a small fortune in 1880. As the race ended, he waved an American flag to thousands of cheering fans who packed Madison Square Garden. Another African American, William Pegram of Boston finished second with 540 miles. Hart also competed in one of the international Astley Belt competitions, and set an American record when he won the Rose Belt in Madison Square Garden in December 1879.
I knew nothing of this history, and never realized that “the father of long distance running” in the U.S. was a black man—Ted Corbitt.
Here is a link to Corbett’s obituary.
NEW YORK, NY --- Former University of Cincinnati athlete and Hall of Famer Ted Corbitt passed away this past Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at the age of 88. Anyone who has ever put in the time and dedication for the sport of long distance running is sure to know this legendary name and the captivating stories behind it. Corbitt, the "Father of Long Distance Running," was ultimately known for his overall fascination and personal commitment to the endeavors of the human body. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, the young Corbitt often ran to and from school, giving him the first of many lessons in the techniques of running. In doing so, Corbitt became intrigued with the many ways in which the human body worked. Running was soon to be a natural part of everyday life.
While mostly sticking with short distance competitions, the idea of long distance running interested him. Reading a local newspaper article about the '36 and '39 Boston Marathons, Corbitt was stunned to find out people ran that far. It wasn't until Corbitt moved to downtown Cincinnati that his running career took off. Being a senior in high school, Corbitt's first acknowledgements of success occurred when he received an invite to join the celebrated Cincinnati Gym Club."The letter was obviously based on my records alone, not by any club member who had attended my meets, because the club was restricted to whites only," Corbitt once explained to First Marathons. "That was only one of many color hurdles I had to cross to be accepted in my sport."
During Corbitt's time at UC, Jim Crow laws and segregation policies often kept him from participating in interstate meets and American Athletic Union competitions. What kept him going, however, were the words of Arthur Newton, credited for establishing the ultra marathon. "Blacks would never run distance. They just don't have what it takes to do the distance." As unfortunate as this statement was, Corbitt acknowledged that Newton was a man of his times and pushed himself with enormous perseverance and preparation to become a better athlete. Setting national records for the 25-, 40-, 50-, and 100-mile runs and becoming UC's only Olympic Track & Field participant, this phenomenal athlete did not run his first distance marathon until the age of 32, with a time of 2:48:42 at the 1951 Boston Marathon. Through his career of 200,000 plus miles of persistent running and being inducted into 10 separate Hall of Fames, Corbitt ran in 199 marathons, including a 24-hour race at Walton-on Thames, where he completed 134.6 miles and finished in third place.
Given the fact that many distance races like marathons are now dominated by black athletes, many from countries like Kenya and Ethiopia, one would think that all is now well in the world of long distance races. This 1998 article gave me pause.
KANSAS CITY -- One should be able to stroll the beautiful new Negro Leagues Baseball Museum on the assumption that segregated sports are dead and words like Rube Foster's are forever needless. Foster, a pitcher and Negro league organizer, said in 1902, "If you play the best clubs in the land, white clubs as you say, it will be a case of Greek meeting Greek. I fear nobody."
Such days are far from dead. The day after visiting the museum, the front page of the New York Times had the headline "Kenyan Runners in the U.S. Find Bitter Taste of Success."
Many white officials of U.S. distance road races have grown sick of seeing Kenyans come to town and sweep the top prizes. So sick, so demoralized and so drained of confidence are these race directors, they have essentially created the National Caucasian Runners League.
This still holds true. Unfortunately, Runners World reports that many races give special prize money earmarked for “Americans only.”
Last but not least, the Olympics reportage crossed over into the Trump-related bigotry and Islamophobia involving Ibtihaj Muhammad, a black American fencer who competes wearing hijab. Kudos to Ms. Muhammad for standing her ground. I have a long-term interest in fencing and black fencing history which dates back to my dad’s role on Broadway as a fencer, and continued when I took stage fencing for Howard University. I wrote about some of that history here, in “En Garde! Fencing and black fencing masters.”
There is a lot more to cover, but readers will surely have plenty to add on the topic of race and racism in sports. I look forward to the discussion.