jesse owens
he is a inspiration for all of us

James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete who specialized in the sprints and the long jump. He participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, where he achieved international fame by winning four gold medals: one each in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the long jump, and as part of the4x100 meter relay team. He was the most successful athlete at the 1936 Summer Olympics.

The Jesse Owens Award, USA Track and Field's highest accolade for the year's best track and field athlete, is named after him, in honor of his significant career.

Personal information
Full name	James Cleveland Owens
Nationality	American
Born	September 12, 1913 Oakville, Alabama, USA
Died	March 31, 1980 (aged 66) Tucson, Arizona, USA
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Weight	165 lb (75 kg)
Sport
Sport	Track and field athletics
Event(s)	Sprint, Long jump
Medal record[hide] Men's athletics Competitor for the  United States Olympic Games Gold 1936 Berlin 100 m Gold 1936 Berlin 200 m Gold 1936 Berlin 4×100 m relay Gold 1936 Berlin Long jump

Berlin Olympics

Owens performing the long jump at the Olympics.

In 1936, Owens arrived in Berlin to compete for the United States in the Summer Olympics. Adolf Hitler was using the games to show the world a resurgent Nazi Germany.^[6] He and other government officials had high hopes that German athletes would dominate the games with victories (the German athletes achieved a "top of the table" medal haul). Meanwhile, Nazi propaganda promoted concepts of "Aryanracial superiority" and depicted ethnic Africans as inferior.^[6][7]

Owens surprised many^[6] by winning four gold medals: On August 3, 1936, he won the 100m sprint, defeating Ralph Metcalfe; on August 4, the long jump (later crediting friendly and helpful advice from Luz Long, the German competitor he ultimately defeated);^[4] on August 5, the 200m sprint; and, after he was added to the 4 x 100 m relay team, following a request by the Germans to replace a Jewish-American sprinter,^[8] he won his fourth on August 9 (a performance not equaled until Carl Lewis won gold medals in the same events at the 1984 Summer Olympics).

Just before the competitions, Owens was visited in the Olympic village by Adi Dassler, the founder of the Adidas athletic shoe company. He persuaded Owens to use Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik shoes^[9], the first sponsorship for a male African-American athlete.^[10]

The long-jump victory is documented, along with many other 1936 events, in the 1938 film Olympia by Leni Riefenstahl.

On the first day, Hitler shook hands only with the German victors and then left the stadium. Olympic committee officials insisted Hitler greet every medalist or none at all. Hitler opted for the latter and skipped all further medal presentations.^[11][12] On reports that Hitler had deliberately avoided acknowledging his victories, and had refused to shake his hand, Owens said at the time:

"Hitler had a certain time to come to the stadium and a certain time to leave." "It happened he had to leave before the victory ceremony after the 100 meters. But before he left I was on my way to a broadcast and passed near his box. He waved at me and I waved back. I think it was bad taste to criticize the 'man of the hour' in another country."^[13]

Away from the public eye, Hitler expressed his true feelings and disgust at Owens. Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and later war armaments minister, later recollected:

Each of the German victories, and there were a surprising number of these, made him happy, but he was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games.^[14]

Jesse Owens on the podium after winning the long jump at the 1936 Summer Olympics. L-R, on podium,Naoto Tajima, Owens, Luz Long.

Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels in Germany as whites, while at the time blacks in many parts of the United States had to stay in segregated hotels while traveling. After a New York City ticker-tape parade of Fifth Avenue in his honor, Owens had to ride the freight elevator at the Waldorf-Astoria to reach the reception honoring him.^[4]

Owens said, "Hitler didn't snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram."^[15] On the other hand, Hitler sent Owens a commemorative inscribed cabinet photograph of himself.^[16] Jesse Owens was never invited to the White House nor were honors bestowed upon him by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) or his successor Harry S. Truman during their terms. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower (himself an athlete of note) honored Owens by naming him an "Ambassador of Sports."

[edit]Legacy

The dormitory used by Owens during the Olympics has been fully restored into a living museum, with pictures of his accomplishments at the Games, and a letter (intercepted by the Gestapo) from a fan urging him not to shake hands with Hitler.

Owens and Minnie Ruth Solomon met at Fairmount Junior High School in Cleveland when he was 15 years old and she was 13 years old. They dated steadily through high school. Ruth gave birth to their first daughter, Gloria, in 1932. They married in 1935 and had two more daughters together: Marlene, born in 1939, and Beverly, born in 1940. They remained married until his death.

Death

Owens, a pack-a-day cigarette smoker for 35 years, had been hospitalized with an extremely aggressive and drug-resistant type of lung cancer on and off beginning in December 1979. He died in Tucson, Arizona, on March 31, 1980, with his wife and other family members at his bedside.^[28] He is buried in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.

[edit]Awards, tributes and honors

• In 1936, four English Oak saplings, one for each Olympic gold medal, from the German Olympic Committee. The only survivor is believed to be an oak tree on The Ohio State University campus.^[29]
• In 1970, Owens was inducted to the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.
• In 1976 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford.
• In 1980, a new asteroid was discovered by Antonín Mrkos at Kleť Observatory which was named as 6758 Jesseowens in honor of Jesse Owens.
• USA Track and Field created the Jesse Owens Award in 1981, which is given annually to the country's top track and field athlete.
• In 1984, an Emmy Award-winning biographical television film of his life, The Jesse Owens Story, was released, with Dorian Harewood portraying Owens.
• In 1984 a street near the Olympic Stadium in Berlin was renamed Jesse-Owens-Allee, and the Jesse Owens Realschule/Oberschule (a secondary school) in Berlin-Lichtenberg, was named for him.
• In 1988, he was portrayed in King of the Olympics: The Lives and Loves of Avery Brundage by Ronnie Britton.
• On March 28, 1990, Owens was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President George H. W. Bush.
• Two U.S. postage stamps have been issued to honor Owens, one in 1990 and another in 1998.
• In 1996, Owens's hometown of Oakville, Alabama, dedicated Jesse Owens Memorial Park in his honor, at the same time that the Olympic Torch came through the community, 60 years after his Olympic triumph. An article in the Wall Street Journal of June 7, 1996, covered the event and included this inscription written by poet Charles Ghigna that appears on a bronze plaque at the Park:

May his light shine forever as a symbol

for all who run for the freedom of sport,

for the spirit of humanity,

for the memory of Jesse Owens.

• In 2001, The Ohio State University dedicated Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium for track and field events. The campus also houses three recreational centers for students and staff named in his honor.^[30]
• In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Jesse Owens on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.^[31]
• In Cleveland, Ohio, a statue of Owens in his Ohio State track suit was installed at Fort Huntington Park, west of the old Courthouse.^[32]
• Phoenix, Arizona named the Jesse Owens Medical Plaza in his honor, as well as Jesse Owens Parkway.
• In Markus Zusak's 2006 hit, The Book Thief, a character named Rudy Steiner covers himself with charcoal and runs 100 meters at the local sporting field. This was known around Rudy's neighborhood as the "Jesse Owens" incident. Later in the book when he dies, protagonist Liesel Meminger calls him "Jesse Owens" in her attempts to revive him.
• Jesse Owens Park, located in Tucson, Arizona, is a staple of local youth athletics there.
• At the 2009 World Athletic Championships in Berlin, all members of the United States Track & Field team wore badges with "JO" to commemorate Owens's victories in the same stadium 73 years before.^[33]
• In early 2010, the Ohio Historical Society proposed Jesse Owens as a finalist from a statewide vote for inclusion in Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol.
• On Monday, November 15, 2010, the city of Cleveland renamed East Roadway, between Rockwell and Superior avenues in Public Square, Jesse Owens Way, in hopes that it will keep the great Jesse Owens on the minds of all sports fans.^[34]
• A novel in French written by Lebanese novelist Alexandre Najjar, Berlin 36, Plon (publisher), Paris, 2009, tells the story of Owens, particularly during the Berlin Olympic games. Najjar visited Chicago, Ohio and Alabama to achieve this distinguished tribute to Owens.
• For his contribution to sports in Los Angeles, he was honored with a Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum "Court of Honor" plaque by the Coliseum commissioners.

• [edit]See also

• List of multiple Olympic gold medalists at a single Games

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