While preparing to compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, Owens was bombarded with comments of disapproval from Adolf Hitler, who was completely against Jesse Owens competing. Even today, racism surrounds not only our country, but also our world.
Jesse “J.C” Owens, the son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave, is a renowned and popular historical figure. He is treated with awe for his physical accomplishments as a record-breaking Olympic champion, but he is also recognized for overcoming the humiliating and abusive treatment he encountered while working towards this goal. Owens was born on September 12, 1913 in Alabama, as the tenth and final child of Mary and Henry Owens. When he was young, Owens suffered from a severe lung disease, pneumonia (Israel 5), however he still managed to swim and fish, and develop a love for running (Israel 6). Owens did not officially attend elementary school, but he did attend Cleveland East Technical for his high school years where he met a coach
Jim Thorpe is perhaps one of the best athletes the world has ever seen. His accomplishments throughout his life are records that might not ever be broken. He set the standard for being a prime example for an athlete in even the modern period we have today. On May 28, 1888 in Prague, Ok, an amazing athlete was born.
At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, “African American sprinter Jesse Owen amazed the world by breaking records and winning, four gold medals in Berlin, the headquarters of Hitler’s Nazi regime” (Jesse Owens). Owens shocked the world when he won four gold medals in one olympic. He shocked Americans and Hitler, but mostly Hitler. Hitler became really mad and left the stadium so he wouldn't have to congratulate Jesse Owens. Also, “Owen became known not only for his athletic triumphs but for his epic embrace with Aryan German competitor Luz Long and for the social barriers he broke down in the face of Hitler’s Nazi regime.
Meaning that if Owens did not possess any of these attributes and sources, he wouldn 't have made as big of an impact as he did. Jesse Owens knew he possessed these key elements and had a challenging journey.
Not everyone was treated equal in the Olympics. When the Olympics were being held in Berlin, Hitler came up with a policy of Aryans-only (Olympics). The non-aryans or Jews were
“His stunning achievement of four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin has made him the best remembered athlete in Olympic history” (“Biography”). It is a myth that Hitler did not want to shake Owens’s hand because he is black. Besides
Adolf Hitler was a major part of the controversy that the Olympics held. Hitler wanted his master race to reign supreme above all of the other races. He helped his cause by covering everything that had to do with his hate toward the jews. He believed his master race would win every event in the Olympics.
The 1936 Summer Olympics was officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad. In the Olympics, Adolf Hitler hosted it in Berlin, Germany. At first Hitler did not want to host the Olympics because he detested the thought of athletes of all nations and all races coming together and competing on equal terms. Later on Joseph Goebbels, Hitler 's advisor, convinced Hitler that hosting the Olympics would be an ideal distraction. It would give the Nazis a chance to portray Germany as a civilized and modern state.
He proved to himself and to everybody that it doesn’t matter the color of your skin is a great athlete is a great athlete. He also made Adolf Hitler’s “Aryan dominance theory look dumb at the Olympics. Hitler stormed out of the arena and in great anger because Jesse Owens won defeated Hitler's ideas.
Jesse Owens was the hero of the Berlin Olympics in 1936. His record-breaking races and achievement of four gold medals, as an African-American, not only aided in the overthrowing of the Nazi Empire but respect and glory for blacks in the South. Owens contribution to the world was that of impacting race relations in the US and discouraging world domination for Hitler. Owens is also credited with the act of challenging Hitler's empire and the Aryan Society to impose it as a weaker source. Although Owen's legacy was known for gaining african-american respect and the humiliation of Adolf Hitler, he was still just a man of integrity and morals who used his skills on the track to take a stand.
Not soon after competing in the 1936 Olympic Games, Jesse retired from competitions and discovered that he could make money with his physical talents. He fell in love with public relations and marketing, and he built a business for himself in Chicago, Illinois, where he essentially passed his final days there with his three daughters and his wife Ruth Owens. He made a big difference in this world, and inspired many to always follow their dreams. He made it his life’s work to try and change the world around him by traveling around the world to give speeches, and creating and organization called The Jesse Owens Foundation; whose goal is to help the youth achieve their full
He is ranked the sixth best athlete in the U.S. of his century. In 1968, when Tommie Smith and John Carlos famously gave a Black Power salute while receiving their medals at the Summer Games in Mexico City for the 200-meter race, Owens spoke against them. “The Black Fist is a meaningless symbol. When you open it, you have nothing but fingers — weak, empty
Berlin is typically known as the Nazi Olympics so that in itself can be estimate to the controversy surrounding the game. People in the United States and Europe, for the first time, called for a boycott of the Olympic Games. They believed this was a travesty and a mockery that such a historic event, meant for entertainment and excitement, would be help in a place with so much devastating history. It was too much too soon. Nazis used the Olympics as symbolism for a new, strengthened, and united Germany attempting to overshadow the holocaust.
Kass himself believes that the Americans attending the Olympics proved to be huge. This was proven most of all by American star Olympian Jesse Owens, as he won four gold medals and it reflected very badly upon the Germans to be defeated by an African American. Adolf Hitler further proved this point by not congratulating Owens, as he did most athletes. Kass effectively brought in the backgrounds and involvement of people such as Avery Brundage, George Sherrill, Hitler, and Dr. Paul Goebbels to further ad more effectively develop his point of just how significant it was for the Americans to participate in the Berlin Olympics and make a dent in the idea of Aryan supremacy.
