Tommie Smith, who stood on the top step of the 1968 Olympic 200m podium, his black-gloved right fist raised, hopes that all athletes can learn from the history made that night in Mexico City.
“Use words that bring them together, not separate and then apologize for it,” Smith recently told an NBC affiliate in Grand Rapids, Mich. “Think first before you act. Then move with the justice of freedom. Move with the idea of we are one.”
When Smith and bronze medalist John Carlos raised their fists in Mexico City, wearing Olympic Project for Human Rights buttons along with Australian silver medalist Peter Norman, they were calling attention to people being oppressed around the world.