Jesse Owens: Olympic Triumphs and Olympic-Sized Struggles

The African American Olympic sprinter spent much of his life struggling with issues of race.

athletics history of 100 metres world record jesse owens

For years after his athletic career winded down, Owens endured a personal struggle, leading him to prize wealth over principles as he criticized civil rights leaders of the late 1960s. In the decade before his death, his philosophy on race relations progressed, and he finally advocated the civil rights movement.

READ MORE: How Jesse Owens Foiled Hitler's Plans for the 1936 Olympics

Owens faced racial discrimination in school

Owens was born James Cleveland Owens in Oakland, Alabama, in 1913, the youngest in a family of 10 children. When he was 9 years old, his parents relocated the family to Cleveland, Ohio, in search of better economic opportunity. It was there that Owens discovered his passion and talent for running. In junior high school, he met a coach whom he believed set him on the path to athletic success. Later in high school, he tied the world record for the 100-yard dash and the long jump, as well as set a new record for the 220-yard dash.

Owens attended Ohio State University, where his athletic success continued, but the racism and discrimination that was common in the 1930s became a detriment to his training and racing. Unlike his teammates, Owens was not allowed to live on campus because the university did not have housing for Black students. Nor was he provided a scholarship, a privilege that would be standard for any white athlete of his caliber. When he traveled with the team to compete, he had to stay in separate hotels and eat in separate restaurants from the rest of the Ohio State track team.

Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Owens was a very successful college track star, but where he truly earned his fame was at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. The international sporting competition was rife with political controversy imposed largely by Hitler. Hitler’s staging of the games was largely intended to showcase white supremacy, and the very presence of a successful Black athlete was a threat. And yet Owens’ Olympics performance was unlike any before it, or since. He won four gold medals and set new world records in the 200-meter race, long jump, 400-meter relay and he tied the world record for the 100-meter dash.

His stay in Germany showed Owens that a different life was possible for him as a Black man. Unlike back home in the United States, in Germany, Owens trained, traveled and stayed in the same hotels as his white teammates. In the United States, Owens was asked to ride a hotel’s freight elevator to get to a reception being held in his honor. Upon his return to the United States, Owens was faced with fresh challenges. He did not come home to the reception expected for such a winning Olympian. He was not invited to the White House and was personally insulted that he was not offered any honors by President Franklin D. Roosevelt . “After I came home from the 1936 Olympics with my four medals, it became increasingly apparent that everyone was going to slap me on the back, want to shake my hand, or have me up to their suite. But no one was going to offer me a job,” he later said. Due to time spent training and competing at the Olympic level, Owens’ academics suffered, and he was declared ineligible to compete at the university level. He gave up on his education and began pursuing other career opportunities, from starting a Negro baseball league to opening a dry cleaning business. Three years after his Olympic success, he declared bankruptcy.

Jesse Owens

Despite his gold medals, Owens was still a student and had to pump gas during the summers to support his family. Owens was censured for giving up on amateur athletics in pursuit of financial gain in other fields. But he argued that his hand was forced by the discriminatory policies he had faced throughout his athletic career, such as not being eligible for scholarships in college and therefore struggling to squeeze in classes between training and working to pay his way. In an interview in 1971, he addressed the criticism head on, saying, “ I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals. There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a Black man, anyway.”

Owens supported the civil rights movement

His post-1936 experiences seemed to shape his philosophy about race relations in the United States. Owens believed that Black people should fight for power through economic, not political means. In 1968, when Tommie Smith and John Carlos famously gave a Black power salute while receiving their medals in 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 fingers. The only time the Black fist has significance is when there's money inside. There's where the power lies,” Owens said at the time.

In his older age, his philosophy seemed to have developed in the opposite direction, and he spoke out in favor of the civil rights movement and even criticized his own previous statements. In 1980, Owens, a lifelong smoker, died of lung cancer.

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The complicated life of Jesse Owens

3 paragraph essay about jesse owens

There is no way to ignore the “movie-ness” of Race, the director Stephen Hopkins’s triumphal portrait of the track-and-field wunderkind (so to speak) Jesse Owens, who took four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, crushed Hitler’s dreams of a publicity coup and in many ways prepped America for the civil-rights struggle to come. Owens was black, and his success meant that a black man had become an undeniable American hero. (He was even well liked in Germany.) It is a great story.

And as a movie, it might have been made in 1936, save for the black protagonist at its center. “I believed you were meant for great things,” Jesse’s careworn mother (Michelle Lonsdale Smith) tells her son, having sewn him a new jacket to wear as he leaves for Ohio State and the track career that would make his name a household word.

Owens’s experience at school begins with open race­-baiting as well as the more casual but no less vicious institutional bigotry of Depression-era America. His performances amaze all who see them. He wins, he loses, he suffers a stupid injury that he overcomes; and he eventually has to wrestle with the biggest decision of his young life—whether to go to Berlin and compete against the Nazis, or do what the N.A.A.C.P. and others have urged him to do: boycott an Olympic Games being hosted by a murderous, racist regime.

The close-ups tell you where to look; the music tells you how to feel. Which is not to say the indelicately titled “Race” is less than entertaining. It is just obvious and old-fashioned, right up to the relationship at the heart of the movie—no, not the one between Jesse and Ruth (Shanice Banton), his girlfriend and the mother of his child, but the one between Jesse and his coach, Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis). Snyder, with whom Owens would form a lifelong friendship, has been on a losing streak until the arrival of Owens, but the young runner’s rescue of Snyder’s career is given far less emphasis than Snyder’s contributions toward making a man of Owens. The young sprinter cannot even look his coach in the eye when they first meet (because custom says he can’t), but he eventually surpasses his mentor in confidence, ability and, of course, celebrity.

There is one particularly wonderful moment executed by the gifted Stephan James (of “Selma”), who plays Owens, after Snyder has put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. His close-up speaks volumes: Who is this white man touching me? Has a white person ever touched me? What does it mean? Has a man ever touched me? Should I be comforted? Worried? And am I revealing my confusion on my face?

“Race” is a movie about personal victory and national guilt—neither Hitler nor Franklin Roosevelt ever shook Owens’s hand; and, as the film shows, Olympic gold had no influence on what doors Owens was allowed to walk through when he got home to solidly racist America. This adds to the movie-ness of “Race”—it is a movie about a black man, directed by a white man, at a time when Hollywood is under well-deserved attack for its perhaps unconscious but nonetheless damaging policies regarding race, gender and who controls the cameras and, more importantly, the budgets.

The Oscars this year will no doubt be a hot mess of apologies, penance and empty promises; it will be interesting to see how the show’s host, Chris Rock, navigates the eggshells of the motion picture academy’s woeful racial history. “Race” is a noble gesture in its way, something that might restore Owens to the prominence he once enjoyed and inspire young African-Americans. Still, its timing is a little awkward.

So is its take on history, at least the history peripheral to Owens’s personal story. The movie is frank enough. Jesse, though betrothed to Ruth, has an affair with the worldly Quincella Nickerson (Chantel Riley) during a trip to Los Angeles; and their picture makes the papers, which wounds Ruth and endangers the relationship. But the point of “Race” is Owens’s virtues, not any vices, and in such a movie, the off-center characters are often the more intriguing.

This is certainly true here, although Hopkins and the screenwriters Joe Shrapnel and Anne Waterhouse take a page from the book of the man who freed Jesse’s grandfather, Abraham Lincoln: Malice toward none; charity for all. It is a policy that can be taken a bit far, and it certainly is here.

The two most fascinating characters in “Race” are not Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda (a wonderfully loathsome Barnaby Metschurat), whose longed-for P.R. triumph Owens destroys; nor even Adolf Hitler, who has no dialogue, but as embodied by Adrian Zwicker radiates disease and corruption. No, the two unstable explosives in the moral minefield of the 1936 Olympics are Avery Brundage (Jeremy Irons), the longtime International Olympics Committee chair, who was playing financial footsie with the Germans even as he urged the United States not to pull out of the Games; and Leni Riefenstahl, whose filmed account of Berlin ’36—“Olympiad”—is one of the greatest documentaries of all time, albeit one made by an unapologetic enabler of the Third Reich, the Second World War and the Final Solution.

As played by the Dutch actress Carice van Houten, Riefenstahl is pure artiste, devoted to getting her movie made (another example of “Race’s” movie-ness) and willing to defy Goebbels to do it. In reality, she is far more problematic.

As is Brundage, whose long list of “achievements” would include exiling podium protesters Tommie Smith and John Carlos from the ’68 Games in Mexico City. (Brundage never had a problem with the Nazi salute, just the raised black gloves of Smith and Carlos.) He never acknowledged that the teams of South Africa reflected an apartheid regime, never saw a conflict between his purist stance on “amateurism” and the professional athletes of the Soviet bloc, and let the ’72 games in Munich continue even after the massacre of the Israeli athletes. He is a bad actor, and Irons plays him with appropriate oiliness. Still, it feels like the film goes easy on him.

But that is probably O.K. “Race” is Jesse Owens’s story, in the end, and the fact that he rose up amid such ugliness, and ugly people, is a testament to his talent and character. Two of the athlete’s three daughters, Marlene Owens Rankin and Beverly Owens Prather, recently told this writer that their involvement with the Jesse Owens Foundation revealed some interesting phenomena: People the age of, say, Stephan James seem relatively unaware of Owens’s legacy. Younger kids, however, are continually contacting the foundation for help writing school papers and researching their father. One can only hope “Race” accelerates that trend.

Correction (Feb . 15): The name of the character played by Jeremy Irons is Avery Brundage, not Adrian Brundage. 

3 paragraph essay about jesse owens

John Anderson is a film critic for The Wall Street Journal, Time magazine and Newsday.

Charles Rousseau 8 years 1 month ago I am sure the reviewer meant to refer to Avery, not Adrian, Brundage, having just mentioned that name as one of the actors in the film's cast in the same paragraph. I will not serve as an apologist for Mr Brundage as my recollections of him as IOC president during my high school and college years were not favorable over the events of Mexico City and Munich which bore his heavy hand. However, as I have continued to study Olympic history through middle age I now know that there was something to admire from his youth and early personal competition and his stubborn personal zeal toward amateurism and the ideal of the Olympic spirit. I consider him an object lesson and a warning about the corruption of too much power unchallenged for too long a tenure. I also have a personal recollection of Jesse Owens who served as the honorary referee at the first Invitational Track meet hosted by my alma mater, Jesuit High School of Tampa, FL under the sponsorship of our Dad's Club which was determined to host integrated collegiate and scholastic athletic competition among the segregated university and high school teams in Florida. The University of Florida, Florida State University and the University of Miami joined Florida A&M and Ed Waters College on our track along with more than a dozen of the then-racially segregated high schools of Hillsborough County. I still find it ironic that shortly after he appeared at this event as a gracious ambassador for civic equality and an eloquent spokesman for athletic fair play, sportsmanship and the value of education he was prosecuted by the IRS for tax evasion even though he would eventually be honored by two presidents and Congress for his life's work. It was inspiring to see and hear him and it is gratifying to see his legacy continue with another film to keep that spirit vibrant and alive.

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Jesse Owens, one of the greatest athletes of the last century

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Jesse Owens sprinted in three events and competed in the long jump, winning gold in all of them at the intense and racially charged 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Puneet Bansal , Sports Editor February 26, 2021

When a teacher was going through roll call, she mispronounced James Cleveland Owens’ name.

Owens, who grew up in Alabama and moved with his family to Cleveland at the age of nine, had told his teacher his name was “J.C.” Due to his strong Southern accent, however, his teacher heard “Jesse.” The name stuck and from then on, he was known to everyone as Jesse Owens.

  Owens’ family arrived in Ohio during the Great Migration in the 1920s. His family was looking to escape the Jim Crow laws and the poor economic conditions of the South and pursued industrial work in the steel factories of Cleveland. Growing up, Owens worked multiple jobs after school, delivering groceries and loading freight cars to support his parents’ income.

It was during this time that Owens began to realize his natural athletic abilities and his love for running. After enrolling at Fairmont Junior High School, track coach Charles Riley noticed Owens’ extraordinary talent as he ran around in gym class. Impressed, Riley encouraged him to train for the school’s team.

Owens was receptive and Riley immediately placed him in a rigorous training regimen. Riley even conducted some sessions in the early morning so that Owens could continue working after school.

Within the next year, Owens started breaking world records in jumping for his age group. In 1928, at 15 years old, Owens set the high jump record at 6 feet and the long jump record at 22 feet 11.75 inches. He also excelled at sprinting, flying through the 100-yard dash in 11 seconds. Riley’s influence was key in this early development. He used to tell Owens to “Train for four years from next Friday,” emphasizing the long-term outlook needed to keep strong athletes on their path to greatness.  

Owens took this advice seriously and his focus on track intensified at Cleveland’s East Technical High School. Under the guidance of head track coach Edgar Weil and Riley (who became an assistant coach at the school), Owens only improved, piling up victories at the state and national level. During the 1933 National High School Championships in Chicago, Owens equaled the 100-yard dash world record with 9.4 seconds, set a record for the 220-yard dash with 20.7 seconds and won the long jump event after soaring for 24 feet 9.5 inches.  

Following a dazzling start to his athletic career, Owens received numerous offers from universities across the U.S. Ultimately, he chose to attend The Ohio State University (OSU) and continued to develop his form under mentor Larry Snyder. Under his tutelage, Owens garnered the nickname “Buckeye Bullet,” referencing the university’s mascot.

Though Owens was one of the premier track stars in the country, he faced tremendous discrimination. Unlike most other student athletes, Owens was not offered any track scholarships and paid his fees working as a lift operator, waiting tables and pumping gas. Furthermore, Owens, the first black captain of OSU’s track and field athletics team, was not allowed to live on campus or eat at the same restaurants as his fellow white teammates while traveling for competitions.  

The apex of Owens’ college career came on May 25, 1935 at the Big Ten meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In just 45 minutes, Owens set three world records and tied a fourth. He equaled the 100-yard dash record (9.4 seconds) for a second time and set world records for the long jump (26 feet 8.25 inches), the 220-yard sprint (20.3 seconds) and the 220-yard low hurdles (22.6 seconds). Technically, Owens also broke two additional world records if the 220-yard sprint and low hurdles are converted to meters. Many people consider this stellar performance to be “the greatest 45 minutes ever in sports.”

In his third year at OSU, Owens qualified for the 1936 Olympics held in Nazi-occupied Germany. When Adolf Hitler became the chancellor in 1933, he planned to use the 1936 Games to put Aryan supremacy and the Nazi regime on display for the world. Hitler also ordered the construction of a sports stadium, Reich Sports Field, which offered expanded audience capacity and contained several facilities for other sports. The 1936 Berlin Olympics were the first Games to be globally televised, and Hitler intended to capitalize on the attention to spread propaganda.

  In the face of this outwardly racist display in an atmosphere that is supposed to unify all people, Walter Francis White, the secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), almost sent a letter to Owens to deter him from participating in the Olympics. Though this boycotting movement gained traction, Avery Brundage, the head of the American Olympic Committee, declared that the games were a space for athletes first and not politics. Owens eventually decided to participate, drawing much criticism from the NAACP.

Once he touched down in Berlin, Owens put on an athletic showcase that can only be described as magical.

Owens sailed by the rest of the pack in the 100-meter (10.3 seconds) and 200-meter sprint (20.7 seconds), earning two gold medals on the brightest stage.

In the long jump, Owens received advice from German competitor Carl Ludwig “Luz” Long, who recommended that Owens mark the jump board with a towel so he doesn’t commit a foul. Subsequently, Owens won gold in this event as well, jumping 26 feet 5 inches. This highly publicized and beautiful display of connection between athletes from different racial backgrounds sparked hope around the world for unity in sports.

Owens ran the first leg of the 4×100-meter relay championships, anchoring the U.S. team to a record-breaking 39.8 second run. With this win in his final event, Owens became the first American ever to win four gold medals in track and field at one Olympic Games.

On the first day of the Olympic Games, Hitler publicly shook hands with only the German winners. To the great chagrin of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Henri de Baillet-Latour, Hitler ignored the request to greet all medalists and opted to skip all the medal presentations.

Though there is much controversy over whether Hitler “snubbed” Owens (who, on the contrary, claimed Hitler waved at him as he passed the chancellor’s box), the once-in-a-generation performance by Owens derailed Hitler’s racist plans to show Aryan supremacy.

Owens returned to the U.S. a world-famous man. However, his achievements were not properly honored on the national scale. Racism infused itself in Owens’ post-Olympic life. After the celebratory parade in New York City, Owens was prevented from entering the Waldorf Astoria to reach his own reception. He was forced to ride the freight elevator.

Then-president Franklin D. Roosevelt also did not send Owens a congratulatory telegram or invite him to the White House. Sending invitations to sports champions was–and still is–a common practice for presidents in office. In fact, Roosevelt never honored any of the 18 Black athletes who competed in U.S. colors at the 1936 Olympics and only white Olympians were invited to the White House. Some believe that Roosevelt did so for political reasons, not wanting to lose the support of Southern Democrats.

Following the conclusion of the Olympic Games, Owens and the rest of the Olympic team were invited to compete in Sweden. Owens instead opted to return home to take advantage of lucrative endorsement deals. This decision enraged U.S. athletic officials and Owens’ amateur status was removed. Not only did Owens’ athletic career come to an end, but he also lost his sponsorship offers.

“After I came home from the 1936 Olympics with my four medals, it became increasingly apparent that everyone was going to slap me on the back, want to shake my hand or have me up to their suite,” Owens remarked. “But nobody was going to offer me a job.”  

Owens was not properly respected during his time, but his mesmerizing accomplishments left a strong legacy and demonstrated to the world that sports will never be conquered by politicians or ruled by ideologies. 

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Puneet Bansal (she/her) is a fourth-year student majoring in biochemistry and medical anthropology. She loves obsessing over food, spending time outdoors...

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Home / Essay Samples / Sports / Jesse Owens / Jesse Owens: The Man Who Broke The Racial Barrier

Jesse Owens: The Man Who Broke The Racial Barrier

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