The 1936 Olympic Games

This picture is one of the many pictures from the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany. This was a time of intense racial prejudice against blacks. Hitler’s Aryan race was said to be the perfect race, with the features of blonde hair, fair skin, and blue eyes. Hitler wanted his Aryan race to dominate the world, and the unveiling of their athletic dominance was supposed to happen in 1938 in Berlin, Germany at the Olympic Games.
At first there was fear for the safety of the 18 African American athletes that would be traveling to compete in Nazi Germany, but after the African American community encouraged their participation, they could not let down their people. The African Americans dominated the Olympic Games, often crushing Hitler’s Aryans. African Americans took home 14 gold medals, and numerous others. The star that arose from the games would be Jesse Owens, who participated in track and field events. This media image pictures Jesse Owens winning one of his four gold medals of the Games. To the right is an Aryan athlete, and the left another athlete. This is a powerful image showing that the African Americans can indeed beat the dominant white races that Africans have been oppressed by for so long. African Americans went into the Olympics knowing that they were the underdogs, and that no one thought they would win or succeed at anything, but African Americans proved the world wrong, and more so they proved that the Aryan race was not perfect.
Why were the African American’s still not given the rights of the whites more than 60 years after Lincoln declared their emancipation? According to Zinn’s chapter 9, “Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom,” on page 142 he discusses Lincoln’s 1962 Emancipation Proclamation, which gave slaves their freedom. But even when you just look at part of the title of the chapter, “Emancipation Without Freedom,” that is a perfect description of what the African Americans faced after emancipation. They were discriminated, segregated, and killed and beaten for what they looked like. But the African Americans did not give up fighting for their rights, and even 60 years after slaves were emancipated they were facing some of the most powerful effects of racism, but they proved the world wrong with their strength, endurance, and courage. To this day racism still exists, and African Americans still do not give up fighting for what is supposed to be equal rights for all mankind.
(http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007088)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens)