The more people seem different from me, be it their nationality, their skin coloring, their sex, viewpoints, religion, or location – the more I see we are the same, once we really get to know each other.
Also, because in the United States we’re still in “Black History Month”, (a separation from plain old “American history” that I think is ridiculous, but that’s a subject for another post), I want to leave you with this one civilization-altering photo taken from Life magazine in 1968:
During the Olympic Games in Mexico City, U.S. athlete Tommie Smith won the 200 metre race in a then-world-record time, with Australia’s Peter Norman second, and U.S.’s John Carlos in third place. After the race was completed, the three went to collect their medals at the podium, where during the U.S. National Anthem, Smith and Carlos raised their fists in a “Black Power” salute to protest the human rights violations in their country, the United States of America.
This took place in October of 1968, just a little over forty years ago. They did this because, in their country, the United States of America, just a little over forty years ago, Americans whose ancestors came from Africa, or the West Indies, or anywhere else in the world nearer the equator where the Creator covered people with darker skin to protect them from the extra sunrays they’d be exposed to, were, by virtue of having that darker skin, judged as “lesser” by other Americans.
So the “inalienable rights” of their Constitution were not extended to them. They couldn’t even drink from the same public water fountains as their lighter-skinned American counterparts, because who knew whether or not dark skin might be catching? (Leaving the ludicrousness of that, as well as Coppertone and tanning salons aside for another post, too.)
The backlash for Mr. Carlos and Mr. Smith, their sports careers, their families, and even to Mr. Norman, the Australian up there with them, who supported them by wearing an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge, was staggering. I won’t detail what repercussions they all suffered – you can read many of them here
But now Smith and Carlos are in their sixties, and when asked recently if they would make the same sign again, in the same place and time, both answered, “Absolutely.”
Mr. Smith and Mr. Carlos realise what they did for the Civil Rights Movement, clearly.
But I wonder if they realise that their one gesture in Mexico City led to the first Black American President, who will shortly begin withdrawal of United States troops from a country which, (in my opinion) we should never have invaded in the first place?
Maybe, at this time, a white Democrat president would do the same, but that’s the not the point, really. The point is that forty years ago, when Smith and Carlos made their decision to stand up and stand out, non-violently,for civil rights, and when they then bravely bore the personal fall-out of that decision, they in essence became the salvation of thousands of young American men and women who will not be deployed to Iraq to fight and die there, and thousands of Iraqi civilians who, as a result, will not die at American hands.
When viewed in that light, the ramifications of Carlos and Smith holding their fists high and still in the air that day, are much more far-reaching than they would ever have imagined standing on that podium in their youth. Something done by two men in Mexico City forty years ago, engendered thousands of lives rescued today in a country where neither have ever been. It makes one wonder how differently history would have turned out if they decided against making their statement, had just taken their gold and bronze medals and gone home.
Everything we do in life, and everything we don’t, has a corollary effect far greater than we can possibly imagine on the entire planet, even if we are not Olympic champions. For example, thanks to some reconnections I’ve made on Facebook recently, I learned that what I said or didn’t say as a teacher in my classroom thirty years ago, still affects some of my former pupils today.
So, what about you? What gestures have you made or not made, what life-transforming thing have you done, said, or written, or not done, not said, not written, that can have had either miraculous or catastrophic results?
For better or worse, all that is done or not done by each of us, reaches far more of us than we could ever dream.
And with that last thought, I say, “Good bye and all good wishes to all of you.”
Patricia Volonakis Davis
February 2009
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