The Smith-Carlos Black Power salute: Once vilified, now praised
Al JazeeraFifty years ago, two African American track-and-field stars, having just been awarded their medals at the 1968 Olympic Summer Games and very aware that the eyes of the world were fastened to them, bowed their heads and raised black-gloved clenched fists under a Mexico City sky. As the Star-Spangled Banner played that night in 1968, they bowed their heads and raised their gloved fists, Smith’s right and Carlos’s left, in what is usually described as an unambiguous Black Power salute. Chicago columnist Brent Musburger went even further than most of their detractors and anointed Smith and Carlos, who had explicitly taken an anti-racist stance, “black-skinned stormtroopers”. This began in 2005, with Smith and Carlos’s alma mater San Jose State erecting statues to two as part of an entirely student-led endeavour and initially, without the support of the administration, Zirin said. ‘Easier to praise people in hindsight’ Fifty years later, however, Carlos and Smith’s defining moment has largely been embraced by the mainstream in the US, not only as just, but also as heroic.
History of this topic
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