Marking 50 years since Australian Peter Norman’s 1968 Olympics Black Power controversy

This week marks the 50th anniversary of two US Olympic athletes making a Black Power salute at the medal ceremony for the 200-metre sprint final at the 1968 Mexico Games, and the involvement of Australian athlete Norman in what is regarded as one of the most overtly political statements in the history of the modern Olympic Games.

When Tommie Smith and John Carlos each thrust a black-gloved fist into the air as the American national anthem, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, played at the 200 metres medal presentation on 16th October, Norman, the silver medallist, stood in solidarity with the US athletes as they protested racism and lack of equality.

Norman had just run the race of his life in 20.06 seconds, which remarkably still stands as the fastest time set by an Australian in the 200 metres, and followed this feat by not only participating in the protest, wearing the Olympic Project For Human Rights badge, but also helping in its planning.

Smith and Carlos both grew up in the racially charged environment of 1960s America, gained athletics scholarships to San Jose State University in California - a track powerhouse, and, in the months that followed the assassination of the American clergyman and civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the pair wanted to run for something more inclusive than an individual medal.

Following their actions, then International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Avery Brundage deemed Smith and Carlos’ act to be a domestic political statement unfit for the apolitical, international forum the Olympic Games were intended to be.

In response to their actions, he ordered Smith and Carlos suspended from the US team and banned from the Olympic Village.

When the US Olympic Committee refused, Brundage threatened to ban the entire US track team. This threat led to the expulsion of the two athletes from the Games.

Brundage, who was President of the United States Olympic Committee in 1936, had made no objections against Nazi salutes during the Berlin Olympics. He argued that the Nazi salute, being a national salute at the time, was acceptable in a competition of nations, while the athletes' salute was not of a nation and therefore unacceptable.

After the Games, Smith and Carlos were largely ostracised by the US sporting establishment and were subject to considerable abuse, receiving death threats.

Smith continued in athletics, playing in the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals before becoming an Assistant Professor of physical education at Oberlin College.

As their stand came to be respected, Carlos was employed by the Organizing Committee for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles to promote the games and act as liaison with the city's black community and in 2008 Smith and Carlos received an Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2008 ESPY Awards honouring their action.

Returning to Australia, Norman was criticised by conservatives in the Australian media was shunned by athletics officials, with a 2012 CNN profile saying that "he returned home to Australia a pariah, suffering unofficial sanction and ridicule as the Black Power salute's forgotten man. He never ran in the Olympics again."

Carlos later stated that "If we (Carlos and Smith) were getting beat up, Peter was facing an entire country and suffering alone."

While he represented Australia at the 1970 Commonwealth Games, he was not picked for the 1972 Summer Olympics, despite having qualified 13 times over and was not welcomed even three decades later at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

However, Australian officials say he was not picked for the 1972 Games because he came third in the Australian trials, in part due to a knee injury which severely affected his performance and that he was only cautioned after the 1968 incident.

When Norman died in 2006, Smith and Carlos were pallbearers at his funeral.

In October 2012 the Australian House of Representatives passed the wording of an official apology to Norman that read “this House: (1) recognises the extraordinary athletic achievements of the late Peter Norman, who won the silver medal in the 200 metres sprint running event at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, in a time of 20.06 seconds, which still stands as the Australian record; (2) acknowledges the bravery of Peter Norman in donning an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge on the podium, in solidarity with African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who gave the ‘black power’ salute; (3) apologises to Peter Norman for the treatment he received upon his return to Australia, and the failure to fully recognise his inspirational role before his untimely death in 2006; and (4) belatedly recognises the powerful role that Peter Norman played in furthering racial equality."

Earlier this year, the Australian Olympic Committee posthumously awarded Norman the Order of Merit while, earlier this month, the Victorian Government announced that a statue will be erected in his honour at Melbourne’s major athletics venue, the Lakeside Stadium.

In the USA there are already several statues of the incident, most notably at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC  - although Norman’s place on podium is left empty in the statue at San Jose State University. Norman reportedly requested that his space was left empty so visitors could stand in his place and feel what he felt.

Since 2006, the USA Track and Field Federation has marked 9th October, the day of Norman’s funeral, as Peter Norman Day.

In the Sydney suburb of Newtown, an airbrush mural of the trio on podium was painted in 2000 and is now listed as an item of heritage significance.

Sam Benton, journalist, Australasian Leisure Management.

Images (top, from left): Peter Norman, Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the 200 metres winners podium at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics; the act as marked on a mural in Sydney (middle) and in a statue at San Jose State University (below).

Article amended 22nd October 2018, ref: JB/MM.