CLEVELAND — He was fast, n his day the fastest in the world. A Cleveland man who could outrun the wind, or so it seemed.
In this Olympic Games year, there is always a look back with a nod of respect, of admiration, for not only what Jesse Owens did, but also when and how he did it.
His was a golden story of the 1936 Olympics in Germany. Jesse Owens won four gold medals in track, all of this a year after breaking three track world records and tying a fourth in the Big Ten Championships when he was a student at The Ohio State University. Still, he could not outrun racism.
While at Ohio State, Owens could not live on campus with white students. He could not always eat with teammates at all restaurants, unless it was in sections designated for Blacks.
Still, he ran, setting records, but without a scholarship — so he worked different campus jobs to cover college costs.
This could be called the "underside of fame."
After performing at heroic levels for the United States at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, German Chancellor Adolph Hitler refused to congratulate Owens because Owens was Black, and destroyed Hitler's myth of Aryan superiority. On the victory trip home, Owens was celebrated with a ticker tape parade in New York City.
But at the New York hotel where he was celebrated, the restaurant was off limits, as was the guests' elevator.
Later, American Olympic medal winners were invited by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the White House, but only the white medalists. The snub was part of the underside of fame.
Hometown Cleveland saluted Owens with a big parade, but few — if any — paying endorsements came. And the kinds of jobs which would have come had Owens done what he did a half century or more later were not there.
Cleveland did give him a position with the city's parks and recreation department.
All his life, he publicly represented America in the highest way. But during this time of the 2024 Olympics, it is good to reflect on what Jesse Owens accomplished in the 1936 games. Years before World War II, years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major Leagues Baseball, Cleveland's Jesse Owens was there, and winning, even as the underside of fame was often on the other side of the finish line.