Missing the Olympics? Then here’s a quiz question: Name the white 200m silver medallist who
stood with Tommie Smith and John Carlos as they conducted their Black Power
salute at the 1968 Mexico games. If you
were watching the BBC before Thursday’s 200m final you’ll know the answer is Peter
Norman. By coincidence that was the day I watched Salute, a timely new DVD telling of the events that led to that historic
moment and of the repercussions.
The current marketing of Salute (originally released in Australia in 2008) implies it’s a
film about the three men and although all give extensive interviews, together
and separately, and have an unshakeable historic and personal bond, it was made by Matt Norman and its focus is on the often overlooked one, his uncle Peter.
Rather than Peter Norman being an unwitting accompanist in events,
it’s Carlos’s belief that it was God’s will to put them all on earth for
that moment. “It was destined to be me”
said Peter.
Amid the violent civil rights struggle of
1968, black American athletes threatened to boycott the games as advocated by
the Olympic Project For Human Rights. White America gladly allowed these athletes to represent their country –
and win medals for them - but not eat in their restaurants and use their
washrooms. As Norman notes, boycotting
the games would’ve taken away the platform the athletes had to raise awareness.
Also if they hadn’t competed the media and public would have accused them of
being un-American and of turning their back on a challenge. Mexico itself had
witnessed student riots in the weeks before the games; reporting had been
minimal but Carlos now believes 2000 people were killed. With that tension in the air athletes were told
not to make any political protest and given warnings of death threats against
anyone considering one.
After the fastest 200m race in history, Smith and
Carlos planned their black glove protest but when Carlos left his gloves back in the village
it was Norman who suggested they wore one each. He in turn wore an
Olympic Project For Human Rights badge on his tracksuit in solidarity. Behind
Peter Norman, Tommie Smith took a deep breath, bowed his head, raised his fist and
John Carlos followed to the stunned silence of 80,000 people in the stadium and
the watching world.
Smith and Carlos were banned from the Olympics for life.
Destitute, Smith washed cars and Carlos’s first wife tragically took her own life under the pressure. When Norman qualified for the 1972 games, and
was ranked fifth in the world, Australia decided – for the first and only time –
not to send any sprinters to the Olympic Games. Even when Sydney hosted the
Olympics in 2000, Norman was the only Australian Olympian not invited to
represent his country in any official capacity. It beggars belief. Incidentally, his 1968 silver medal time would have been enough
to secure gold in 2000.
Peter Norman called Smith and Carlos heroes in sacrificing
personal glory for the good of the cause. He himself wanted to be thought of as "an interesting old guy". When he died in 2006 Smith and Carlos both read moving
eulogies (“My friend, Peter Norman, the humanitarian, who believed right can
never be wrong”) and carried his coffin.
Salute by Matt
Norman is released on DVD by Arrow Films.
No comments:
Post a Comment