Jesse Owens was an African American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, in the 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump and 4x100 meter relay, a performance staged in Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and widely seen at the time and since as a direct rebuttal of Nazi claims of Aryan racial superiority. His long jump world record, set the year before the Berlin Games, stood unbroken for a quarter of a century, and his sweep of four events remains one of the most celebrated individual achievements in Olympic history. Despite his international fame, Owens returned home to an America still governed by segregation, and he was never invited to the White House by the sitting president of the time and struggled for years afterward to find steady, well paying work, taking part in exhibition races against horses and cars to earn a living. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and he remains one of the most enduring symbols of Black athletic achievement in the face of both foreign and domestic racism.
Facts
RoleTrack and field athlete; four-time gold medalist at the 1936 Summer Olympics 1 BirthplaceOakville, Alabama, United States 1 Death PlaceTucson, Arizona, United States 1 Role
Role (category) FAQs
Did Adolf Hitler refuse to shake Jesse Owens's hand at the 1936 Berlin Olympics?
No. The National Archives calls the Hitler snub a myth, and Owens said the real slight was that he was never invited to the White House.
The National Archives calls the story a myth. After the 1936 Games, a tale grew up that a humiliated Adolf Hitler refused to shake hands with Owens. Owens himself addressed the supposed snub, saying: "I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the president, either." The Archives adds that neither Owens nor any of the other persons of color who won medals for the United States in 1936 were invited to the White House to be received by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Connections
In Era
Source Jesse Owens (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
Originated In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.
Source Wikidata: Jesse Owens
Sources
1. Jesse Owens (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationInfobox: Born line
C., on September 12, 1913. He was the youngest of ten children (three girls and seven boys) born to Henry Cleveland Owens (1881-1942), a sharecropper, and Mary Emma Fitzgerald (1876-1940) in Oakville, Alabama.
Infobox: Died line
He died of the disease at age 66 in Tucson, Arizona, on March 31, 1980, with his wife and other family members at his bedside.
Lead sentence
James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 - March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete.
Athletic career section, nickname sentence
Affectionately known as the "Buckeye Bullet" and under the coaching of Larry Snyder, Owens won a record eight individual NCAA championships, four each in 1935 and 1936.
Jesse Owens: Gender
His long jump world record, set the year before the Berlin Games, stood unbroken for a quarter of a century, and his sweep of four events remains one of the most celebrated individual achievements in Olympic history.
In Era: The Contemporary Period, lead paragraph, lifespan
James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 - March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete.
View the Source Wikidata: Jesse Owens
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