Jesse Owens

On the afternoon of August 3, 1936, Jesse Owens settled into the starting blocks at Berlin's Olympiastadion and began what would become the most celebrated individual performance in Olympic history. Over the following week — competing under Adolf Hitler's gaze, before crowds of 100,000 in an arena draped with swastika banners — Owens won four gold medals in the 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump, and 4×100 relay, setting three world records in the process. The Games had been staged to demonstrate the physical supremacy of the Aryan race. Owens, a Black man from rural Alabama, rendered the premise visibly absurd.

The story of Owens in Berlin has accumulated legend faster than it has lost accuracy. Hitler's supposed snub — the most famous version has the Führer deliberately refusing to acknowledge Owens' victories — is almost certainly false; Owens himself said repeatedly that Hitler caught his eye and waved from his box, and it was the American president who never acknowledged him. Franklin Roosevelt never sent Owens a telegram or invited him to the White House. Upon returning to a ticker-tape parade in New York, Owens was required to enter the celebratory banquet at the Waldorf-Astoria through the service entrance.

Owens had already announced himself a year earlier at the 1935 Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, where he broke three world records and tied a fourth in 45 minutes — a performance that some track historians consider the single greatest afternoon in athletic history. After Berlin, he struggled financially for years, reduced at times to racing against horses at exhibitions to earn money. Recognition came late: Gerald Ford awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976, four years before his death.