An Intimate Discussion with

1968 Olympian John Carlos

Photo: Leila Khaled

John Carlos

On February 17th, Chicago State University hosted Heritage & Horizons: The African American Legacy & the Challenges of the 21st Century with 1968 Olympian John Carlos at the featured speaker.

As a young boy, John Carlos dreamed of himself standing on a box inside of a stadium to an applauding audience. In the dream, Carlos was still a child and felt the excitement of the moment. He just didn’t know what he had done to make the excited crowd so happy. But within an instant, their happiness turned to hatred and then to bitterness. They began throwing things at him and spitting on him. Disturbed, he told his father about the dream the next morning. His dad said, “God has something in store for you. We’ll have to wait to see what it is.” Unfortunately, he wouldn’t live long enough to see John Carlos run his first race.

John Carlos was born in Harlem in 1945. In school, he had difficulty with reading and writing. So much so that the other children would put a paper hat on him with the word ‘dummy’ written across the top.

Although basic skills were a challenge, Carlos was quite the observer, “This dummy began to look around Harlem and see a divide taking place. I woke up to White Flight. The only Whites that stayed in Harlem had businesses. There were Blacks working in these businesses but I would see a White man come out and clear the register. I remember going home and telling my brother that we [Blacks] didn’t own anything and how Whites owned the stores. My father had his own business and I guess I’m from the same stock. Even as a boy I would say why should I work for someone else when I can put myself to work?”

Carlos took stock of the city agencies as well. He noticed that there were only two Black police detectives in Harlem and no Black firefighters. “The things I was seeing, I was seeing by myself. My friends were doing what young men do and I liked the same things but there were a lot of things I noticed. I was concerned.”

His father, a shoemaker, owned a shop on 142nd Street, a half-block from the Savoy, and knew plenty of prominent Blacks in the neighborhood, including Paul Robeson. Carlos became friends with Malcolm X and remembers, “A few days before his assassination, I was in the car with him. I was just learning how to drive and had to take the test on the same day as his meeting at the Audubon. I told him I couldn’t come and to this day I wish I had gone because perhaps I could’ve been there to help save that man’s life.”

In high school, Carlos became an accomplished athlete winning a track & field scholarship to East Texas University before returning to New York and then transferring to San Jose State University (SJSU). Carlos was in New York the summer of 1967 which was the height of the Black Power and Civil Rights movements. By this time, Carlos had participated in the Pan American Games winning a gold medal and was training for the 1968 Olympics. Muhammad Ali had already refused to be drafted because of his new found faith and student takeovers of college campuses were happening across the United States. Professor Harry Edwards of SJSU had founded the Olympic Project for Human Rights and was planning a boycott of the upcoming games and the news had reached Dr. King. Carlos was summoned to a meeting at a Manhattan hotel by a friend. He knocked on the door of the room and to his surprise, Andrew Young answered. Soon thereafter, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. arrived and Carlos describes the moment as life-changing.

Carlos recalls, “He said [Dr. King], this meeting was called because I would like to be a part of what you are doing. I asked him why? He said, if we [Blacks] took a step back and refused to go, the message would go to the ends of the world.” Dr. King said he would follow Carlos’ lead and would be second in charge.

Dr. King was on his way to Memphis and Carlos asked him, “If people in Memphis want to kill you, why are you going?” Dr. King responded, “We have to go back to stand for those who won’t stand for themselves and for those who can’t stand for themselves.” Ten months later and before the Games, Dr. King was assassinated in April 1968 and in June, Robert F. Kennedy suffered the same fate.

A full-scale boycott of the 1968 Olympic Games never developed but Carlos and friend Tommie Smith both wanted to take a stand. “You have to make a decision at certain times in your life. No one wants to be an activist but someone has to step up.” After winning the bronze and the gold, Carlos and Smith brought symbols of the Black struggle in America to the medals ceremony; beads around his neck for the lynchings of Blacks, black socks for the children in the South with no shoes, black gloves because the event was being broadcast in Technicolor and there would be no mistaking their color, and the fist to show Black people that each person is a finger with their own mind. The bringing together of the fingers was power, unity, and true grit.

To the chagrin of the United States Olympic Committee, over 400million worldwide viewers watched the defiant stand on ABC.

The USOC attempted to revoke the awarded medals and Carlos says, “They didn’t give me a medal, I earned it. I told them that my medal belonged to my kids. If you are going to take it, bring the militia ‘cause it ain’t gon be no easy fight. My Mexican visa said I could stay in Mexico as long as I didn’t break the law so I went to another part of the country and that was the end of that.”

Returning to the United States would be no easy homecoming. Three days after the Games, two of his brothers who were serving in the military were abruptly discharged and Carlos was immediately visited by the FBI. He says their first question was, “What do you want? A house on the hill? A big fat bank account? Cars? You want to be in the movies? Jim Brown is about to retire.” He goes on to say, “They offer you the movies to quell ‘Black Anger’. The feds visit everyone.” He named three famous rappers who released derogatory songs about the police only to become watered down movie stars. Carlos told the agents, “If you gave me all that, you would have to give it to everyone on the block.”

After this encounter, finding work proved to be impossible. “I couldn’t find employment and this is hard to handle as a man because I couldn’t provide for my wife and child. Depression set in and I didn’t want to get out of bed. My first wife committed suicide because she couldn’t handle the pressure when the government came down on us. I mean, they really came down. I couldn’t work and my so-called friends walked away. That hurt as much as my wife’s death. But, after coming full circle, everyone now wants to take a picture with you and say they were with you. But, one person who was there for me was George Foreman. George was there when nobody else was.”

Carlos took questions from the audience and encouraged Chicago State University students to reach out to their wayward friends, “All of you know ten individuals who are going the wrong way. It’s your job to reel them in. All you fly girls, you have the key. Tell these boys to get in the classroom. The mission is the same today…resurrect and save our kids. We are looking to pass off and there is no one to pass the baton to. A lot of these athletes are successful to themselves, not to their race. We are sitting back like our hands are tired. If I have to die, I’m going to feel good about it. My life is to make a better life for my kids.”

Carlos is the godfather of White Sox General Manager Ken Williams. When Carlos first arrived in California, he ran with the track club of Santa Clara Youth Village and attended a gathering of the nation’s top sprinters at the home of Jerry Williams, Ken Williams’ father, and the two formed an instant bond.

Photo: Courtesy of Chicago White Sox/Ron Vesely

White Sox General Manager Ken Williams

“Jerry Williams and his wife could have changed the course of history. If it weren’t for them, I would’ve never stayed in San Jose. We can’t express the pride and joy we have in seeing him [Ken Williams] do his thing...we know what ingredients we put in him to make him who he is.

“He’s very aggressive and he gets the job done and he never lets his ego get out of control. I follow everything going on with Kenny and the White Sox. Jerry Reinsdorf put a lot of faith in him.” Metropolis

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