By Jerome Pugmire
Paris: Olympic champion Tommie Smith, responsible for one of the most famous photos in Games history, has paid tribute to Australia’s Peter Norman more than 50 years after their stand for civil rights in Mexico City.
Smith was a guest speaker at the Musee de l’Immigration (Museum of Immigration) at the Palais de la Porte Doree on Tuesday, just over six weeks from the start of the Olympic Games.
He won the 200m in 1968, with Norman finishing second ahead of Smith’s countryman John Carlos.
Standing on the podium, head bowed, he thrust a gloved right fist up in the air. Carlos did the same with his left fist, while Norman wore a badge on the podium with “Olympic Project for Human Rights” written on it.
It was a way of protesting how black people were being treated in the United States and to demand better human rights for everyone regardless of colour, cause or nationality.
Smith only discussed the idea with Carlos moments before they raced. Norman knew what they were going to do and made a decision. He paid a heavy price for his actions, and was not selected for the Munich Games four years later, while Smith and Carlos were sent home from Mexico City. Both Americans were pallbearers at Norman’s funeral after he died in 2006, aged 64.
Peter Norman, Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the dais at the Mexico Olympics. Inset, Norman.Credit: Fairfax Media/Jamie Brown
On Tuesday, Smith took time to discuss Norman’s actions that day. He said Norman was not just backing them up, he was doing so much more than that. Norman was joining them in solidarity, making a stand in his own way.
“One of the greatest persons I’ve ever met,” Smith said of the late Norman, who was posthumously given Australia’s highest Olympic award, the Order of Merit. “He was part of the belief in human rights.”
When Smith took the stage in Paris, the audience stood to applaud. A second ovation was even longer, and the 80-year-old seemed overwhelmed with emotion. He lowered his head, clasped it in his hands and wept for several moments.
He had just been asked if he still fights against racism in society.
Tommie Smith gestures in front of the famous photograph of him, Norman and Carlos at the 1968 Olympics, at the Immigration Museum, in Paris.Credit: AP
“Even until this day. I do,” Smith said. “A perpetual stand, forever. As long as there are human beings fighting for the rights of each other.”
Smith’s raised right fist still speaks for itself, even in an era in which athletes have much more freedom to voice their opinions — though the Olympic Charter still prohibits political protests at medal ceremonies.
“I fought for the right to be human and not segregated,” Smith said. “The world needed to come together in erasing racism and producing social thought.”
During the symposium he explained why — on that October day in ’68 — there were no words spoken in what he calls “a silent gesture.” There was, he explained, the fact that journalists rarely asked athletes for an opinion on anything back then, but also something far deeper — a desire for unification.
“It was a visionary thought that I believed everyone could understand,” Smith said. “A raised fist above my head represented you as an individual.”
AP
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