Olympic Pride, American Prejudice

Gr 7 Up—The opening photo montage of African American athletes at the 1936 Berlin Olympics quickly establishes that Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe were not the only black competitors representing America; there were 18 African Americans in the U.S. delegation. But for Adolf Hitler, the games would demonstrate his (false) claim of Aryan supremacy and publicize Germany's resurgence—he compared American Jim Crow discrimination to his own Nazi ideology. Black American athletes, after deciding not to boycott the event, set out to prove otherwise. The going wasn't smooth on board the SS Manhattan crossing the Atlantic, though. Some white athletes shunned their black teammates, seasickness overcame some, and practice was difficult. When the U.S. team arrived, they encountered a "sea of swastikas," and Jewish teammates Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller learned they had been replaced by Owens and Metcalfe in the 4x100-meter relay. (The black American Olympians competed in track and field events and boxing, two sports outside the Jim Crow restrictions.) The documentary's recent testimonies by the athletes' grown children bring this chapter of American Olympic history together in a respectful and informative documentary, complete with vintage footage.