How Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ 1968 Black Power salute inspired me to find my purpose
OPINION: The picture (and actions) demonstrating the activism of the track stars at the 1968 Olympics cost them everything and gave me purpose that motivates me as Black History Month comes to an end.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
I would say I grew up in a household intent on making sure that I, and my siblings, were aware of Black history. My parents invested in a Black encyclopedia collection. We had a display version of the Bible with Black Jesus on the cover. Our house was filled with books by vaunted Black novelists and thinkers and if there was a documentary about Blackness to be seen, we watched it. I watched all of the made-for-TV movies about Dr. King, both “Roots” and “Alex Haley’s Queen,” and sat through all 14 hours of “Eyes On The Prize”—as a child. Bless my heart.
With that said, there were pockets of Black history, or more likely, specifics that I didn’t get a chance to dig into when I was a child. College was where all of that desire for information and understanding coalesced. I attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., one of the premier historically Black colleges in the nation. It was there that I met people from all over whose knowledge of Black history varied (often depending on the schools and communities we lived in) but who all had a hunger to learn more.
One day, during my freshman year, I remember one of my friends wearing a t-shirt that had a photo I was sure I’d seen before but had never paid much attention to. On the shirt was a black-and-white screenprint of (what I know now as) the iconic moment at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, where on the podium for the 200M medalists, Tommie Smith, John Carlos (the races 1st and 3rd place finishers) each raised a gloved Black fist while the “Star Spangled Banner” played. Peter Norman, the 2nd place finisher from Australia, wore a human rights badge, as did Smith and Carlos.
Not only did they raise a fist for Black power (though they’d both say it was for human rights), they received their medals in black socks to represent poverty in the Black community and Smith wore a black scarf for Black pride. Carlos showed solidarity with blue-collar workers by unzipping his jacket and he wore a beaded necklace for those who had been lynched. Because of the state of Black America in 1968 and the continued fight for equality and civil rights, there had been calls to boycott the games—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had also been killed in April of that year—and all three athletes were inspired enough to find a way to do that on the podium, leading to one of the most enduring images of public protest.
I remember learning the history of the moment and realizing that on the biggest stage, those brave men used their moment of triumph and victory to silently protest the conditions of the underserved, oft-maligned communities in America. I felt empowered; we often talk about standing on the shoulders of giants, but the more I dug into the history of Black people in America, the more I realized just how many giants there were. In college, I became very angry and, for a time, ready to burn down any and everything that represented the establishment or any obstacle to Black liberation. I felt like all of these people who, even in triumph, saw their space on the planet in connection to people who might never be able to speak, as heroes whose lives were to be modeled after. Especially because it was also painstakingly obvious that to put your people before yourself in such a fashion can often come at a tremendous personal loss.
When Smith and Carlos took their stand, they were booed in the stadium and ordered to be sent home by the International Olympic Committee. The athletes returned home but were not treated to a hero’s welcome but instead to rough sledding, and even in some cases, death threats. They were not beloved by athletes, either. The two men, linked forever in history, also have a strained relationship—Carlos even alleges that he let Smith pass him in the race because “Tommie Smith would have never put his fist in the sky had I won that race,” a claim Smith denies.
History has a way of rightsizing eventually, but it took many years and realizations on the social policy front for the actions of those men to be seen as courageous and needed, not just selfish and arrogant.
The lessons I learned from college and the continued reading and education I gained (my head STAYED in a book about Black history) was one of the greatest gains of attending an HBCU. The sheer amount of books I learned about that I’d never heard about otherwise—carried me on through life.
It was also why I remember walking through Washington, D.C.’s Eastern Market one day and happening upon a street vendor selling various images of moments in Black history and he had a 40” x 30” inch framed photo of Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ silent protest. I paid for that in cash and lugged it around the nation’s capital until I got home. I know this happened in 2005 (I graduated from Morehouse College in 2001) because I had just moved into my first apartment without a roommate and it was the first thing I ever hung on my wall. That framed picture is still hanging on a wall in my home in 2025 and I’ve used it to teach my kids about sacrifice and privilege, and how you must speak up for people who can’t.
The question my youngest kids usually ask is “How do I know who can’t speak up for themselves?” which is an amazing question. To that, I have responded with a simple fact while pointing to the picture:
“Those men made a gesture that gave voice to people who most of us, including them, would never see or never know but whose lives are negatively impacted daily by choices made by the rich and the government. Sometimes you have to take the opportunity you have to say something because you don’t know if you’ll ever have as big a platform again.
Son, there is ALWAYS somebody who can’t speak up for themselves, and you with a voice have to use it because maybe the thing you say or the stand you take will help somebody you don’t know live a better life.”
I use words that they can understand a little better, but I can tell you that my kids look at that picture all the time and on one occasion, one of my sons said, “Those guys are heroes, right?”
To them, I say yes, they are. They are heroes of Black History.
They will live forever for speaking, even silently, in solidarity with and for those who couldn’t.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).
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