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James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games. [3]Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump and was recognized in his lifetime as "perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history". [4]
Jesse Owens won gold in the long jump. An often-told story holds that Germany's Luz Long gave Owens some advice after he almost failed to qualify. The veracity of the story has been questioned, but it is known for certain that Owens and Long embraced in front of Hitler and became friends. [10] [11]
Owens finished with a best jump of 8.06 metres to Long's 7.87 metres. Now, if not before, the two met and became friends: Long was the first to congratulate Owens, embracing the African-American in front of Adolf Hitler. Owens was later the best man at the wedding of Long's son. [4] [1]
Hitler watched from his stadium balcony as Jesse Owens, the Black American athlete, won four gold medals to become the star of the Games, dealing a blow to Hitler's notions of racial superiority.
The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: Olympische Sommerspiele 1936), officially the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: Spiele der XI. Olympiade) and officially branded as Berlin 1936, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 to 16 August 1936 in Berlin, Germany.
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The Olympic oaks, informally called Hitler oaks, are English oak trees that were given to gold medal winners of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. 130 gold medals and trees, which were year-old saplings, were awarded. Several have survived.
No such invitation was made to the black athletes, such as Jesse Owens, who had won four gold medals. A widely believed myth about the 1936 games was that Hitler had snubbed Owens, an event that never occurred. Owens said that "Hitler didn't snub me—it was [Roosevelt] who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram". [57]