America@250: Olympic Pride, American Prejudice

At the 1936 Olympics, in Berlin, Germany, 18 African American’s challenged discrimination on the world stage. And won eight gold medals.

It wasn’t only Jesse Owens, you ask?  

Nope.

The American narrative of the 1936 Olympics is about one Black athlete named Jesse Owens. Like most narratives, there’s more to the story.

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The documentary, “Olympic Pride, American Prejudice explores the experiences of 18 African American Olympians who defied Jim Crow and Adolf Hitler to win hearts and medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Set against the strained and turbulent atmosphere of a racially divided America, which was torn between boycotting Hitler’s Olympics or participating in the Third Reich’s grandest affair, the film follows 16 men and two women before, during and after their heroic turn at the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin. These American men and women represented a country that considered them second class citizens and competed in a country that rolled out the red carpet in spite of an undercurrent of Aryan superiority and anti-Semitism.”