Dear U.S. Olympic Committee,
On Friday, a great wrong was righted.
San Jose State alumni and Olympic heroes Tommie Smith and John Carlos were inducted into the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame, 51 years after their iconic protest and expulsion from the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games.
Their protest was an important step in bringing the inequality that Black Americans faced to the international stage, and inducting them into the Hall of Fame was an important step in correcting their expulsion.
However, while one wrong may have been righted, there’s still an outstanding issue that needs resolution – the removal of former International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame.
Brundage, who served on the IOC as a member and later as president from 1936-1972, was inducted in the inaugural Hall of Fame class, and it’s time for the Olympic Committee to undo that mistake.
He deemed Smith’s and Carlos’s protest a political statement that wasn’t fit for the supposedly apolitical Olympic Games and demanded their expulsion from the Olympic Village.
It’s no surprise that Brundage took offense to their protest, given that his removal was one of the goals of the Olympic Project for Human Rights. The OPHR aimed to highlight the exploitation and discrimination that Black Americans faced at home.
“We’re not wind-up toys that when it’s time for war, you want to come get us and be in the war for you,” Carlos said Friday. “When it’s time to represent in the Olympics, you come and get us, and outside of that, we’re second-class citizens.”
While Brundage may have played a large part in American participation in the Olympics, his track record of anti-Semitism and racism is clear.
Brundage pushed for the 1936 Olympics to take place in Nazi Germany and then allowed for the Nazi salute to be used during the Games.
So much for having an apolitical Olympics.
He controversially pulled the two Jewish athletes from the 1936 U.S. 4 x 400-meter relay team. Those two sprinters were the only two Americans who traveled to the Games to ultimately not compete.
Fellow SJSU track sprinter Robert Poynter spoke to the Spartan Daily in 2018 and described Brundage as “a real racist.” There’s no reason we should continue to honor someone with such a terrible legacy.
It’s simply impossible to place the duo of Smith and Carlos, who fought against systematic, racist oppression, in the same Hall of Fame as Brundage, who often played the role of the oppressor.
The two Spartans stand for the exact opposite of what Brundage’s actions exemplified.
SJSU professor and OPHR co-founder Harry Edwards told the Spartan Daily in September that, “The arc of the universe does indeed bend toward justice,” regarding Smith’s and Carlos’s induction to the Hall of Fame.
Edwards was correct then, and he’s correct now. It’s now up to you, the U.S. Olympic Committee, to continue furthering justice by removing Brundage from the Hall of Fame.
