What Was Jesse Owens Really Like?
Wilhelmine Eichmann
2025-05-05 23:45:19
Count answers: 3
He won the 100 metre sprint, the 200 metre sprint in world record time, the long jump, in which he set another world record, and was part of the winning American team in the 4 x 100 metre relay. His haul of four gold medals was the largest of any competitor and his modesty and charm won hearts as well as heats. Owens denied that Hitler had snubbed him, describing how he passed the Führer’s box one day and Hitler waved to him and he waved back. Hitler later sent him a signed photograph. He was an impressive speaker commending athleticism and American patriotism to the young and his sheer likeability as well as his achievements helped in changing white attitudes. In 1976 President Ford awarded him the Medal of Freedom as ‘a source of inspiration’ to all Americans.
Osborne Cronin
2025-04-27 04:18:01
Count answers: 5
For one of the most politically significant athletes of the early-20th century, Jesse Owens wasn’t an especially political guy. Where the likes of Muhammad Ali combined sporting greatness with sustained activism, Jesse focused for the most part on his running. And man, was he good at it. After Berlin, Jesse Owens lived out the rest of his days with his childhood sweetheart, Minnie Ruth Solomon, until his death in 1980.
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