Tommie Smith lit the Al Davis torch in Mexico City Monday night before the Oakland Raiders took on the Houston Texans.
Tommie Smith lights the Al Davis torch in Mexico City, 48 years after his Black Power Olympic salute
— Josh Dubow (@JoshDubowAP) November 22, 2016
The fire that burns the brightest in the Raiders organization is the will to win.
Olympic champion Tommie Smith lights the torch in Mexico. https://t.co/EocNkNKEoB
— Las Vegas Raiders (@Raiders) November 22, 2016
Smith gained international fame when he and John Carlos raised their black-clad fists in a Black Power salute at the podium in Mexico City during the 1968 Olympic Games.
“We were just human beings who saw a need to bring attention to the inequality in our country,” Smith said years later, in a documentary on the 1968 Mexico City games produced for HBO (h/t Times.com). “I don’t like the idea of people looking at it as negative. There was nothing but a raised fist in the air and a bowed head, acknowledging the American flag—not symbolizing a hatred for it.”
The salute was not met with a whole lot of positive support at the time, and both men received death threats. Now their action is seen as heroic. Though civil rights are still being contested by minority groups in America, the nation as a whole has begun to embrace the notion that all people were created equal, as our founding fathers intended, no matter the color of one’s skin, their religious beliefs, the way they dress, their sexual identity or anything else that differentiates one group from another.
We are all the same color inside. Tommie Smith is a person who saw that clearly 48 years ago, and it was tremendous to see him back at the site where he took his stand.