The early 1960s saw The Black Civil Rights Movement as a dominant and visible group in America. Martin Luther King Junior was leading the way in challenging and working towards changing the manner in which Black African Americans were treated in the United States.
The Movement was making good progress until the late 1960s where the appearance of black radical groups started to emerge and began to cause inter-racial riots between black and white Americans in the streets of America.
At the time of the 1968s Olympics The Black Civil Rights Movement was starting to lose both traction and direction following the tragic assassinations of key leaders such as Martin Luther King Junior, Malcolm X and even John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
The Movement was losing the media attention and that was a critical component of exposing the plight of Back African Americans to the world. The changes that so desperately needed to happen needed a catalyst to help them occur and become a reality in America.
The 1968 …show more content…
His threat to expel any athlete from the games or any future games if they participated in any political protest during the games meant that athletes were afraid to act in this manner. There were also numerous death threats towards African American athletes. It looked to be that any hope of addressing the issue of America’s civil rights issue to world seemed lost using the Olympics as a venue for this.
However this was to all change in the 200m Final where two members of O.P.H.R (Olympic Project for Human Rights) which protested for black rights in America, Tommie Smith and John Carlos were placed first and third in the 200m final along with an Australian Peter Norman. Despite knowing the consequences of protesting during the Olympics, Smith and Carlos, fearing the worst still proceeded with their plan as they went to collect their medals at the
The Movement was making good progress until the late 1960s where the appearance of black radical groups started to emerge and began to cause inter-racial riots between black and white Americans in the streets of America.
At the time of the 1968s Olympics The Black Civil Rights Movement was starting to lose both traction and direction following the tragic assassinations of key leaders such as Martin Luther King Junior, Malcolm X and even John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
The Movement was losing the media attention and that was a critical component of exposing the plight of Back African Americans to the world. The changes that so desperately needed to happen needed a catalyst to help them occur and become a reality in America.
The 1968 …show more content…
His threat to expel any athlete from the games or any future games if they participated in any political protest during the games meant that athletes were afraid to act in this manner. There were also numerous death threats towards African American athletes. It looked to be that any hope of addressing the issue of America’s civil rights issue to world seemed lost using the Olympics as a venue for this.
However this was to all change in the 200m Final where two members of O.P.H.R (Olympic Project for Human Rights) which protested for black rights in America, Tommie Smith and John Carlos were placed first and third in the 200m final along with an Australian Peter Norman. Despite knowing the consequences of protesting during the Olympics, Smith and Carlos, fearing the worst still proceeded with their plan as they went to collect their medals at the