{"id":1553,"date":"2016-06-13T09:48:52","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T09:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/?p=1553"},"modified":"2024-11-05T12:09:09","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T12:09:09","slug":"the-man-or-his-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/2016\/06\/13\/the-man-or-his-times\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man – or his Times?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"jesse-owens\"
Jesse Owens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Having just been to see Race<\/em>, the (rather boring, I have to say) bio-pic about the great African American athlete, Jesse Owens, I found myself thinking about people like Owens, and Joe Louis, and contrasting them with Muhammad Ali. \u00a0How many people recall Owens and his achievements at the 1936 Olympics \u2013 four golds, three individual (100 and 200 metres and long jump) and one team (4×100 metre relay)? Or the fact that two other African Americans, John Woodruff and Archie Williams won gold in the 400 metres and high jump respectively?\u00a0 Of course Owens defied and triumphed over Nazi ideology, but he subsequently vanished from the public eye, played no role in civil rights campaigns and was very critical of the black power protest at the 1968 Mexico Olympics of Tommy Smith and John Carlos.<\/p>\n

\"RacePRimage800-800x534\"<\/p>\n

Similarly, Joe Louis who defended his world heavy weight boxing title over a twelve year period and ranked with Ali as one of the greatest boxers of all time, played no great role in the civil rights campaigns.\u00a0 He was schooled in playing a role acceptable to whites \u2013 not to boast, always be polite, not to be seen with white women. He served in the segregated army during World War II and featured in various war posters and films \u2013 despite the prejudice of the times.<\/p>\n

\"3947244-joe-louis-1914-1981-granger\"
Joe Louis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Owens and Louis were of course, alive in different times \u2013 when African Americans were still lynched, segregated, and discriminated against at all levels of society. It could be argued that the Sixties were different and that Ali emerged in a time of great change \u2013 nevertheless, it took some courage for him to challenge not just opponents in the ring, but also the white boxing and political establishments.\u00a0 That is why he was \u201cthe Greatest\u201d and is remembered today in a way Owens and Louis were not.\u00a0 Both, however, were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor \u2013 after their deaths.\u00a0 They had lived in different times, but were also different personalities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having just been to see Race, the (rather boring, I have to say) bio-pic about the great African American athlete, Jesse Owens, I found myself thinking about people like Owens, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,379,765,386,381,241,262,767,368,430,772,242,432],"class_list":["post-1553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-african-american-history","tag-african-american-studies","tag-american","tag-american-history","tag-american-studies","tag-christian-oconnell-2","tag-civil-rights","tag-events","tag-media-2","tag-muhammad-ali","tag-neil-wynn","tag-race-in-the-americas","tag-sports-history"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3275,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions\/3275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}