October 23, 1968: The Silent Protest of Věra Čáslavská

October 23, 1968: As Tommie Smith and John Carlos proved a few days earlier, at the Olympic Games in Mexico City, Věra Čáslavská proved that actions, or even the smallest of gestures, can speak louder than words.

Věra Čáslavská was born on May 3, 1942, in Nazi-occupied Prague, in what is now the Czech Republic. The gymnast won 3 Gold Medals at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, and 4 more at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, in each case winning the all-around individual title.

The 1968 Olympics were less than 2 months after the Soviet Union crushed the Prague Spring in her homeland. To make matters worse, dodgy judging cost her an additional Gold Medal. So, during the presentation for her all-around Gold, as her National Anthem was played, she bowed her head in protest.

She was prohibited from traveling abroad upon her return, and only with the Velvet Revolution of 1989 was her reputation officially restored. She went into coaching, married a fellow Olympic Medalist, had 2 children, and died of cancer on August 30, 2016, at age 74.

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October 23, 1968 was a Wednesday. Baseball season ended 13 days earlier, when the Detroit Tigers beat the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7 of the World Series. Football was in midweek. There were 5 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 114-112 at the Milwaukee Exposition and Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA (now the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena).

* The Boston Celtics beat the Cincinnati Royals, 108-101 at the Boston Garden. Celtics player-coach bill Russell, in his last season, scored just 10 points, but grabbed 30 rebounds.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Chicago Bulls, 106-91 at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum (now the McCasmish Pavilion) in Atlanta.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 117-110 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Dave Bing scored 39 points for the Pistons, and Eddie Miles had 28. For the Lakers, Elgin Baylor scored 31, while Wilt Chamberlain scored 29 and had 21 rebounds.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the San Diego Rockets, 118-117 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

There was 1 game in the American Basketball Association: The Kentucky Colonels beat the Indiana Pacers, 112-108 at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis.

There were 4 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Oakland Seals, 6-1 at the new Madison Square Garden.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the St. Louis Blues, 6-4 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 8-5 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Los Angeles Kings, 5-2 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Boston Bruins, the Detroit Red Wings, the Philadelphia Flyers and the Minnesota North Stars were not scheduled.

October 20, 1968: The Fosbury Flop

October 20, 1968: Dick Fosbury wins the Gold Medal in the high jump at the Olympic Games in Mexico City. In so doing, he changed the event forever.

Richard Douglas Fosbury was born on March 7, 1947 in Portland, Oregon. Most of the track & field legends from the Beaver State come from the University of Oregon, the Ducks. He went to Oregon State, the Beavers. He's not the greatest athlete from the state, but he is the most influential.

Up until the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, high-jumpers used what was known as the scissors kick, throwing a front leg over the bar, and then the rest of the body, with the face up; or the straddle technique, pretty much the same but with the face down. At the time, that was the most advisable way to do it, as, like long-jumpers, they landed in a pit of sand. Fosbury couldn't clear 5 feet, the minimum standard in Oregon high school track at the time, using the techniques in place at the time.

Valeriy Brumel, winning the Gold Medal for the Soviet Union

at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, with the straddle technique

But the advent of foam-rubber landing surfaces made it possible for Dick to invent "the Fosbury Flop": Just before reaching the bar, he would turn his back to the bar, push up with both legs, go over, and land head and shoulders first, which would have been deadly with the sand pits. At the 1968 Olympics, he won the Gold Medal with a jump of 7 feet, 4 1/4 inches, an Olympic record.

The Fosbury Flop

He was just 21 1/2 years old, but he had changed the sports world: For half a century, everyone has done the Flop. He remains involved in track & field, and in 2014 ran for the Idaho State House as a Democrat, but lost.

Dick Fosbury in 2015

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October 20, 1968 was a Sunday. In the NFL:

* The New York Giants lost to the San Francisco 49ers, 26-10 at Yankee Stadium.

* The Chicago Bears beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 29-16 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the Baltimore Colts, 30-20 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

* The New Orleans Saints beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 16-12 at Pitt Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions played to a tie, 14-14 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Dallas Cowboys beat the Minnesota Vikings, 20-7 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The football version of the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Washington Redskins, 41-14 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* And the Los Angeles Rams beat the Atlanta Falcons, 27-14 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

And in the American Football League:

* The New York Jets beat the Houston Oilers, 20-14 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The Boston Patriots beat the Buffalo Bills, 230-6 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The Miami Dolphins beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 24-22 at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati.

* The Kansas City Chiefs beat their arch-rivals, the Oakland Raiders, 24-10 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium.

* And the San Diego Chargers beat the Denver Broncos, 55-24 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium).

The baseball season ended 10 days earlier, with the Detroit Tigers beating the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7 of the World Series. There were no games in the NHL. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 114-96 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. The Lakers got 36 points from Elgin Baylor, 20 from Jerry West, but only 15 from Wilt Chamberlain. The Sixers got 35 points from Hal Greer.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons, 106-88 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 116-107 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the San Diego Rockets beat the San Francisco Warriors, 123-108 at the Cow Palace outside San Francisco in Daly City, California. Elvin Hayes had 32 points and 24 rebounds for the Rockets, who moved to Houston in 1971.

And there was 1 game played in the American Basketball Association: The Oakland Oaks beat the Indiana Pacers, 144-133 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis.

October 18, 1968: Bob Beamon's Leap

October 18, 1968: The greatest performance in Olympic history, that of the U.S. track & field team, continues. Bob Beamon sets a world record in the long jump at the Olympic Games at the Estadio Universitario in Mexico City.

How long is it? It's so long, it's beyond the means of the available measuring equipment. As with Mickey Mantle's home runs, but with far more need, a tape measure is found, and an accurate measurement is taken: 8.90 meters.

The crowd is stunned. But, as an American, not familiar with the metric system, Beamon doesn't know what 8.90 meters means. The old world record was 27 feet, 7¼ inches. Beamon's jump is 29 feet, 2½ inches. He has broken both the 28-foot and 29-foot barriers.

In the Olympics, where races -- on foot, in pools, on bicycles, on skis, on boats, and in various Winter sports vehicles -- are determined by hundredths of seconds, and distances by fractions of an inch, he has not only surpassed the old record by a foot and a half, he's increased it by nearly 6 percent.

He collapses into the arms of his teammate, Ralph Boston, the 1960 Gold Medalist and the 1964 Silver Medalist in the event, who ends up taking the Bronze Medal this time. Lynn Davies, the Welshman who won the 1964 Gold Medal for Great Britain, tells him, "You have destroyed this event." He does not medal at all. Nor does Igor Ter-Ovanesyan, the half-Ukranian, half-Armenian competing for the Soviet Union: After Bronze Medals in 1960 and 1964, he finishes 4th this time. The Silver Medal goes to Klaus Beer of East Germany, who jumps 26 feet, 10½ inches -- 28 inches short of the Gold.

Beamon's jump becomes known as the Leap of the Century, and stands as a world record for 23 years, before Mike Powell extends it by 2 inches in 1991. It still stands as an Olympic record.

Beamon was a native of South Jamaica, Queens, New York, the same neighborhood that produced Governor Mario Cuomo, rapper 50 Cent, and my grandmother, Grace Golden. After that Gold Medal, he was drafted by one of the NBA's brand-new expansion teams, the Phoenix Suns. He didn't sign, staying at Long Island's Adelphi University and getting his degree. He now operates a museum in Florida. It has now been 54 years -- including 13 Olympiads -- since Beamon's jump, and, to this day, only 1 human being has beaten it.

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October 18, 1968 was a Friday. Football was in midweek, so there were no games. The baseball season had ended on October 10, with the Detroit Tigers beating the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7 to win the World Series. There were no games played in the ABA and the NHL. But there were 4 NBA games played:

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 114-96 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Elgin Baylor scored 36 points for the Lakers, but it wasn't enough, as Hal Greer's 35 led the Sixers to victory. Wilt Chamberlain scored 15 points and grabbed 17 rebounds. This was his 1st game with the Lakers... having been traded there by his hometown 76ers.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons, 106-88 at Cobo Hall in Detroit. (The building still stands, but is now named the TCF Center.)

* The Phoenix Suns, the team that Bob Beamon turned down, play the 1st game ever played by a major league team calling Arizona home. They win it, too, getting 27 points from Gail Goodrich, and defeating last year's expansion team, the Seattle SuperSonics, 116-107 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

* And the San Diego Rockets beat the San Francisco Warriors, 123-108 at the Cow Palace in the San Francisco suburb of Daly City, California. For the 1971-72 season, the Rockets moved to Houston, and the Warriors moved across San Francisco Bay to Oakland, and changed their name to the Golden State Warriors.

One more note from sports: Michael Stich, the German tennis player who won Wimbledon in 1991, was born on this day.

October 16, 1968: The Smith-Carlos Salute

October 16, 1968: American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, teammates at San Jose State University, win the Gold and Bronze Medals, respectively, in the 200 meters, at the Olympic Games in Mexico City, Mexico. Smith sets a world record, winning the race in 19.83 seconds, the 1st time 20 seconds had been beaten in the race. Peter Norman of Australia wins the Silver Medal.

But when they take the podium to receive their medals, all 3 -- including Norman, a critic of the infamous White Australia Policy (barring non-Europeans from immigrating), accepting Smith and Carlos' request -- are wearing pins of the Olympic Project for Human Rights. Smith and Carlos remove their shoes, revealing not bare feet as is usually remembered, but black socks.

This was further complicated by several black athletes boycotting the Games, including the top amateur basketball player in America, UCLA center Lew Alcindor, a.k.a. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Today, Kareem still says he did the right thing. University of Houston forward Elvin Hayes, who went up against Kareem in 2 epic games in the 1967-68 season, also chose not to play. The situation was also complicated by a story most Americans didn't know about: A massacre of protesting students by the Mexican government, just a few days before. The government kept that story quiet.

Smith, born in Clarksville, North Texas on June 6, 1944 (D-Day), and raised in Lemoore, Central California, wears a black scarf around his neck to represent black pride. Carlos, a black Cuban from Harlem who was a year minus 1 day younger (born on June 5, 1945), had his tracksuit top unzipped, to show solidarity with all blue-collar workers in the U.S., and wore a necklace of beads, which he described as being "for those individuals who were lynched, or killed, and that no one said a prayer for, that were hung and tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the Middle Passage." This term referred to the sea voyage taking slaves from Africa to the Americas, North, Central and South.

They had intended to wear black gloves on each hand, but Carlos forgot his pair. Norman suggested that Smith give Carlos his left glove, and that's why Smith raised his right fist in what was then interpreted as "the Black Power Salute" (Smith has always insisted it was "a human rights salute") as "The Star-Spangled Banner" started playing, while Carlos raised his left, which was not the usual Black Power salute. Both men bowed their heads.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos were the biggest sports-related story -- of the day, and the year. It would have been the biggest sports-related story of the decade, if not for Muhammad Ali refusing to be drafted the year before, and being stripped of the Heavyweight Title because of it.

The U.S. Olympic Committee kicked Smith and Carlos off the Olympic team immediately. Both received condemnation from the white U.S. media and death threats from anonymous sources. A sportswriter for the Chicago American wrote, "Smith and Carlos looked like a couple of black-skinned storm troopers," and called them "ignoble," "juvenile" and "unimaginative." Even if you believe Smith and Carlos were morally wrong, a rational person could not possibly agree with those 3 adjectives. Especially the last: "Unimaginative"?

That sportswriter's name was Brent Musberger. In 1975, he became the host of CBS' studio show The NFL Today. In 1990, he moved to play-by-play of college football and college basketball for ABC and ESPN, retiring after the January 2017 bowl games. In 1999, he addressed his condemnation from 1968: "I object to using the Olympic awards stand to make a political statement." As if the flying of flags and the playing of the Gold Medalist's National Anthem are not, themselves, political statements.

This protest was just 9 days after Jose Feliciano's performance of the National Anthem during the World Series -- which, unlike "The Silent Gesture," was a totally unintentional controversy. It was 7 weeks after the riot at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, 4 months after the assassination of Robert Kennedy, 6 months after that of Martin Luther King, 15 months after the race riots in Newark and Detroit, 16 months after the one in Boston's Roxbury.

At the time, no white person was willing to stand up and publicly say that Smith and Carlos had a point. Today, nearly everyone, except for the truly delusional, is willing to admit that they had one. In 2005, San Jose State dedicated a statue of the medal podium, with an empty space where Norman would have stood, so that anyone who wants to can stand with Smith and Carlos in a personal re-enactment.

Smith went on to teach at Oberlin College, outside Jesse Owens' hometown of Cleveland. It had been the 1st integrated college in America, starting in 1835. He accepted a peace offering from the USOC, a coaching position the U.S. track team at the 1995 Indoor World Championships. Carlos was accepted as part of the organizing committee for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and became a high school track coach.

Carlos, left, and Smith receiving the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage

at the 2013 ESPY Awards

On October 16, 2022, Smith is now 75. Carlos is 74. Both have become paid public speakers regarding their stories. Norman died in 2006, and Smith and Carlos traveled all the way to Melbourne for his funeral, and served as the front pallbearers.

On September 28, 2016, the 1st black President, Barack Obama, invited Smith and Carlos to the White House, as part of his reception for the 2016 American Olympic athletes. He said, "We're proud of them. Their powerful silent protest in the 1968 Games was controversial, but it woke folks up, and created greater opportunity for those that followed."

Just 4 months later, Donald Trump was sworn into the office of President. Prior to 1865, we had Presidents who were slaveholders. Afterward, we had Presidents who openly made bigoted statements. But no President has ever pandered more to the elements of bigotry in this country.

Trump has actually voiced support for keeping statues of Confederate "heroes," asking if we would next be tearing down statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson because they were slaveholders. No: Whatever else can be said of them, they fought for America, and never against it.

We have had multiple police brutality cases, and the "Black Lives Matter" movement in response. We have gone from the vilification of Smith and Carlos in 1968, to Michael Jordan refusing to endorse Harvey Gantt against race-baiting Senator Jesse Helms in his home State of North Carolina in 1990 because "Republicans buy sneakers, too," to LeBron James taking the court wearing a hoodie in memory of Trayvon Martin and an "I Can't Breathe" T-shirt in memory of Eric Garner, both in 2014.

More recently, in response to Golden State Warriors' leader Stephen Curry said the Warriors would refuse the usual NBA Champions' invitation to the White House, Trump insulted Curry and said he wasn't welcome. LeBron tweeted, "U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain't going! So therefore ain't no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!"

In 2019, this problem was solved when the NBA Champions turned out to be Canada's team, the Toronto Raptors. With the COVID-19 epidemic interrupting the 2020 NBA season, LeBron and his World Champion Los Angeles Lakers waited until after the election and the Inauguration, and accepted an invitation from President Joe Biden.

And we have gad Colin Kaepernick, the former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, blacklisted for kneeling instead of standing during the playing of the National Anthem before games in 2016, and bigots ripping him for it, in print, on the air, and online. Obama suggested that Kaepernick reconsider his action, saying that it bothers war veterans. But Smith and Carlos publicly backed Kaepernick. "Don't hate the kid because he stood up for something to change," Smith said. "He stood up for the right to exercise Amendment 1."

Carlos added, "Protest is a good thing, because you're trying to expose certain things through protest... In any protest, I think you make a statement to try and reach the far ends of the Earth. What better way to do it than if you're in a sport." Sounds like something that Ali, Gold Medalist in heavyweight boxing in the 1960 Olympics under his birth name of Cassius Clay, would have said.

But Donald Trump called Colin Kaepernick "that son of a bitch." And Trump's supporters say that "taking a knee" during the National Anthem is "disrespecting the flag." And Brent Musberger piped up. On October 8, 2017, the yutz, by then 78 years old, tweeted, "Yo #49ers Since you instigated protest, 2 wins and 19 losses. How about taking your next knee in the other team's end zone ?" (In the 2019 season, the 49ers won the NFC Championship.)

Trump doesn't get it. Musberger doesn't get it. All the people calling Kaepernick and the other protestors "disrespectful to the flag" are either too stupid to get it, or too evil to tell the truth. It is not

about the flag, you dumb schmucks. It is about the inalienable right to be treated as a human being, equal to all others.

I am not the first person to say that. Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, a bomber pilot in World War II, and a former Los Angeles policeman, wrote an episode titled "The Omega Glory," imagining a planet paralleling Earth, down to an America with a Constitution and a Stars & Stripes flag, with the exception that a nuclear war was fought in their equivalent to the late 20th Century.

When Captain James T. Kirk (played by William Shatner, a native of Canada but living in America for over 60 years now) sees that the leader of the society that has replaced America won't give his defeated enemies the same rights he claims for his people, he says that the "holy words" the chief proclaims "must apply to everyone, or they mean nothing!"

That episode aired on March 1, 1968, a month before Dr. King was killed, and 7 months before the Smith & Carlos protest. Roddenberry was a middle-aged white man with some power in his field, and a veteran, whose patriotism could not be questioned by a rational person, and he knew.

The 1st Amendment gave Smith and Carlos, their allies then, and Kaepernick and his compatriots, and their allies now, and me, and you -- whether you are their ally or not -- the right to publicly show their discontent with what is being done to your people, or your people-within-a-people.

It does not give you the right to lie about them and defame them, as Trump and his allies do, as Musberger did then and now. If you cannot respect the First Amendment, then THE FLAG MEANS NOTHING.

There is no place in a modern society for the bigotry that made Trayvon Martin (black, murdered in 2012), Matthew Shepard (gay, murdered in 1998) and Brandon Teena (transgender, murdered in 1993) dead and famous. Or treats Alicia Machado and the parents of Captain Humayun Khan as if they are less than full human beings, less than full Americans. Or puts children in cages -- in concentration camps -- because their parents entered America illegally.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood for something. Not because they could, but because someone had to, and their Gold Medal presentation was a golden opportunity.

We don't need a world without Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Muhammad Ali, LeBron James and Colin Kaepernick. We need a world which makes additions to their actions unnecessary.

*

October 16, 1968 was a Wednesday. It was football season, but the middle of the week, so there were no NFL or AFL games. The World Series had ended 10 days earlier, with the Detroit Tigers beat the St. Louis Cardinals.

The American Basketball Association opened its season 2 days later. But there were 3 NBA games played, including the Milwaukee Bucks making their NBA debut. They played the team that became their arch-rivals, the Chicago Bulls, and lost 89-84 at the Milwaukee Exposition and Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA (now the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena).

The Cincinnati Royals beat the Atlanta Hawks, 125-110 at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum (now the Hank McCamish Pavilion), on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta. And the Baltimore Bullets beat the Detroit Pistons, 124-116 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena).

Of the 12 teams in the NHL, 10 were in action, all but the Detroit Red Wings and the Los Angeles Kings:

* The New York Rangers beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 3-1 at the new Madison Square Garden.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Pittsburgh Penguins played to a tie, 2-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Minnesota North Stars, 10-4 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the St. Louis Blues, 4-2 at the St. Louis Arena.

* And the Boston Bruins beat the Oakland Seals, 2-1 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena (now the Oracle Arena). 

October 2, 1968: The Mexico City Massacre

October 2, 1968: Mexican troops fire on student demonstrators in Mexico City. It becomes known as the Tlatelolco Massacre.

As in America, 1968 was a year of social unrest in Mexico. There was gang violence, and there were student protests, against a national government much more oppressive than America's: While not Communist, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI) basically ran Mexico as a one-party state.

On October 2, a group of unarmed civilians was protesting the country's vast spending on the upcoming Olympics, in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City. The Mexican government, and the Mexican media which they tightly controlled, claime dthat the Mexican Armed Forces had been provoked by protesters shooting at them, but government documents made public since 2000 show that rooftop snipers had been employed by the government.

With the world watching for signs of unrest during the Olympics, the Mexican government managed to clean things up, and stage the Games as if nothing had happened. Much of the world didn't find out for years.

The number of deaths resulting from the event is disputed. According to U.S. national security archives, American analyst Kate Doyle documented the deaths of 44 people. Estimates of the actual death toll range from 300 to 400, while the head of the Federal Directorate of Security reported that 1,345 people were arrested.

The PRI, established in 1929, continued to run Mexico as what Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa called a "the perfect dictatorship"... "because it is camouflaged dictatorship" until losing the 2000 election. It held power again from 2009 to 2018, when it had its worst electoral performance ever.

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October 2, 1968 was a Wednesday. Czech tennis player Jana Novotná, who won Wimbledon in 1998, was born.

There was one score on this historic day: The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-0 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis, in Game 1 of the World Series. Bob Gibson, the Cy Young Award winner in the American League, with a 22-9 record and a 1.12 ERA during the regular season, not only outpitched Denny McLain, the Cy Young Award winner in the National League, with a 31-6 record, he struck out 17 batters, setting a World Series record that still stands. I have a separate entry for this event.

Football was in midweek. The new NHL season was 9 days away; the new NBA & ABA season, 13 days.