Smith, Tommie 1944- (Tommie C. Smith)

views updated

Smith, Tommie 1944- (Tommie C. Smith)

PERSONAL:

Born June 6, 1944, in Clarksville, TX; son of Richard and Dora Smith. Education: San Jose State University, B.A., 1967; Goddard College, M.A.

ADDRESSES:

E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator. Taught at grammar school, junior, and senior high school levels; Cincinnati Bengals football team, Cincinnati, OH, professional football player for three years; Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, assistant professor of physical education, athletic director, sports coach; Santa Monica College, Santa Monica, CA, educator and track-and-field coach; served as a coach for the U.S. World indoor track team, 1995.

MEMBER:

Olympic Project for Human Rights (founding member).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Olympic Gold Medal, track and field, Mexico City, Mexico, 1968; California Black Sports Hall of Fame, 1996; Bay Area Hall of Fame, 1999; Sportsman of the Millennium Award, 1999.

WRITINGS:

(With David Steele) Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith, Temple University Press (Philadelphia, PA), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tommie Smith is an Olympic track-and-field star who excelled at the 1968 Olympics held in Mexico City, winning a gold medal in the 200-meter sprint even as he set a new world record by completing the race in under twenty seconds. Smith began running when he was a child, growing up the seventh of twelve children of a sharecropper in Clarksville, Texas. In his youth, Smith would often help his father pick cotton in order to supplement the family income. Only after moving to California, where he attended Lemoore High School and participated in a number of sports, did Smith truly begin to shine as a runner. In 1963, he won a scholarship to San Jose State College, where he set a number of individual records, eventually leading to his place on the 1968 U.S. Olympic team. However, Smith was also politically minded. In 1967, he was a founding member of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, and when one of his sociology professors encouraged African American athletes to boycott the Olympics in protest for their treatment through the years, Smith was forced to make a choice. Ultimately, he decided to continue on to the games, using his skill and his success as its own statement on the rights of all participants. During the medal ceremony, following his win of the 200-meter final, both Smith and the bronze-medal winner, John Carlos, also an African America runner, raised a fist wearing a black glove, intended to represent black unity. The moment became known as the silent gesture, and was supported by the silver medalist, Australian runner Peter Norman, who wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge instead of donning a glove.

The silent gesture, however, was not well accepted in the Olympic community. Both Smith and Carlos were suspended from the U.S. team, and received death threats upon returning to the United States. However, Smith went on to a career in sports, first as a professional football player for the Cincinnati Bengals, and then as a track coach at Oberlin College, where he also served on the faculty as a sociology teacher, and then later at Santa Monica College, again both as educator and coach. In 1995, Smith was one of the coaches for the World Indoor Championship Team in Barcelona, Spain. He is a member of the California Black Sports Hall of Fame and the Bay Area Hall of Fame.

Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith, which Smith wrote with David Steele, chronicles Smith's experiences, from his struggles growing up to his love of running and his trip to the Olympics and the aftermath. Equal parts history of track and field and African American studies, the book addresses the political situation Smith found himself in as he strove to make a statement about black power and equality, but also includes the marvels of his achievements as a sprinter, including his numerous records and successes on the track. However, the long-term fallout that stems from Smith's single, public gesture has been constant and ongoing, and Smith makes it clear that his reputation has never entirely recovered from his moment of black solidarity on the medals stand. Todd Spires, in a review for Library Journal, praised the book overall, but noted that Smith's bitterness is apparent, commenting that "the reader may forget Smith's many accomplishments in education and coaching because of the anger expressed." Writing for the Black Issues Book Review, Curtis Stephen noted: "For Smith, at just twenty-four, to have not only won the gold, but to have issued his anything-but-silent gesture from the world's biggest stage, makes his story all the more extraordinary."