The pair of Olympic sprinters stood on the victory stand in Mexico City. As the U.S. national anthem played, each bowed his head and raised a black-gloved fist in protest of racial inequality in America.
Gold medalist Tommie Smith cradled a boxed olive branch as an emblem of peace. John Carlos, third in the same 200-meter dash, wore love beads with his bronze medal. Their shoeless feet, clad in black socks, represented poverty among African Americans. The year was 1968. The men were condemned as traitors and banned from the Games forever.
The image of their black power salute helped define an era. But 35 years later, few remember the path that took Smith and Carlos to Mexico City.
That path cut cleanly through their alma mater, San Jose State University, where a public reassessment may be underway. A young white student has vowed to honor the controversial act by bringing a sculpture of Smith and Carlos to campus.
San Jose State was once known as Speed City, for the Olympic track and field stars it spawned. The black athletes' protest movement flourished here too in the months leading up to Smith and Carlos' notorious stand. It was a year of tumult for the Civil Rights movement: the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, rising protests against the Vietnam War.
But here at San Jose State, the footprints to the past have long faded. The university dropped its intercollegiate track and field team 15 years ago. And the names of Smith and Carlos draw mostly blank stares on the campus of 31,000 students.
Against this backdrop, 23-year-old Erik Grotz decided it was time to act.
"I see it as a part of living history," said Grotz, who graduated three months ago with a degree in political science and devised the plan for the sculpture depicting the black power salute.
"We're celebrating that San Jose State students can become leaders on the world stage -- that we can make a difference at a really young age."
After the Olympics, Smith and Carlos both struggled for years with poverty, ostracism and depression before hitting new strides -- Smith as head track coach at Santa Monica College, Carlos as a counselor and, for a time, a coach at Palm Springs High School. For them, the tribute from a young activist is a moving welcome home.
"It took a lot of courage on his part, being a young white individual, to step up to the plate and say, 'These people have been wronged and we need to give them the honor and respect they deserve at our institution,' " said Carlos, now 58.
