Olympic Salute. SJ Dodgson. MJoTA 2012 v6n2 p0729
Last
night, the half-moon was up and the night was warm, but when I got off
the train at 10pm and started my walk past Independence Hall, the skies
opened and rain poured down.
I walked past the Constitution
Center, Independence Hall, the building that published Ladies Home
Journal and Saturday Evening Post, the church that laid out son of
France Stephen Girard who owned banks and funded both the Girard College
for orphans and the war of 1812 (that is what the placard says), the
place where 20 east Europeans nations declared independence from Russia
in 1918.
A short walk and so much industry and liberty
everywhere. And then I came to a sign I had not seen before, marking the
spot where Jamaicans jubilantly marched to celebrate emancipation day
on Aug 1, 1842, and were beaten up by a crowd of "white men" and
buildings were burned down. Good God. You can read the words on the sign
if you zoom in to the picture. Across the road is a church that was the
first built by Richard Allen as the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Humans
and their descendants kidnapped in undeclared wars were the sons and
daughters of Africa freed in 1838 in Jamaica. All humans were declared
free in Pennsylvania in 1787. Some 60 years before the riot. Jamaica
news and videos click here.
This
finding came in the evening of Day 2 of the Olympic Games in London. In
the afternoon I saw the picture of the salute for human rights in 1968
during the gold-medal playing of the US national anthem, and read about
the vilification of the gold and bronze medalists making the salute, and
the silver medalist with a badge from their civil rights organization
pinned to his chest.
The salute was a cry against barriers to
education and opportunities for sons and daughter of Africa, a cry
against indignities suffered in small and great ways against sons and
daughters of Africa. A cry against a brutal disruption of a peaceful
demonstration celebrating emancipation of Jamaicans in the cradle of
independence in the Americas.
1968. Gosh. Australia had voted
the previous year to permit aborigines to be humans, a national
referendum gave the sons and daughters of Australia the right to vote.
From 1962 we were dragged into the Vietnam War, and from 1965 young
Australian men were conscripted by lottery into the Australian army to
fight alongside American troops in Vietnam. In general, young
Australians whom I knew disliked white Americans and the rulers of
America. And we were waking up to the government-sanctioned genocide of
the sons and daughters of Australia. Meanwhile, in Biafra, 12 million
sons and daughters of Africa were fighting for their lives against
Russian, British and American weapons and interests, and by January
1970, 3 million had died. Biafra stories click here.
|
|
Above, Tommie Smith celebrating Kwanzaa at the African Burial Ground in Manhattan on Dec 27, 2013. He told me he still runs.
Below, picture of Peter Norman, Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the winners' stand after the Olympic medal race for 200 m.
This picture is in the public domain and was copied from Wikipedia.
|
African Burial Ground and Museum in New York City click here
|
The
African American Museum of Philadelphia is 2 blocks from Independence
Hall, for pictures and stories from the exhibition Freedom Riders click here.
40 years after that, the greatest victory of all was won: a son of Kenya was elected president of the United States. Kenya click here.
The
1968 Olympics salute had ripples, waves, tsunamis. The Australian Peter
Norman was taken into the hearts and souls of the other medalists. His
running career was effectively destroyed, even though he qualified he
was not permitted to join the Australian team in 1972 in Munich.
Peter Norman died in Australia 2006 and the gold and bronze medalists came all the way from America to be his pall-bearers.
I
am brimming with pride that an Australian trained as a butcher and as a
football player and with an endless sea of compassion did the right
thing based on a decision he had to make in a few seconds. And that for
the rest of his life he was so greatly loved by sons of Africa who were
great American patriots. Because America is about liberty. God bless
America.
|
|
