“Let's start with the black glove. We felt it necessary being the fact that the Olympic Games, for the first time ever [in 1968], had been televised worldwide. The second thing is the fact that it was in Technicolor. Never had the games been shown in color before.We wanted it to be understood that we were representing America, but we were representing Black America in particular, so that's why we put the black glove on.” FirstsFactsWantedAmericaGamesFeltBlackParticularColorUnderstoodFirst TimeRepresentingGlovesOlympic GamesBlack America Author:John Carlos
“The black socks [on me at Olympics in 1968] emphasized the fact that we had so many Blacks and people of color here in the United States, the greatest country in the world, that was running around in poverty every day, so we wanted to illustrate the fact that these individuals did not have shoes and they had to walk 20 miles to and from school every day with no shoes in the greatest country in the world.” PeopleWorldCountryStatesFactsRunningWantedSchoolIndividualBlackWalksUnitedPovertyUnited StatesColorShoesMilesOlympicsSock Author:John Carlos
“We wanted to bring attention to the fact that we had so many deals taking place that we could have made change for the better for all people, and we felt that we would be a catalyst to bring this to attention to society.” PeopleMadeFactsWould BeWantedFeltDealsAttentionCatalystChange For The Better Author:John Carlos
“It took some time for us to realize that [people] didn't particularly say they didn't like us or have the love for us that they had in the past, nor the respect. I think they chose to leave based on the fact that they felt a reprisal for being associated or having a friendship with John Carlos or Tommie Smith, or Peter Norman, for that matter.” PeopleThinkingMatterFactsPastFeltRealizingPeterReprisal Author:John Carlos
“I think it's something that we said collectively, in terms of the fact that we was getting ready to face probably the biggest storms of our life, and we had to stand strong for what we believe in and carry on the legacy we just laid down for society.” ThinkingBelieveSaidFactsFacesStrongTermOur LivesReadyStormLegacyStand Strong Author:John Carlos
“The government did a lot of things to us in terms of sending pictures to my house. If I had to go to a school to give a speech and the sorority wanted to sign a song, they would send [a person] to my house and tell my wife that I had sex with this woman or that woman.It got to the point where my wife didn't know what to believe anymore, and the fact that I didn't have a job, I couldn't support my bills, the fact that I was getting ready to go through maybe a mental setback in terms of depression, we just had a tremendous amount of things on us.” IfsKnowsGivingBelievePersonsFactsGovernmentWantedSchoolJobsSongHouseSexTermSupportWifeReadyAmountSpeechBillsMy WifeSetbackSorority Author:John Carlos
