It’s been fifty years since two African American US Olympic medalists, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, cast their eyes downward and raised clenched fists on the medals’ stand during the playing of the “Star Spangled Banner” (national anthem of the USA) at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Boos and racial epithets were hurled from the stands, both were kicked off the US team, ordered to leave the Olympic Village, and, upon returning to the USA, they received hate mail, death threats and experienced harassment. However, their gesture became iconic and their stance against racial injustice is celebrated the world over, including Oaxaca.
Taller de Gráfica Experimental de Oaxaca, Calle La Noria at Melchor Ocampo, Oaxaca de Juárez
“I don’t have any misgivings about it being frozen in time. It’s a beacon for a lot of people around the world. So many people find inspiration in that portrait. That’s what I was born for.” –John Carlos (The man who raised a black power salute at the 1968 Olympic Games)
What most of the world didn’t see or hear about — because it was conspicuously absent from the covers of the country’s major newspapers — was that two weeks before, in what came to be known as the Tlatelolco Massacre, somewhere between 300 and 2,000 peacefully protesting students in Mexico City were murdered by Mexican military and police forces.
The echos from 1968 continue today… Colin Kaepernick continues to be castigated and denied employment as an NFL football player for taking a knee during the playing of the “Star Spangled Banner” and 43 student teachers from Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa, whose bus was ambushed in Iguala, Guerrero four years ago, continue to be missing.
Mexican Peso Converter
View From Casita Colibrí 
I was living in Mexico City in 1968. I remember these events but we only heard rumors as the press was controlled by the government. It wasn’t until I got letters of concern from home that I realized how bad it was. There were tanks rolling down the Reforma as I recall but it seemed calm. I did not live near Tlateloloco rather closer to Chapultepec and the Reforma.
It is sad to realize things have not changed.
OMG! Thank you for sharing. And, yes, SO incredibly sad to see that, in 50 years, we haven’t come all that far.
And just about 50 years ago that I was drafted and, eventually, sent to Vietnam in 1969 – 70.
John, so glad you survived! What a time we lived through but I fear for the challenges the young people face today.
Excellent, my dear friend!
Muchisimas gracias, mi querida amiga.
Your gift, of bringing and bridging the past into the present, speaks an important urgency, to wake up to what’s happening. Thank you, Shannon.
Thank you Cynthia! Alas, what’s old is new again.
Thanks for this enlightening read; A comprehensive explanation and history of a protest symbol for the very many forms of Social Injustice that have evolved to include present day ones, unaddressed in the past.
Ever vigilant, we must be. No rest for the weary and/or retired!
2 de Octubre no se olvida … impossible with the current climate