Quote Originally Posted by Trainer Monkey View Post
Penning a letter a few weeks prior to the games, Smith wrote to legendary track and field star Jesse Owens. At the 1936 Berlin, Owens won four gold models and angered Adolf Hitler who had planned to show the world the racial superiority of his Aryan super athletes.

“I wrote Jesse just before his death to let him know how much I admired him and to let him know that I thought he was the greatest athlete of all time not just for winning but because he never made the big dogs in the Olympic committee - who were all Jim Crow –put him down as a black man.”
Do you check anything?
That doesn't disprove anything I said.


Yeah sure guys like Ali and Smith appologized later on. But like any young kid they ran off at the mouth against some really iconic figures and it shouldn't have happened. That's tough for me to respect...but yes later they corrected themselves.

Joe Louis turned down Jack Johnson's help because he couldn't be champion if he had ANYTHING to do with Johnson. Johnson was a great champion and flaunted his race and it rubbed people the wrong way and after he was beaten it set black fighters back....you think Sam Langford just chose never to get a title shot

I do understand the level of frustration there probably was between the generations of Louis and Ali but that is no reason to call out someone for being an Uncle Tom.

Ali was a talkative guy and I am sure like anyone else he regrets saying certain things....I am by no means perfect but I don't have cameras in my face either. Ali had a platform to speak from and sometimes he said the wrong things....he corrected himself in later years though.