Jesse Owen

The story of Jesse Owens is quite intriguing. The way he dominated everyone during the Berlin Olympics had to have caught the eye of most people in the world. In an Olympics supposed to be dominated by Germans, Owens won numerous gold medals in numerous events, including the 100m dash, 220m hurdles, and long jump, among others. He wiped out all of his competition to the point where most of his races were not even close. Everyone seemed to be extremely impressed, including most of the German's themselves. A person would think that after such a dominant performance, Owens would come back to America and be a nationally known celebrity. Everyone would want to meet him, companies would want him to star in their commercials and he would be featured everywhere. However, this was not the case. When Jesse Owens returned to the US, he was basically disregarded. No endorsement offers, no invitations from famous people to hang out, and very little publicity from outside of the African American population. When I first heard this, I was shocked. Put Jesse Owens in this day and age and he would be the face of the country after such a dominant performance. Look at Michael Phelps today. He dominates the world in swimming and becomes a iconic legend in America. He is on the front cover of magazines, asked to be the guest on countless TV shows, and even gets caught breaking the law but does not seem to get his image hurt. But back then things were different. Blacks did not have nearly the amount of respect that whites had and even a stint like dominating in the Berlin Olympics wasn't going to fix that. Owens ended up speaking about success and becoming a role model to the black society, but never really gained stature amount the whites. It is amazing to see how the times have changed, and purely unfortunate that the time of Jesse Owen's prime had to at such a time like it was.