Tommie Smith’s Fist Is Still Raised: ‘We Still Need to Fight’

In 1968, Tommie Smith and John Carlos stepped to the podium at the Olympics in Mexico City to receive their medals in the 200-meter dash. Wearing black socks and no shoes to represent poverty and black gloves to signify black power and liberation, the sprinters raised their fists.

The silent protest, which Smith, 76, called “a cry for freedom,” effectively ended their running careers. But it remains one of the most iconic images in the history of sports and it continues to resonate after the death of George Floyd in police custody and the subsequent protests of racially driven violence against African-American people.

Athletes who protest, including Colin Kaepernick, the N.F.L. quarterback who knelt during the national anthem before games in the 2016 season to raise awareness of police brutality, are often shouted down. But this time, some of the nation’s biggest sports stars — as well as their teams and leagues — have called for an end to racism and the need for police reform.

Smith lives in Georgia after a long career teaching at Santa Monica College in Southern California and at Oberlin College in Ohio. He rarely speaks publicly these days, but in an interview conducted this week he talked about the current climate of protest and the slow process of change.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

Q: What was your reaction to the death of George Floyd?

Smith: It’s that things change, they go speeding a bit, then they slow down to a cold stop. There were players taking a knee, then there was a soccer player with a knee, and then there were murders and then there were deaths. It takes me right back to the victory stand in Mexico City because those were the same feelings I had then. I still have those feelings, and it’s terrible that these feelings I had then are playing out now.

Were you surprised at the reaction to Colin Kaepernick’s protest four years ago?

I said when I first saw it, ‘oh my goodness gracious, this young man is going to have a whole plethora of TV cameras in his face sooner or later.’ And there it was, all over, this disenfranchising, this ‘he’s dishonoring the flag, he’s not doing his job on the field.’ But he was only saying what I already said years ago. I said, my lord, it continues to happen. It moves on and on, but we still need to fight. We cannot stop.

Have you spoken with Kaepernick?

I spoke to him once in person and quite a few times with text messages. But there’s no telling where he is because he is physically moving around trying to explain situations and trying to build programs, which are very much needed. I was very happy to see Commissioner Goodell make the statement that they should have made years ago. It cost the kid his professional football career.

How will athletes keep the momentum once the games return?

In a car or anything you have that’s going to get moving, the most momentum it takes is to start, to start the movement. Once the momentum is started, I’m hoping it continues, and it has to continue not in the streets, because it’s already set a foundation, it has to go into the jurisdiction to get to the jurisprudence to get to the White House. We have steps to go. We just can’t stop with walking the streets because they will only go as far as the streets. We have to do it through the paperwork.

What do you say to people who don’t have patience for that process?

That’s one of the biggest problems. You’ve got the city, the state and they all have representatives and that’s where it gets stuck, going through the process of making it a law. The streets are one thing. I know about that because I was in the streets a lot myself back in the day. So I know how these youngsters feel out there in the streets. Yes, it’s moving forward, but mighty slowly.

What makes you hopeful this time is different?

Getting young folks involved and voting will change the course of what America is. Shooting people in the streets, or killing people by police brutality. This is furthering the emphasis on life.

Why haven’t you spoken publicly much?

I have been thinking about it and reading about it and talking to people around the world that I needed to talk to, just not on a TV show or interview. This is an obvious right to all: Keep believing and keep working on community. It takes dedication to muster up the power to move forward. You can start a race just by walking. There are walk races, jog races, marathons or sprints. Where are you on this, a sprinter or a jogger?

The N.F.L. is the country’s biggest sports league. Are you encouraged by how many players are speaking out now?

We have to take the good and move it forward because there is going to be difficulties no matter what Commissioner Goodell says. But he gave the freedom to act, to move. With Colin Kaepernick, he stopped everybody. The players can see they have a choice now. They didn’t have a choice last year, especially around Colin’s time four years ago. They had to go by a rule which they couldn’t see or understand. They played because the money was good, not because their heart was in it.

Were you surprised by how quickly Drew Brees was criticized?

He didn’t understand the appalling situation black people are in. But he rescinded what he said because he saw what most everyone else understood before he got there, that it wasn’t about the flag.

I didn’t wave my fist because of the flag. The flag is the country, the flag is where my family is, my relatives fought for.

Are you surprised that your protest at the Olympics continues to resonate?

Each person who saw it had an explanation of their own for why it had to be done. You can see it very plainly now why that move had to be done because it was more than Tommie Smith on that victory stand. All I did was stand there with a fist in the air. It was a cry for freedom. And now people are beginning to throw a right fist up and throw it up for different reasons, but now they have the freedom to do it.

It was a small crack so all generations are moving through with a form of thanks in their hearts. That’s the way I have to see it because so many people have died because they raised a fist in their hearts or took a knee in their souls to eradicate the knee to the neck.

Will you get more involved?

I’m involved already, it’s just that I’m not seen. I have an answer when I get that question, ‘Why aren’t I out on the streets with everyone else?’ We have people on the streets, but they’re not 76 years old. The young folks now can move on. I taught college for 36 years, thousands of athletes, thousands of students. I only retired in 2005, taught 600 kids per year. So I’ve been involved, I am involved, just not like I was in the ‘60s.

I’m still talking to athletes. They’re in their 50s and 60s, my athletes are. I have an organization called the Tommie Smith Youth Initiative. We service over 3,000 kids a year in sporting events or religious functions. There’s only one me, so I can only do so much, but I will continue to do it until the day I die because this is one thing I was born for, to help my brother man.