Special Guest Blogger: Jesse Owens

It was a strange experience that i was shown more respect in Nazi Germany than i ever was in my own country. As a black man in 1936 America, i was a second-class citizen having to ride in the back of the bus and use the back door at restaurants, and even after returning victorious from the Olympics, had to take the freight elevator to my own own reception.
The head Nazi never shook my hand but then he never shook anybodies hand but he did wave to me when i passed his box and he sent me a telegram congratulating me on my Olympic glory which is more than i got from my own President, FDR, who didn't send squat because he didn't want to offend Southern voters mixing with a negro.
It does irk me still today that the guy who orchestrated the greatest racially motivated genocide in history behaved better towards me than my own countrymen, in Germany i had been allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, at a time when African Americans in my own country had to stay in blacks only hotels.
The American Team even tried to disuade me from taking part in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Nazi Germany, arguing that an African American should not promote a racist regime but i said if there are minorities in Germany who are being discriminated against, the United States should withdraw from the 1936 Olympics for which the American Olympic Committee branded me 'un-American'.
I won 4 gold medals at the 1936 Olympics, setting three world records and when i returned to the United States, i was greeted by a ticker-tape parade in New York but after the parade, i was not permitted to enter through the main doors of the Waldorf Astoria New York and instead forced to travel up to the event in a freight elevator to reach the reception honoring me.
My amateur status was removed and ended my career after i tried to gain some lucrative endorsement offers and i was forced to find work because as i explained, 'I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals' so took jobs as a gas station attendant, playground janitor and manager of a dry cleaning firm and even raced against horses for cash.
After i died of lung cancer in 1980, the President said: 'Perhaps no athlete better symbolized the human struggle against tyranny, poverty and racial bigotry' which is true but the greatest struggle against racists and bigots was in my own country.