Jesse Owens was an American track and field athlete and winner of four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. He was the most successful athlete at the Olympic games and won the 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump and the 4×100 meter relay. Most of my life, I heard it said that Hitler refused to shake Owens’ hand. He snubbed Owens because he was Black. I recently learned that this is only a partial truth.

Did Hitler snub Jesse Owens?

I am not trying to minimize Hitler’s arrogance and mistaken belief in Aryan superiority. According to his chief architect Albert Speer, it is true that Hitler “was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs of the colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose ancestors came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games.” In other words, it is true that Hitler viewed Jesse Owens as racially inferior and, therefore, might very well have snubbed him, but reality apparently played out differently.

Jesse Owens and the 1936 Olympics

Jesse Owens was a true celebrity in Berlin, and the German public received him warmly. On the first day of the Olympics, Hitler shook hands with the German gold medal winners. Cornelius Johnson, another Black American athlete, won the first gold medal for the United States. Hitler left the stadium just before Johnson was to receive the award.There are several speculations relative to the reasons behind Hitler’s departure. In any case, Olympic committee officials prevailed upon Hitler to shake hands with all or none of the winners, and Hitler decided to skip all medal presentations from that day forward. Therefore, technically Hitler shunned Cornelius Johnson rather than Jesse Owens.

Jesse Owens and discrimination in the U.S.

Born in 1913, Jesse Owens was nine years old when his family moved from Alabama to Ohio. His given name was James Cleveland Owens, and he was called “J.C.” But because of his southern accent, J.C.’s new teacher in Ohio thought he had said his name was “Jesse.” And the name Jesse stuck for the rest of his life. Due to racial discrimination, Owens was forced to live off-campus with the other Black American athletes (he attended Ohio State University), eat in “black-only” restaurants, and stay in “black-only” hotels while traveling in the U.S. Following Jesse’s marvelous Olympic triumphs, President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not invite him to the White House. The Black athlete even had the ride the freight elevator at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York to attend his own reception. According to Jeremy Schaap, author of “Triumph: the Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics” Owens later said, “Hitler didn’t snub me, it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.”

Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany (Bundesarchiv)

Jesse Owens – finally honored

Neither President Franklin D. Roosevelt nor his successor, Harry S. Truman bestowed honors upon Jesse Owens. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower named him “Ambassador of Sports.” In 1984, the street leading to the Olympic Stadium in Berlin was renamed in his honor, and in 1990 and 1998, two U.S. postage stamps were issued to honor him.