With the Olympics in full swing this is a good opportunity to relive an iconic moment from the 1936 Games in Berlin, as US athlete Jesse Owens receives the long jump gold medal. It also reminds us how misleading photographs can sometimes be if we don’t have all the facts.
On the face of it, this is the story of how one of Hitler’s greatest specimens of supposed Aryan superiority was beaten by a black man right in front of his eyes. There is a pleasure in imagining how livid Hitler must have been to witness that, and how gutted this Nazi long jumper, Luz Long, must have been to be beaten into second place by the grandson of slaves. But if you have made assumptions about Long based on this picture alone they are probably very wide of the mark.
Friendship
Behind this 1936 photo is a story of a touching friendship between Owens and Long. As the image below shows, the two became close during the games, with Long even giving Owens some tips on his run-up during qualifying. During an epic final in front of a crowd of 100,000 spectators Owens and Long repeatedly traded the top spot, breaking the Olympic record five times between them, until Owens clinched victory on his penultimate jump.
With the Gold secure, and the pressure off, Owens’ last jump smashed the world record (and it would remain unbeaten for 24 years). In a mark of the kind of man that Long was, he leapt into the sandpit and embraced Owens – an action that deeply displeased Hitler and was exacerbated by the pair walking arm in arm back to the stands after the medal ceremony. After the Olympics Luz Long received a stern reprimand from deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess warning him never to embrace a black man again. He was marked in the records as being ‘not racially conscious’ and put under surveillance.
‘Sometimes you just do what the heart commands,’ Long wrote in response.
Owens meanwhile returned to the US to a hero’s welcome, but was soon reminded that Nazi Germany wasn’t the only racist nation being represented on the podium that day.
In a celebratory reception held at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, Owens was turned away at the front lobby and directed to the side entrance for tradesmen and black people. A reception was also held at the White House for the white members of the US Olympic team, but the 18 black athletes had to wait another 80 years for their descendants to be invited by President Obama.
Over in Germany things were no better. When war broke out Long, who had recently become a father, was conscripted into the German army and was killed in Sicily in 1943 after being hit by shrapnel.
In 1951 Jesse Owens visited Germany with the Harlem Globetrotters and reached out to the Long family, striking up a long-term friendship with Luz’s son, Kai. Owens died of cancer in 1980 but the two families are still friends to this day.
Now, having read the story of this touching friendship, look at the main photo again. It takes on a very different meaning, doesn’t it?
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