Jesse Owens: A Hero Abroad, Snubbed at Home

 Jesse Owens: A Hero Abroad, Snubbed at Home

In 1936, Jesse Owens became a legend on the global stage. At the Berlin Olympics, he shattered records and Adolf Hitler’s myth of Aryan superiority by winning four gold medals. Owens, a Black American athlete, stunned the world not just with his speed, but with his calm, quiet defiance in the face of hatred. “It took a lot of courage for him to do what he did, in that place, at that time,” sportswriter Grantland Rice once said. Owens didn’t just run races; he ran through walls that were meant to hold him back.

But when Owens returned home to the United States, the welcome from his own government was chillingly cold. President Franklin D. Roosevelt never invited him to the White House. There were no handshakes, no national congratulations from the Oval Office. “Hitler didn’t snub me—it was our president who snubbed me,” Owens would later say. At a time when America still enforced segregation, not even Olympic greatness could erase the color of his skin in the eyes of its highest leaders.

The American public, however, had a more heartfelt reaction. In cities across the country, Owens was hailed as a hero, especially by Black communities who saw him as living proof of their strength and potential. A ticker-tape parade in New York City celebrated his victories, but even that joy came with a bitter aftertaste. When Owens arrived at a reception held in his honor at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, he was forced to use the service entrance and ride the freight elevator because of the hotel’s segregation policy. “I couldn’t ride the elevator with the whites,” he said, “I had to go up in the freight elevator.”

This contradiction—international fame and domestic discrimination- captures the painful complexity of Black life in early 20th-century America. Owens was good enough to represent the U.S. in Germany, but not good enough to be treated with dignity at home. “When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler,” he said, “I couldn’t ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn’t live where I wanted. I wasn’t invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either.”

Economically, Owens found few opportunities in the wake of his Olympic success. He was not offered endorsements or financial support. Instead, he had to make ends meet however he could—racing horses at fairs, working gas station jobs, and giving playground talks. “People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to race against a horse,” he once noted. “But what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can’t eat four gold medals.”

Despite these challenges, Owens continued to inspire. In time, the country slowly began to acknowledge the injustice he had endured. In 1976, President Gerald Ford awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, calling him “an American who challenged the spirit of Hitler and triumphed.” In 1990, long after Owens' death, President George H. W. Bush posthumously awarded him the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the highest civilian honors in the United States.

Jesse Owens’ story serves as a powerful reminder that Black excellence has often been met with resistance at home, even as it wins admiration abroad. His legacy echoes the deeper meaning of Juneteenth: a celebration of freedom that acknowledges both progress and pain. Just like those who waited two and a half years to learn they had been freed, Owens’ wait for recognition was long and unjust. But his endurance, like theirs, became a lesson in strength.

Thank you for visiting the Juneteenth Handbook Blog. Please consider sharing this story as a reminder that the fight for dignity and equality did not end with emancipation; it continues today. Follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/findhank, and help keep the conversation going. In the words of Jesse Owens:

“The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself—the invisible battles inside all of us—that’s where it’s at.”