Image of the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute. Gold medalist Tommie Smith (center) and bronze medalist John Carlos (right) showing the raised fist on the podium after the 200 m race at the 1968 Summer Olympics; both wear Olympic Project for Human Rights badges. Peter Norman (silver medalist, left) from Australia also wears an OPHR badge in solidarity with Smith and Carlos.
The Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) was an American organization established by sociologist Harry Edwards and multiple Black American athletes, including noted Olympic sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, on October 7, 1967.[1] The purpose of the group was to advocate for civil rights and human rights for Black people in the United States and abroad (such as South Africa), along with protesting racism in sport in general. The OPHR proposed a complete Black athlete boycott of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City to achieve its goals.[2] While the OPHR advocated for a boycott backed by all Black Americans, the group did not actively include women in its discussions and in the end was mostly composed of track and field athletes.
The proposed boycott from the OPHR failed to materialize. Instead, multiple athletes affiliated with the OPHR performed individual protests at the 1968 Summer Olympics in October. These protests included Smith's and Carlos' Black Power salute at the Games. In his autobiography, Smith expresses his concern that the OPHR and his salute have become viewed as being strictly about Black Power and reasserts that they were about human rights, stating they were for, "all humanity, even those who denied us ours."[3] The OPHR and Smith's and Carlos' salutes are part of a long history of athletes advocating for racial equality. In 2020, Edwards described Colin Kaepernick's protests before National Football League (NFL) games in 2016 and the boycotts of multiple professional sporting leagues that occurred following the shooting of Jacob Blake in August 2020 as being natural continuations of the OPHR.[4]
^Bass, Amy (2002). Not the Triumph but the Struggle: The 1968 Olympics and the Making of the Black Athlete. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 89.
^Edwards, Harry (1969). The Revolt of the Black Athlete. New York: The Free Press. pp. 38–39.
^Smith, Tommie, Delois Smith, and David Steele (2007). Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. p. 161.
^"Sports activism legend Harry Edwards: 'Athletes have always had a role in the civil rights movement'". MSNBC.com. Retrieved 2023-04-04.
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