Perhaps one of the most famous protest moves in all of athletic history occurred at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, when American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in salute on the medal platform during the playing of the U.S. national anthem. This Black Power salute, performed after Smith won gold and Carlos won bronze in the 200-meter dash, was a powerful condemnation of racial inequality and injustice in America. Both runners wore no shoes to symbolize poverty and scarves and beads to protest lynching and historical violence against Black Americans.

Their actions had the following immediate effects: the International Olympic Committee (IOC), led by Avery Brundage, sentenced them to exclusion from the Games, and they were both expelled from the U.S. team. They were subjected to vile hate and poisonous verbal attacks upon their return, and they were sent death threats and forced out of their jobs. Yet, years later, their act was a historic turning point in sport and civil rights, a defining moment that informed influential people of the difficult truth.

Media at the time was largely negative. Mainstream media covered the protest as a disruption of the Olympic spirit and politicization of the games. The gesture was, at various times, referred to as militant or anti-patriotic, and the athletes were defined as agitators rather than activists. Lacking the influence of social media, the reporting was closely managed by newspapers and television networks, which largely mirrored the establishment’s disdain for political opposition, especially from Black athletes.

Smith and Carlos could not control the media message in 1968, their channels being few and ununderstanding. But what they were saying for themselves in their interviews accounted for what they had done: it was not a show of hatred, but a call for human rights. Apart from the initial lack of support, their photograph — fists up, heads down — became legendary. The photograph of the moment cut through the initial shock and eventually was recognized as a powerful image of defiance.

In retrospect, the media agenda for the first time suppressed the impact of their act, framing it as a misplaced intrusion of politics into the realm of sport. But with time, as social attitudes shifted and their story was re-told in books, documentaries, and retrospectives, the meaning of their act was redeemed. What was once contentious came to be hailed as a courageous defense of justice, demonstrating how the long arc of history can bend public perception — even where media reporting is initially hostile.