RETROPOLIS
Jesse Owens won 4 Olympic golds — then was paid to campaign against FDR

After breaking records at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Owens was paid handsomely to stump for Roosevelt’s opponent.



Jesse Owens competes in one of the heats of the 200 meters at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin on Aug. 14, 1936. (AP)

By Ronald G. Shafer
July 21, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

Adolf Hitler arrived too late to see Jesse Owens blazing down the track in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium on Aug. 3, 1936, winning the 100-meter race in a record-tying 10.3 seconds and edging out fellow Black American Ralph Metcalfe. … But the German chancellor witnessed the day’s remaining events, and “with Der Fuehrer stroking his moustache in the royal box and brocaded swastikas flying in the breeze,” the United Press reported, “Old Man Nordic supremacy took an awful kicking around on the first day of competition in the Olympics.”

Owens stood on the podium in front of the crowd of 110,000 and saluted. “My eyes blurred as I heard the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ played first faintly and then loudly and then saw the American flag slowly raised for my victory,” he later recalled. On his right, a German Olympic official gave the Nazi salute.

Germany’s dictator didn’t shake hands with Owens or most other winners. “Hitler Snubs Owens” was the headline in U.S. newspapers. Owens later had his own version: “Hitler didn’t snub me — it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.”

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Jesse Owens salutes during the presentation of his gold medal for the long jump on Aug. 11, 1936, alongside silver medalist Luz Long, right, of Germany, and bronze medalist Naoto Tajima of Japan, during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. (AP)

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Both political parties wooed Owens to win Black voters in the election. Democrats offered to buy him a house in Ohio, but a Sun Oil executive paid him a large fee to campaign for Landon, William J. Baker wrote in his 1986 book “Jesse Owens: An American Life.” Owens also was angered that Roosevelt hadn’t congratulated any of the Black Olympic athletes.

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Ronald G. Shafer is a former Washington political features editor at the Wall Street Journal.

By Ronald G. Shafer
Ronald G. Shafer is a former editor at the Wall Street Journal and the author of "The Carnival Campaign: How The Rollicking 1840 Campaign of Tippecanoe and Tyler Too Changed Presidential Elections Forever.” Twitter