Zedsdead's Reviews > Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice

Graphic autobiography of Tommie Smith, gold medal sprinter at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City who--along with bronze medalist John Carlos--raised his fist in a black power salute on the medal podium. Both men were evicted from the games, fired from their jobs, banned from all future track competition, and rendered unhirable. ("Cancel culture" whiners should take heed--this is what cancellation actually looks like.)

It's not terribly well-written. The biographical portions can be lethargic, the competition descriptions awkwardly melodramatic. My pulse pounding like race car pistons. How could I summon the acceleration to not fall behind? My surge happened around the 80 meter mark. And anyone who counted me out was in trouble...

But it's a powerful story. Smith puts his bold act in historical context. America was in turmoil after the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. This decade saw the Klan murders of numerous civil rights activists who dared to register black voters. The assassinations of MLK, JFK, RFK, Medgar Evers, Jimmie Lee Jackson. The lynching of Emmett Till. The vicious assaults by white authorities on the Selma bridge marchers.

Smith himself had his property vandalized, his car destroyed, received hundreds of hate-spewing death threat letters. What he risked--and lost--is staggering. Four decades passed before Smith began receiving the accolades and awards normally accorded Olympic medalists and world record holders. He was invited to the White House by President Obama in 2016. In 2019 he was finally inducted into the Olympic Hall of Fame.

But lest we chalk this up as another tragic story of historical injustice, we should bear in mind that Colin Kaepernick is still being blacklisted--for kneeling during the national anthem--in 2023.