Black Power
This chapter investigates the shifting political landscape after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as African American athletes increasingly began to use sport to challenge continued oppression rather than celebrate racial progress. It argues that the protest gestures of Tommie Smith and John Carlos in Mexico City were a direct response to the State Department's use of African American athletes as propaganda tools. Furthermore, the chapter shows that these athletes saw themselves as picking up Malcolm X's mantle and mission. Perhaps most significant, this chapter analyzes the minimalist response from the U.S. government to the protest gestures of Smith and Carlos to demonstrate how and why international pressure ceased to be a dominant impetus for racial reform in the United States by 1968.