Meet Jesse Owens: Four Gold Medals, and a Country That Did Not Call

Forty-five minutes in Ann Arbor

On 25 May 1935, at a Big Ten meet, Jesse Owens set three world records and tied a fourth in about forty-five minutes. A junior-high coach, Charles Riley, had trained him before school, because Owens worked after it.

Berlin, and a friend on the other side

At the 1936 Olympics he won the 100 metres, the 200 metres, the long jump and the relay. The German long jumper Luz Long befriended him in front of the crowd; Long was later killed in the war.

The homecoming

There was no White House invitation. For years he earned a living from exhibition races, some against horses. Recognition came late — the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 — and he spoke about the gap between it and respect without bitterness, and without pretending it was not there.

Why they belong at your table

Seat Owens when you have done the work and the world has not paid out — when you need to keep your own standard separate from other people’s recognition of it.