Watch our Truth in Two to discover the little told story of the friendship between Jesse Owens and Luz Long (full text and afterword with pictures below).
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Picture Credit: Luke Renoe, Getty Images, Wikipedia, By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-G00630 / Unknown author / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5363158, https://predicthistunpredictpast.blogspot.com/2013/08/boycotting-olympics-would-world-have.html
FULL TEXT
The 1936 Olympics was held in Germany. Adolf Hitler was in power. To Hitler, the Olympics were to be a statement about the supremacy of the so-called Aryan race. Every other ethnicity was inferior. But Jesse Owens, of African ancestry, won four gold medals at the 1936 games. Owens beat some of the Hitler’s greatest athletes.
Much could be said about Jesse Owens’ great skill as an athlete. But there is a deeper story, a human story, the friendship between Jesse Owens and Luz Long, a German long jumper. Long and Owens cemented a lifelong friendship in matter of days. Wonderful pictures exist of Owens and Luz talking or walking together arm in arm. As Owens said of Long,
“It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler. You can take all the medals and cups I have won in sport and they would not come close to the 24-karat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment. Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace. The sad part of the story is I never saw Long again.”
Luz Long died in 1943 while fighting for Germany in World War II. A final letter he wrote to Jesse Owens reads, in part,
My heart tells me, if I be honest with you, that this is the last letter I shall ever write. If it is so, I ask you something. It is a something so very important to me. Please go to Germany when this war done, find my son Karl, and tell him about his father. Tell him, Jesse, what times were like when we not separated by war. I am saying—tell him how things can be between men on this earth. Your brother, Luz'”
Another picture, this one with Jesse and Karl years after the war, tells the tale of true friendship, a friendship that traversed ethnicity, nationality, and generations; a friendship that should be a lesson to us all.
For Truth in Two this is Dr. Mark Eckel, president of The Comenius Institute, celebrating Jesse Owens during Black History Month.
AFTERWORD & PICTURES
The information and quotes for this Truth in Two were predominately taken from Jeremy Schaap, Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 2007 and Lawrence Reed Real Heroes: Inspiring True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction.
Further notations, including how Owens was treated by Hitler versus Franklin Delano Roosevelt:
Jesse was introduced to Adolf Hitler who shook his hand in congratulations for his accomplishments.
“Back home, ticker tape parades feted Owens in New York City and Cleveland. Hundreds of thousands of Americans came out to cheer him. Letters, phone calls, and telegrams streamed in from around the world to congratulate him. From one important man, however, no word of recognition ever came. As Owens later put it, ‘Hitler didn’t snub me; it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send a telegram.’
Franklin Delano Roosevelt . . . couldn’t bring himself to utter a word of support . . . FDR invited all the white US Olympians to the White House, but not Jesse.
‘It all goes so fast, and character makes the difference when it’s close,’ Owens once said about athletic competition. He could have taught FDR a few lessons in character, but the president never gave him the chance. Owens wouldn’t be invited to the White House for almost 20 years — not until Dwight Eisenhower named him ‘Ambassador of Sports’ in 1955.” [Lawrence Reed]
PICTURES: Owens and Long walking arm in arm during the 1936 Olympics. Owens saluting the American flag, winner of the long jump competition, Long winning the silver medal, saluting Hitler. Owens and Long smiling, next to each other on the infield. Jesse Owens and Karl (Kai) Long after the war. [Getty Images, noted above]
Olympische Spiele 1936 in Berlin, Siegerehrung im Weitsprung: Mitte Owens (USA) 1., links: Tajima (Japan) 3., rechts Long (Deutschland) 2., Zentralbild/Hoffmann
