Jesse Owens

Jesse Owens (1913-1980), one of the greatest track-and-field athletes of all time. He was born James Cleveland Owens on September 12, 1913, in a small town in Alabama, the son of a sharecropper. The young Owens was called J.C. as a child, and later, after the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, a teacher heard his name as “Jesse” and wrote it down. He remained Jesse Owens for the rest of his life.

Owens competed in interscholastic track meets while attending high school, excelling in the running broad jump, the 100-yd dash, and the 220-yd dash. After high school he studied at Ohio State University. As a member of the university’s track squad in 1935, he established a world record of 26 ft 8‚ in. for the running broad jump; the next year he set a new world record of 10.2 sec for the 100-m dash.

In the 11th Olympic Games, held in Berlin, Germany, in August 1936, Owens won four gold medals for the United States. He won the 100-m dash in 10.3 sec, equaling the Olympic record; set a new Olympic and world record of 20.7 sec in the 200-m dash; and won the running broad jump with a leap of 26 ft 5– in., setting a new Olympic record. He was also a member of the U.S. 400-m relay team that year, which set a new Olympic and world record of 39.8 sec. Despite Owens’s outstanding athletic performance, German leader Adolf Hitler refused to acknowledge his Olympic victories because Owens was black.

Owens went on to play an active role in youth athletic programs and later established his own public relations firm. His autobiography, The Jesse Owens Story, was published in 1970. Owens died on March 31, 1980, in Tucson, Arizona.