The dissertation examines the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR), a Black Power attempt to build a black boycott of the 1968 US Olympic team that ultimately culminated in the infamous Black Power fists protest at the 1968 Olympics. The work challenges the historiography, which concludes that the OPHR was a failure because most black Olympic-caliber athletes participated in the 1968 games, by demonstrating that the foremost purpose of the OPHR was to raise public awareness of “institutionalized racism,” the accumulation of poverty and structural and cultural racism that continued to denigrate black life following landmark 1960s civil rights legislation. Additionally, the dissertation demonstrates that activist black athletes of the era were also protesting the lack of agency and discrimination traditionally forced upon blacks in integrated, yet white-controlled sports institutions. The dissertation argues that such movements for “dignity and humanity,” as progressive black activists of the 1960s termed it, were a significant component of the Black Power movement. The dissertation also examines the proliferation of the social belief that the accomplishments of blacks in white-controlled sports fostered black advancement and argues that the belief has origins in post-Reconstruction traditional black uplift ideology, which suggested that blacks who demonstrated “character” and “manliness” improved whites’ images of blacks, thus advancing the race. OPHR activists argued that the belief, axiomatic by 1968, was the foremost obstacle to attracting support for a black Olympic boycott. The manuscript concludes with a discussion of the competing meaning and representations of Smith and Carlos’s protest at the Olympics.

The dissertation examines the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR), a Black Power attempt to build a black boycott of the 1968 US Olympic team that ultimately culminated in the infamous Black Power fists protest at the 1968 Olympics. The work challenges the historiography, which concludes that the OPHR was a failure because most black Olympic-caliber athletes participated in the 1968 games, by demonstrating that the foremost purpose of the OPHR was to raise public awareness of “institutionalized racism,” the accumulation of poverty and structural and cultural racism that continued to denigrate black life following landmark 1960s civil rights legislation. Additionally, the dissertation demonstrates that activist black athletes of the era were also protesting the lack of agency and discrimination traditionally forced upon blacks in integrated, yet white-controlled sports institutions. The dissertation argues that such movements for “dignity and humanity,” as progressive black activists of the 1960s termed it, were a significant component of the Black Power movement. The dissertation also examines the proliferation of the social belief that the accomplishments of blacks in white-controlled sports fostered black advancement and argues that the belief has origins in post-Reconstruction traditional black uplift ideology, which suggested that blacks who demonstrated “character” and “manliness” improved whites’ images of blacks, thus advancing the race. OPHR activists argued that the belief, axiomatic by 1968, was the foremost obstacle to attracting support for a black Olympic boycott. The manuscript concludes with a discussion of the competing meaning and representations of Smith and Carlos’s protest at the Olympics.

The image of two US athletes with black glove-covered fists raised on the podium at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics is iconic. However, despite a number of academic studies, articles, books, lectures and films addressing this moment, the deeper story behind that student-athlete protest at Mexico 68 is little known. It was far from being a merely spontaneous or violent action. In fact, the protest was part of a concerted and largely peaceful effort to highlight several systemic injustices of the late 1960s by a group named the Olympic Project for Human Rights. As will be demonstrated in this thesis, it follows that the deeper story of the student-athlete protests at Mexico 68 are ripe with significance from both: (1) a Peace Studies perspective, focussing on structural injustice, and (2) a Conflict Resolution Studies viewpoint, which upholds value in the constructive settling of disputes. Employing a Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) lens, which keeps both sets of concerns in view, and undertaking descriptive and analytical approaches that bring the voice of the athletes to the fore as much as possible given the limitations of this study, allows for a discussion of remarkable student-athletes interacting not only within the competitive structure of their sport at the Olympics, but also amongst social, institutional, and political contexts. This approach becomes foundational for the conclusion that the athletes involved in protests at Mexico 68 were players (i.e., agents) and not pawns, in relation to complex socio-political forces, which sought to manipulate and oppress them. Moreover, this PACS approach allows for twelve concrete lessons flowing from the stories of the athletes to be delineated for their contemporary relevance in a world where far too many injustices remain. In short, the main protest is herein presented as an awe-inspiring moment, simultaneously as a compass and a key, which when integrated with a PACS perspective serves to guide us towards a fuller understanding of the Olympic Project for Human Rights and it goals, unlocking what is revealed in this study to be a potentially important moment in the history of cultures of peace.

The image of two US athletes with black glove-covered fists raised on the podium at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics is iconic. However, despite a number of academic studies, articles, books, lectures and films addressing this moment, the deeper story behind that student-athlete protest at Mexico 68 is little known. It was far from being a merely spontaneous or violent action. In fact, the protest was part of a concerted and largely peaceful effort to highlight several systemic injustices of the late 1960s by a group named the Olympic Project for Human Rights. As will be demonstrated in this thesis, it follows that the deeper story of the student-athlete protests at Mexico 68 are ripe with significance from both: (1) a Peace Studies perspective, focussing on structural injustice, and (2) a Conflict Resolution Studies viewpoint, which upholds value in the constructive settling of disputes. Employing a Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) lens, which keeps both sets of concerns in view, and undertaking descriptive and analytical approaches that bring the voice of the athletes to the fore as much as possible given the limitations of this study, allows for a discussion of remarkable student-athletes interacting not only within the competitive structure of their sport at the Olympics, but also amongst social, institutional, and political contexts. This approach becomes foundational for the conclusion that the athletes involved in protests at Mexico 68 were players (i.e., agents) and not pawns, in relation to complex socio-political forces, which sought to manipulate and oppress them. Moreover, this PACS approach allows for twelve concrete lessons flowing from the stories of the athletes to be delineated for their contemporary relevance in a world where far too many injustices remain. In short, the main protest is herein presented as an awe-inspiring moment, simultaneously as a compass and a key, which when integrated with a PACS perspective serves to guide us towards a fuller understanding of the Olympic Project for Human Rights and it goals, unlocking what is revealed in this study to be a potentially important moment in the history of cultures of peace.