A Word From David
I was a 9-year-old sports fan captivated by the competition of the first Olympics I was old enough to watch: the summer games in 1968.
October 17 is the anniversary of the gloved-fist protest that U.S. athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos engaged on the medal stand as the Star Spangled Banner was played following Smith’s gold medal performance in the 200 meter finals. Carlos finished third in the finals, and Australian Peter Norman took the silver.
The image of the three of them on the stand -- Smith with his gloved right hand raised in a fist, Carlos with his left, and Norman wearing the pin of the Olympic Project for Human Rights on his chest – is among the iconic photographs of the 20th century.
It’s engrained in my mind, but I have no idea if I actually witnessed it live on ABC. I spent 20 minutes or so this week reading about TV coverage of the 1968 Olympics, and I couldn’t figure out from what I read if the medal ceremony was covered live. It certainly made the news, and Howard Cosell commented on it during ABC’s nightly news.
Memory is a funny thing. The stories that we tell ourselves about our own histories shape how we understand that history even if they don’t reflect it accurately.
How much does accuracy matter?
In the case of a 9-year-old boy witnessing history unfold on a screen – or not – I’m not sure accuracy matters as much as the story that kid told himself over the next half century about what unfolded in 1968 on the turf in a stadium in Mexico City or on the streets of American cities that spring and summer.
Understanding what we choose to remember and how we tell the stories of our pasts matters, whether we’re talking about one kid’s past or the past of a community. How we claim our past – or how our past claims us – is, of course, at the heart of so much of the great divides in our present.
Understanding how and why we tell ourselves the stories of our pasts also shapes the stories that we can imagine about our futures.
This post is about church groups discerning and visioning their futures.