He won Australia a silver medal at the 1968 Mexico Olympics after running the 200 metres in 20.06 seconds, an Australian record that hasn’t been broken in the 50 years since. He was part of one of the most successful Olympic Australian athletics team ever.
Peter Norman is a hero to millions today for what he did after that race. Hearing of US medallists Tommie Smith and John Carlos' plans to protest against inequality on the dais, Peter pinned an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge on his green and gold Australian tracksuit. Although not an American, Norman promised to stand with the two American sprinters in silent protest. The trio’s courage in giving the Black Power Salute was a defining symbol that called attention to terrible racial inequality.
Time magazine said it was the most iconic photograph ever taken: 2 black sprinters raising a fist, both sheathed in black gloves, as the American national anthem played in Mexico City. They also hung their heads during the national anthem, which led their critics to accuse them of being unpatriotic.
The Peter Norman Story
by Andrew Webster and Matt Norman
Peter Norman's singlet from the 1968 Olympics
Put into the Australian Museum of Australia in 2016
As we saw in an earlier post, the apoplectic President of the American Olympic Committee Avery Brundage clearly reacted with anger to the two black athletes. Brundage and the IOC ordered the suspension of Carlos and Smith, and threatened publicly to strip them of their medals. After Smith and Carlos were expelled from the Olympics, their careers seemed shattered.
However later the two Americans were well-regarded by half the population for their protest, despite the rules of the IOC. After all, this was a time when the USA was literally burning as the civil rights movement gathered pace. Think of the timing – the USA had suffered the recent assassinations of Dr Martin Luther King in April 1968 and Senator Robert Kennedy in June 1968. Then many anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, although the Kent State shootings of young undergrads didn’t take place until 1970.
Norman received a verbal reprimand from AOC President Judy Patching then was allowed to remain in Mexico City. But after the Games, Norman was treated as a pariah in Australia. His failure to make the Australian team for the 1972 Olympics, despite his national records, suggested that he was indeed blacklisted. However just how much Norman was blacklisted or ostracised is still debated.
All 3 athletes were cast into exile to some extent. But the events secured a unique friendship, and a powerful legend regarding their world-changing moment. This working-class man from Melbourne became a global icon for equality and courage, alongside his colleagues. And for the Salvation Army girl, Ruth Newnham, whom he had married in 1964.
What were the consequences in the long term? Taking part in the silent protest after medalling at the 1968 Olympics 200m changed Norman's life, and those of people close to him. What was true was that he came home and became a different person. Family life wasn’t their own any more.
Peter Norman’s act of solidarity in Mexico cost him everything, including his family, career in sport, connection to his beloved church etc. But he thought he deserved greater recognition and was hurt by being forgotten by history. Fame is often so ironic.
Norman’s first family of children were interviewed for the book, making for very sad reading when they laid bare their anguish about him walking out on the family. Worse still, he took up a relationship with another woman with whom he’d been having an affair. After his first divorce, Norman had refused to pay maintenance payments and, for many years, he refused to see his own children. His private life was a disaster; he was a very flawed character.
Pall bearers Tommie Smith (left) and John Carlos for Peter Norman,
Williamstown Town Hall, Melbourne 2006.
The Bulletin
They reconnected with him later in life, but it was far too late. He died at 64, in 2006. Norman was survived by his first wife Ruth, and their children Gary, Sandra and Janita. And he was survived by his second wife Jan and their daughters, Belinda and Emma.
In 2012, Federal MP Andrew Leigh put a motion to Parliament. It officially apologised for the treatment Peter Norman received after he returned to Australia and importantly acknowledged him as ‘a great Australian who stood with black power protesters.’
In the USA Smith and Carlos had become the legendary figures they deserved to be, even attending the White House with the American Olympic team after the 2016 Rio Olymic Games at the invitation of President Barack Obama.
A statue of the three sprinters
in Washington DC
The Sydney City Council recognised that street art can make a valuable contribution to the city's identity and social cohesion, to its creativity and diversity. The mural that sparked the creation of a Public Art Register was in Sydney's inner west, threatened with demolition to make way for a railway line. It was based on our photo taken at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, and the protest against racial inequality!
See the 2008 film, Salute, shown on SBS.
.jpg)
.jpg)
12 comments:
Hello Hels, How ironic that the Olympics, supposedly the symbol of multi-national and fair competition, was the source of such bias and pettiness. Too late to do Peter Norman himself any good, his reputation has been revived and statues ordered, but we have to also wonder about Norman's lost athletic career.
--Jim
Tragic story. I can see that Norman was excluded from the 1972 Olympic team, but I cannot see what happened to Smith and Carlos in the 1972 Games.
A complex character, and a difficult one to live with, I suspect. But we need people who go their own way and who will make points of principle like this - they are the ones which often spark off change.
Parnassus
Most people DID believe that the Olympics were the symbol of multi-national and fair competition. Except for the black athletes who recognised lack of fairness when they saw it! So black athletes formed the Olympic Project for Human Rights to organise an African American boycott, well before the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.
Two of their requests were
1. Disinvite South Africa and Rhodesia and
2. Remove the pro-Nazi Avery Brundage as head of the United States Olympic Committee.
Even though the boycott failed, and black athletes did end up going to Mexico City, symbols of the Olympic Project for Human Rights were to be expected during and after the events.
But note that Peter Norman merely stood respectfully, while Smith and Carlos carried out their silent protest. And he wore a Olympic Project for Human Rights badge on his shirt.
LMK
Smith and Carlos were sent home in disgrace and formally banned from the Olympics for life. Informally they were treated as returning heroes, at least by all black community and a portion of the rest of the USA.
Norman had the opposite response. He was NOT banned from any Olympics, but he returned home to Australia to suffer unofficial sanction and ridicule. Despite winning every race in Australia before the 1972 Games, he never ran in the Olympics again.
Jenny
Andrew Webster and Matt Norman certainly left me with that exact feeling, yes - a depressed, flawed character, who made it very difficult for his family in particular.
But when we think back to what Peter Norman actually did, it was a very modest public support for his two American colleagues. Even had he not been concerned about racial inequality, what did Avery Brundage and the other officials expect Peter Norman to do - not collect his silver medal? The ridicule he faced back in Australia was far out of proportion to his so-called misdemeanor in Mexico.
A pretty sad and depressing story about a sad life after such a brave act. At least the black competitors went on to receive recognition. I was 11 at the time. Can you remember the incident at the time? Even casting my mind back to 1968, why did this so upset Australians? At least I am confident it would be a different story here now.
Andrew
I remember the 1968 Olympics very well, particularly because Australia did well. But no, the significance of the event was not at all visible during the Games, and certainly not in the years leading up to 1972.
If anyone would like my copy of the Peter Norman Story book, I will just charge the postal costs. It is important to investigate how Australian policies were changed, on the say so of Avery Brundage and others.
By the way, do you remember when Dawn Fraser was banned for life?
Thank you for your well written post.
Open my mind
Tanza
welcome aboard.
It seems shocking to us that Adolf Hitler famously refused to shake Jessie Owens’ hand, not wanting to acknowledge a black athlete’s great success at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. And worse that the American team managers forced Owen to use the goods lift in the hotel the team was staying at, not the ordinary guests' lift.
How appalling that black athletes paid an even worse price at the 1968 Olympic Games.
Thanks Hels for this ... I didn't know the full story - cheers Hilary
Hilary
me either. Fancy waiting until recently when a Federal MP apologised for the treatment Peter Norman received back in Australia in 1968. Only in 2012 did the MP acknowledge Norman as a great Australian athlete who stood with black power protesters.
Post a Comment