Cold Open

It's August 3rd, 1936, at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.

A red running track rings the vast arena, and Jesse Owens is on his hands and knees, digging into it. The final of the 100-meter dash is only moments away, and Jesse is using a trowel to make his starting holes, where he'll place his feet at the beginning of the race. But it’s been raining, so Jesse’s hands are stained red; the damp brick ash of the track smells like a doused fire.

He stands to inspect his marks and notices a competitor watching him. Jesse smiles, wipes his right hand on his sweatshirt, and holds it out. The rival grasps it, and Jesse detects a tremble in the other man’s arm. Jesse gets it—he'd be nervous too if he had to race himself.

Jesse saunters over to the bench, takes off his sweats, and feels goosebumps on his arms—it's unseasonably chilly for a summer day in Berlin.

Still, that doesn’t seem to be bothering the crowd. There are 100,000 excited people packed into the stadium, and excitement is growing as the race approaches.

Back on the track, Jesse glances across at his competition. The only man he’s worried about is five lanes over—his U.S. teammate Ralph Metcalfe. Jesse knows that if he doesn’t get off to a good start, Ralph could beat him.

Soon the starter yells, “On your marks,” and Jesse carefully places his feet in his holes. He puts his back knee to the ground, and positions his hands just behind the chalk starting line.

Jesse allows himself one last glimpse up, at the bright green of the manicured field, the red swastika banners flapping in the breeze, and the box high up in the stadium where Adolf Hitler watches on, no doubt desperate for Jesse to fail.

There’s silence in the stadium as the starter shouts, “Set.” Jesse raises his hips, presses his feet into his marks, and holds.

Then the starter’s pistol goes off, and Jesse launches himself forward. The race for Olympic gold has begun.

Jesse Owens’ entire life has shaped him for this moment. His humble beginnings in Alabama. His breakout success at college. The constant doubt and prejudice he’s experienced as a Black man in America. Has all led here, to Nazi Germany and a shot at sporting immortality, on August 3rd, 1936.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is August 3rd, 1936: Jesse Owens wins gold in Nazi Germany.

Act One: From Oakville to Ohio

It’s 1918, in the tiny, sharecropping settlement of Oakville, Alabama, eighteen years before the Berlin Olympics.

Five-year-old James Cleveland Owens can't breathe. He lies in bed in his family's shack, gasping for air. A growth on his chest is pushing into his ribs and crushing his lungs. But there's no money for J.C. to see a doctor. Besides, there isn't one for seventy-five miles.

J.C.’s mom kneels by his bed. Emma Owens looks worn out. She hasn't slept in days—but she forces a smile for her son. She tells J.C. that she’s going to cut out the growth herself. Across the room, a fire burns in a small hearth. She takes the sharpest knife they have and holds it over the flames for as long as she can bear it. Then she gives J.C. a leather strap to bite down on. As her husband quietly weeps in the corner, she carefully slices through J.C.'s skin, working around the lump, concentration etched on her face. J.C. writhes in pain. All he can feel is the knife going deeper and deeper; it's excruciating. Tears stream down his face as his mom whispers again and again that she’s nearly done.

Finally, the agony does end, the lump is removed, and J.C. slips into unconsciousness.

When he wakes, the bed is wet with blood. And despite his parents’ devoted care, it doesn’t stop. The blood keeps flowing for hours. Eventually, three days after the rudimentary surgery, J.C. stumbles out of bed to the porch. His father is on his knees, praying to God for his son’s life. J.C. joins him and, within minutes, a miracle happens. The bleeding stops.

In time, J.C.’s wound heals fully. But he never forgets what he went through. It gives him a feeling that he's been saved for something special. He doesn’t quite know what it is or where to find it yet.

But it surely won’t be in Alabama. Life here for the Owens is grim. They scrape by from one harvest to another, forced to give half of all their crops to the landlord, while they wear rags and take abuse from white neighbors. So, in 1922, they decide to move north, to Cleveland, Ohio. When J.C. starts elementary school there, though, his teacher mishears his drawled southern accent, and J.C. becomes “Jesse.” The new name sticks and Jesse Owens thrives in his new home. By the age of 13, he’s grown tall and thin, with raw power in his legs that attracts the attention of local junior high school track coach Charles Riley.

Charles takes Jesse under his wing. In 1920s America, it’s unusual for a white man like Charles to devote so much time and effort to a Black kid from a working-class background. But it gives Jesse a huge boost in confidence, and, under Charles’ guidance, he grows into an elite young athlete.

When Jesse is 15, Charles organizes a 100-yard street race against some of his schoolmates. Everyone is wearing their normal clothes—it's all just a bit of fun. Charles waits at the finish line, stopwatch ready, interested to see how his protégé does. Jesse is desperate to impress and pushes himself as hard as he can. He easily beats the other boys, but Charles expected that—what astonishes him is the time on the stopwatch. No eighth grader should be able to run 100 yards in 11 seconds flat. But Jesse can—even on an ordinary street in Cleveland, wearing his regular tennis shoes.

And Jesse keeps developing under Charles’ tutelage, until by the time he is 18, he is one of the best high school athletes in the country. He's so fast that he even races in the preliminary trials for the 1932 Olympic team, running against a field of college men. He doesn’t win this time, but it gives him a vital first taste of adult competition. And he only wants more.

Jesse's sporting prowess means that he has a pick of colleges, but he stays close to home and chooses Ohio State. It's not an easy life, though. He may be a top athlete in the making, but as a Black man, he's still barred from dorms and canteens. He also has to work menial jobs to pay his way, pumping gas and operating freight elevators.

It’s not Jesse’s idea of fun, but like most great athletes, his focus is unerring. The race is all that matters. And soon, he’ll make the next big breakthrough in his young career.

In what will later be called the greatest 45 minutes in sporting history, Jesse Owens will tear up the record books, become an instant celebrity, and be crowned America’s brightest hope for the 1936 Olympic Games.

Act Two: From Ohio to the Olympics

It's May 25th, 1935, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, almost two years after Jesse Owens started college.

On a sunny spring afternoon, thousands of spectators are at the Ferry Field track for the Big Ten Athletics conference, one of the most prestigious college track meets in America. College pennants are flying, the smell of freshly cut grass is in the air, and the stadium's PA crackles with excitement.

Jesse is on the start line for the 100-yard dash. He stretches gingerly from side to side. He’s nursing an injury in his back. His coach at Ohio State isn’t sure he should be competing today at all. But Jesse knows his body. He’s convinced he can run. And, sure enough, when he crouches into position, the adrenaline kicks in, and all the pain and stiffness fade away.

Still, when the starter pistol fires, Jesse’s competitors leap ahead. But Jesse isn’t concerned. His starts are usually pretty bad, but over the next few seconds, he hauls in the field one by one. The crowd’s excitement grows with every runner Jesse passes. And it’s not just his blistering pace that makes spectators sit up—it’s the way Jesse runs, upright, elegant, and seemingly effortless. He wins the race with ease, finishing in 9.4 seconds, tying the world record.

But Jesse Owens is more than just a sprinter. Ten minutes after his triumph in the 100-yard dash, he takes part in the Long Jump. There, his first attempt breaks the world record by half a foot. He decides a second jump won't be necessary to win the event, so he returns his attention to the track.

Where in quick succession, Jesse wins the 220-yard dash and the 220-yard hurdles—notching up world record-breaking times in both races.

In the space of just 45 minutes, Jesse Owens has broken a fistful of world records—all while battling a back injury. So while the crowd at Ann Arbor has been loudly chanting for the Michigan athletes all day. Jesse’s brilliance is such that they can’t help cheering for their Ohio State rival as well.

After the event, everyone wants to meet Jesse and shake his hand. The crowd of admirers is so enthusiastic that he has to escape the locker room through a bathroom window to avoid the attention of autograph hunters. And over the next few days, newspapers turn Jesse into a national celebrity. Suddenly, the college champion is a leading contender for the coveted 100-meter gold medal at the next Olympics.

The only snag for Jesse is that the Amateur Athletic Union is talking about not sending a U.S. team at all. The International Olympic Committee awarded the Games to Berlin in 1931. But then the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler took power. He’s turned Germany into a dictatorship and instituted racist policies that target the country’s Jews, Roma, and its few Black and Asian citizens. These “non-Aryans” are increasingly discriminated against and excluded from public life. And Hitler has made no secret of his plans to turn the Olympic Games into a propaganda exercise for the Nazi state. The question for the rest of the world is how to respond. The president of the American Amateur Athletic Union wants to boycott the Games, but it’s not his decision alone. There has to be a vote first.

And the opinion of top American athletes like Jesse Owens carries special weight. As the debate rages on during the summer and fall of 1935, Jesse is repeatedly asked for his opinion. He remains diplomatic and non-committal in public—but in private, he is desperate to take part in the Olympics. To many Black athletes, Nazi antisemitism doesn't seem so different from the Jim Crow laws of the American South. So if Jesse can race in the United States, where African-Americans are second-class citizens, he doesn’t see why he shouldn’t race in Berlin as well.

And besides, this is an event that he's trained for his entire life. He’s battled through poverty and prejudice in his own country to get to the top, and this will probably be his best shot at Olympic glory. He’s not giving that up for a boycott that is unlikely to change anything.

A few weeks later, the decision comes to an official vote. By a wafer-thin margin, the AAU decides that America will send a team to the Games.

And Jesse Owens will be on it. He will sail through the team trials. And then, he will travel to Berlin, to Adolf Hitler’s Olympics, and there, he’ll show the Nazis what a real superman looks like.

Act Three: Race

It’s August 3rd, 1936, at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, eight months after the Amateur Athletic Union decided to send a U.S. team to the Games.

The crowd roars as the 100-meter dash gets underway. There’s no bad start for Jesse Owens this time. His arms and legs whir as he pulls away from his rivals. In the final stretch, fellow American Ralph Metcalfe gains some ground—but it's too little, too late. Jesse sprints home in 10.3 seconds, almost equaling the world record on a damp track in the most high-pressure race of his life.

That evening, as Jesse stands on the podium and the first notes of The Star-Spangled Banner fill the stadium, tears well up in his eyes because he realizes this was the moment. This is what he was saved for that night in Alabama, when he and his father prayed for his life on their knees.

But Jesse doesn't stop with just this win. Over the next few days, he earns three more gold medals—in the 200 meters, the Long Jump and the 4x100-meter relay. He is the undisputed star of the Berlin Olympics and the spearhead of a remarkable group of African-American athletes who win 14 medals at the Games, including eight golds. It’s a defining shift away from the pattern of previous Olympics, when white, upper-class athletes dominated the Games. And it will inspire generations of Olympians from all backgrounds for decades to come.

But it’s not a sporting achievement alone. Jesse Owens and the others didn’t just win medals. They did so as Black men in Nazi Germany, with swastika banners flying all around them and a populace in thrall of white supremacy.

But when interviewed by the press trackside, Jesse is diplomatic and magnanimous. He praises the games and calls Berlin a beautiful city. By contrast, the Nazis are characteristically vindictive, with their propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels calling the African American victories a disgrace.

Hitler wanted the Berlin Olympics to showcase the glories of his “new Germany.” Instead, they will be remembered as Jesse Owens’ Games—an enduring rebuke to Nazi ideology and a sporting performance for the ages that all began when Jesse won the 100-meter dash on August 3rd, 1936.

Outro

Next on History Daily: August 4th, 1704. Britain seizes Gibraltar, turning the peninsula on the south coast of Spain into a symbol of the nation’s naval strength.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Laurie Harris.

Edited by William Simpson.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.