We journalists tend by nature to be observers rather than activists.
But back in 1968, when I was still a college student, I wrote the only
protest letter of my life.
After sprinters Tommie
Smith and John Carlos had made international headlines with their black
power salutes from the Olympic podium in Mexico City, Avery Brundage,
the right-wing American who was at the time the head of the
International Olympic Committee, ordered their expulsion from the
Olympic village and suspension from the U.S. team. I wrote Brundage
decrying his decision, insisting that the two men had represented our
country with great dignity on and off the track and that their protest
embodied America's finest free-speech traditions.
Now,
40 years later, I remain a fervent believer in free speech. But I
confess, as the issue threatens to once again provoke an Olympic
controversy—this time at the 2008 Games this August in Beijing—my view
is a little more nuanced.
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