The Black Athlete

In 1968, Jack Olsen wrote what Sports Illustrated would later call the most significant series of stories in the magazine’s history.

Published across five consecutive issues beginning July 1, 1968, “The Black Athlete: A Shameful Story” shattered the comfortable myth that American sport was a level playing field, a rare arena where race didn’t matter and Black athletes had found true equality. Olsen proved it was a lie.

Black collegiate athletes were recruited for their speed and strength, celebrated on the field, and abandoned everywhere else. Ostracized on campus, denied academic support, discarded when their playing days ended. In professional sports, Black athletes could perform but rarely lead. Positions of authority and responsibility were reserved for white men. The system was not accidental. It was designed.

Olsen spent months interviewing sociologists, community leaders, coaches, athletic directors, and the athletes themselves. Men who had never been asked, or allowed, to tell the truth about their experience. What they told him sparked a national reckoning.

The series galvanized the movement that would produce one of the most iconic moments in sports history: the Black Power Salute of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, their black-gloved fists raised in silence on the medal podium, seen by more than 80 million people around the world.

More than fifty years later, the questions Jack Olsen asked, about exploitation, inequality, and the myth of sport as a meritocracy, remain as urgent as ever.