Jesse Owens
Four Gold Medals in Front of Hitler at the 1936 Olympics
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The audiobook follows Owens from his early life in rural Alabama through his time at East Technical High School and Ohio State University. It covers his victories at the USA Track and Field Championships, his world records set in Ann Arbor, and his return home to face segregation and discrimination. Chapters also detail his post-Olympic life, death, and lasting legacy.
This biography offers a straightforward account of Owens's athletic achievements and personal struggles. Readers interested in sports history, civil rights, or American athletes will find this compelling.
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Jesse Owens, born J. C. on September 12, 1913, in Oakville, Alabama, was the youngest of ten children to Henry Cleveland Owens, a sharecropper, and Mary Emma Fitzgerald. His grandfather had been a slave. When Jesse was nine, his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, as part of the Great Migration. His new teacher asked his name for the roll book, and hearing his strong Southern accent, she thought he said "Jesse." That name stuck for the rest of his life.
In his younger years, Jesse Owens took on various jobs to help support his family, working odd tasks like delivering groceries and loading freight cars, while his father and brother labored at a steel mill. Despite his busy schedule, Owens discovered he loved running. His junior high school track coach, Charles Riley, played a key role in his athletic development. Since Owens had to work after school, Riley let him train before classes instead.
Jesse Owens met Minnie Ruth Solomon at Fairmont Junior High School in Cleveland. They began dating when he was fifteen and she was thirteen. Ruth gave birth to their first daughter, Gloria, in 1932. The two married on July 5, 1935. Together they had two more daughters: Marlene, born in 1937, and Beverly, born in 1940. Owens and Solomon remained married until his death in 1980.
Jesse Owens first gained national attention while attending East Technical High School in Cleveland. There, he equaled the world record in the 100-yard dash with a time of 9.4 seconds, broke the national high school record in the 220-yard dash with a run of 20.7 seconds, and won the long jump at the 1933 National High School Championship in Chicago with a leap of 24 feet 9+1⁄2 inches. His performance in the 100-yard dash remained the national high school record until 1967, while his time in the 220-yard dash stood as the national mark for two decades.
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Jesse Owens entered Ohio State University in 1933 after his father found work, giving the family some stability. Known as the "Buckeye Bullet," he was coached by Larry Snyder and went on to win eight individual NCAA championships, four in 1935 and four in 1936. That includes an undefeated junior year in 1936 when he won all forty-two events he entered. Despite his athletic success, Owens lived off campus with other Black athletes and faced segregation while traveling with the team—eating at "blacks-only" restaurants and staying in "blacks-only" hotels. He never received a scholarship, so he held part-time jobs to pay for school. Academically, he struggled, was placed on probation in 1936 and again in 1940, and dropped out in 1941 without earning a degree.
On May 25, 1935, Jesse Owens made history at the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan, winning four events and setting six world records in a single day. Despite battling a lower back injury, he achieved these feats between 3:15 and 4 p.m. at Ferry Field. He equaled the world record in the 100-yard dash with a time of 9.4 seconds, then set records in the long jump, 220-yard sprint, and 220-yard low hurdles. His long jump record of 26 feet 8+1⁄4 inches stood for 25 years. Two of his performances also broke the metric records for 200 meters, flat and hurdles, earning him two additional world records. In 2005, sports historian Richard C. Crepeau called this day’s accomplishments the most impressive athletic achievement since 1850.
At the 1936 Big Ten Championships, Jesse Owens won four gold medals in a single meet, taking first place in the long jump, 100-yard dash, 220-yard dash, and 100-yard low hurdles. With these victories, he finished his Big Ten Championship career undefeated, having captured nine titles across nine events.
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At the 1934 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships, Jesse Owens claimed the long jump title with a leap that set a new world record, measuring 25 feet 3+1⁄8 inches. He returned to the Outdoor Championships in 1936, where he again broke the long jump world record by clearing 26 feet 8¼ inches. In the same event, he also established a new championship record in the 100 meters, finishing with a time of 10.4 seconds. Over his career at these championships, Owens won a total of six gold medals—five in the long jump and one in the 100 meters.
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In December 1935, Walter Francis White, NAACP Secretary, wrote a letter to Jesse Owens that he never sent. White tried to stop Owens from competing in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Nazi Germany, warning that an African American should not support a racist regime after what his race had suffered at home. A movement grew to boycott the Games, and Owens was convinced by the NAACP to say: "If there are minorities in Germany who are being discriminated against, the United States should withdraw from the 1936 Olympics." Yet he and other athletes competed after Avery Brundage, president of the American Olympic Committee, called them "un-American agitators." In 1936, Owens and his U.S. teammates sailed to Berlin on the SS Manhattan. Before the competitions, Adi Dassler, founder of Adidas, visited Owens in the Olympic village and persuaded him to wear shoes from his company, marking the first sponsorship for a male African American athlete.
On August 3, Jesse Owens won the 100 meter dash in 10.3 seconds, beating his teammate and college friend Ralph Metcalfe by a tenth of a second and Tinus Osendarp of the Netherlands by two-tenths of a second. The very next day, August 4, Owens took the long jump with a leap of 8.06 metres, just three-quarters of an inch short of his own world record. He had first said he credited the win to advice from Luz Long, the German rival he defeated, but later admitted that wasn’t true, since he and Long didn’t meet until after the event was over.
On August 5, Jesse Owens won the 200-meter sprint in 20.7 seconds, beating teammate Mack Robinson. Four days later, on August 9, he earned his fourth gold medal as part of the 4 × 100 m relay team. Head coach Lawson Robertson had swapped Jewish-American sprinters Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller for Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, who were joined by Frank Wykoff and Foy Draper. The team set a world record of 39.8 seconds. Owens had protested the change, but assistant coach Dean Cromwell told him, "You'll do as you are told." His four-gold performance wasn't matched until Carl Lewis achieved the same feat in 1984. Before the Berlin Olympics, Owens had already set a long jump world record in 1935 with a leap of 8.13 meters, a mark that stood for 25 years until Ralph Boston broke it in 1960—coincidentally, the same year Owens watched from the stands in Rome.
On August 2, 1936, Jesse Owens ran in the 100-meter qualifying rounds on Day 2 of the Berlin Olympics, tying the Olympic and world record in the first race and breaking it in the second, though that time wasn’t recognized due to wind assistance. That same day, his teammate Cornelius Johnson won gold in the high jump final with a new Olympic record of 2.03 meters. Adolf Hitler did not greet any medalists that day, only shaking hands with German winners before leaving the stadium. The International Olympic Committee president Henri de Baillet-Latour insisted Hitler either greet all medalists or none at all, and Hitler chose the latter. The communist newspaper Daily Worker claimed Hitler skipped Owens and others after watching Johnson’s win, calling it a deliberate snub. Owens responded to these claims at the time.
Hitler had a set schedule for his time at the stadium, and he was leaving before the victory ceremony following the 100-meter race, which began at 5:45 p.m. But just before he went, Jesse Owens was on his way to a broadcast and passed near Hitler’s box. The dictator waved at him, and Owens waved back. Some thought it was poor taste to criticize the "man of the hour" in another country. An article dated August 4, 1936, by Robert L. Vann, an African-American newspaper editor, describes witnessing Hitler "salute" Owens after he won gold in the 100-meter sprint on August 3.
I saw Herr Adolph Hitler salute Jesse Owens after his 100-meter victory, with a crowd of 85,000-90,000 people cheering him wildly. British fighter pilot Eric Brown, aged 17 in 1936 and later the Fleet Air Arm's most decorated pilot, stated in a BBC documentary: "I actually witnessed Hitler shaking hands with Jesse Owens and congratulating him on what he had achieved." An article in The Baltimore Sun in August 1936 reported that Hitler sent Owens a commemorative inscribed cabinet photograph of himself. On October 15, 1936, Owens repeated this claim at a Republican rally in Kansas City, remarking: "Hitler didn't snub me—it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram."
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After the 1936 Olympics, Avery Brundage arranged a tough European tour for athletes to raise money for the AAU and USOC, which he was leading. Jesse Owens, already worn out and pushed to keep racing, took part in several events across Europe where he received little rest, food, or help. Brundage continued scheduling races deep into Scandinavia. Eventually, Owens stopped participating, and Brundage responded by banning him from amateur sports permanently, which ended his career. Owens was furious and said, “A fellow desires something for himself.” He also pointed out that years of racism—like not getting college scholarships and having to work to pay his way—left him with no choice but to leave amateur athletics behind in search of money elsewhere.
After the 1936 Olympics, Jesse Owens returned to a America that offered him little more than rejection and hardship. Despite his four gold medals, he found no job offers and was forced into degrading work—gas station attendant, janitor, dry cleaning manager—and even raced against horses and cars for money. “What was I supposed to do?” he asked, noting he had jumped farther and run faster than anyone before, yet it left him with almost nothing. He wasn’t treated like a hero but like any other Black man in the Jim Crow South. “I sold myself into a new kind of slavery,” he said. His victories showed what was possible when barriers were broken, even as he remained trapped by them.
After the 1936 Olympics, Jesse Owens struggled with limited opportunities. He was banned from amateur events, reducing his visibility, and commercial offers nearly vanished. In 1937, he joined a jazz band with Consolidated Artists but found the experience unsatisfying. He also performed at baseball games and other gatherings. Politically, Owens backed the Republican Party and Alf Landon in the 1936 presidential election, noting that Adolf Hitler congratulated him while President Franklin Roosevelt ignored him after his gold medals. In 1942, Willis Ward, a former University of Michigan competitor working at Ford Motor Company, invited Owens to Detroit. Ward was part of Ford’s civil rights division, helping black and white workers, and Owens eventually took his place there, remaining until 1946. In the late 1940s, Owens relocated his family to Chicago and started his own public relations agency.
In 1946, Jesse Owens worked with Abe Saperstein to start the West Coast Negro Baseball League, where he was vice-president and owned the Portland Rosebuds. He played with the team and even raced against horses during games. The league only lasted two months. Owens also promoted the movie Mom and Dad in Black neighborhoods. He tried to make a living as a sportswriter and performer, often racing local sprinters by giving them a head start, yet still beating them in a 100-yard dash. He once challenged racehorses, revealing the secret was to pick a nervous Thoroughbred scared of a starter’s shotgun. “There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway.”
Jesse Owens traveled to Rome for the 1960 Summer Olympics, where he met Armin Hary of Germany, the 1960 100 meters champion who had defeated American Dave Sime in a photo finish. Later in life, Owens ran a dry cleaning business and worked as a gas station attendant to make ends meet, but he eventually filed for bankruptcy. In 1966, he was successfully prosecuted for tax evasion. At rock bottom, he received help in beginning his rehabilitation. Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower had enlisted Owens as a goodwill ambassador in 1955, sending the world-renowned track star to India, the Philippines, and Malaya to promote physical exercise and advocate for American freedom and economic opportunity in the developing world. He continued those goodwill tours into the 1960s and 1970s. Although he lost his patronage job with the Illinois Youth Commission in 1960, Owens kept working to support his efforts.
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Jesse Owens smoked cigarettes every day for thirty-five years, starting at age thirty-two. In December 1979, he began being hospitalized repeatedly with a rare and aggressive form of lung cancer that did not respond to treatment. He died on March 31, 1980, at age sixty-six in Tucson, Arizona, surrounded by his wife and family. He was buried at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago, next to the Lake of Memories, near where his children and extended family lived. The grave is inscribed:
Jesse Owens was an Olympic champion who made history in 1936, winning four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics right in front of Adolf Hitler. He was more than just an athlete; he was a humanitarian, someone who understood that true victory went beyond medals. He deeply loved his family and friends, and his life showed what was possible in America. His faith in the country inspired others to strive for their best. Jesse Owens lived from September 12, 1913, until March 31, 1980.
President Jimmy Carter offered a tribute to Owens, saying: "Perhaps no athlete better symbolized the human struggle against tyranny, poverty, and racial bigotry."
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At East Technical High School in Cleveland, Jesse Owens dominated track and field competitions throughout the early 1930s. He won the 100-yard dash and 220-yard dash at the Mansfield Interscholastic Relays in 1933, tying a national record in the 100-yard dash. That same year, he also claimed the long jump title and helped his team win the 4 × 220-yard relay. At the Ohio State Fair in August 1933, Owens again won the 100-yard dash. He was a two-time state champion in both the 100-yard and 220-yard dashes and a three-time long jump champion from 1931 to 1933. His team also captured the 4 × 220-yard relay title twice, in 1932 and 1933. At the National High School Championships in June 1933, Owens was crowned national champion in the long jump and 220-yard dash, and his school earned the national title for the 4 × 220-yard relay.
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At Ohio State, Jesse Owens dominated track and field, winning titles across indoor and outdoor competitions. In 1934, he claimed championships in the 60-yard dash and long jump at meets against Indiana, Michigan, and Purdue. He repeated those victories in 1935, also adding hurdles and sprint titles. At the Big Ten Indoor Championships, he won the 60-yard dash, while at the Big Ten Outdoor meet, he captured multiple events including the 100 and 220-yard dashes, long jump, and hurdles. His success continued into 1936, when he won at Penn Relays, the Central Intercollegiate Conference, and the NCAA Championships, earning two 100-yard dash titles, two long jump crowns, and a 200-metre championship.
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At the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, Jesse Owens won a silver medal in the 100 metres in 1934, followed by bronze medals in the 2×100 metres in both 1933 and 1935, and a silver in the long jump in 1935. By 1936, he had claimed gold in the 100 metres and added to his tally with three consecutive gold medals in the long jump, in 1933, 1934, and 1936. At the USA Indoor Track and Field Championships, Owens earned a silver in the 60 metres in 1935, setting a new record in the semi-final heat, and later captured gold in the 2×long jump in both 1934 and 1935.
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In 1933, Jesse Owens set a 50-yard dash record at 5.2 seconds, which Henry Norwood Ewell broke in 1939 with 5.1 seconds. His indoor 60-yard dash record of 6.09 seconds was surpassed by Herb Carper in 1959, while his 60 metres indoor record of 6.6 seconds fell to Heinz Fütterer in 1955. Owens tied a 100-yard dash world record in 1933 at 9.4 seconds, only to be beaten by Melvin E. Patton in 1948 with 9.3 seconds. At the 1936 Olympics, he ran 10.2 seconds in the 100 metres, a mark that lasted until Willie Williams bested it in 1956. His 220-yard dash record of 20.3 seconds was broken by Patton in 1949 with 20.2 seconds. In the 200 metres curve, Owens ran 20.7 seconds in 1936, a time that stood until Andy Stanfield in 1951. His 220-yard low hurdles record of 22.6 seconds was broken by Fred Wolcott in 1940. In the long jump, Owens leapt 26 feet 8¼ inches in 1935, a record that lasted until Ralph Boston surpassed it in 1960. His indoor long jump mark of 25 feet 9 inches was broken by Irvin Roberson in 1960. In the 4 × 100 metres relay, Owens helped set a time of 39.8 seconds in 1936 with Ralph Metcalfe, Foy Draper, and Frank Wykoff, a record that stood until Ira Murchison, Leamon King, Thane Baker, and Bobby Morrow broke it in 1956.
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Jesse Owens broke three non-standard world records in track and field, all in the mid-1930s. In May 1934, he ran the 90-yard dash in 8.6 seconds, breaking Charles Paddock’s 1921 record of 8.8 seconds. Soon after, on April 23, 1935, Owens matched that time again in the 100-yard dash with a 15-yard head start, surpassing Frank Wykoff’s 1930 mark of 8.7 seconds. Then, on May 4, 1934, he also took the 120-yard dash record from Howard Drew, whose time of 11.6 seconds had stood since 1914, with his own 11.5 seconds.
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Starting in 2024, a new award has been established through a partnership involving the Jesse Owens Foundation, the Wanda Diamond League, and members of the Owens family. The initiative honors two exceptional young athletes, male and female, who are twenty-three years old or younger. This recognition continues the legacy of Jesse Owens, whose achievements at the 1936 Olympics helped define athletic excellence and defiance in the face of adversity.
Each winner of the Jesse Owens Rising Star Award will be given a bronze statuette of Owens, created by Belgian sculptor Jan Desmarets. In addition, two oak trees will be planted in the host city to honor the two winners of the award.
The first Jesse Owens Rising Star Award ceremony took place in Brussels in September 2024. It recognized Diribe Welteji from 2023 as the top female performer after she won silver at the World Championships, and Letsile Tebogo from 2024 as the top male performer following his Olympic gold medal win.
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Jesse Owens is widely considered one of the greatest athletes in track and field history. He captured nine Big Ten titles, eight NCAA titles, and six USA Track & Field titles throughout his career. His momentous international achievement came at the Olympics, where he took gold in every event he entered—setting Olympic records in each. That performance stood as a powerful challenge to Adolf Hitler’s belief in Aryan superiority and delivered a symbolic strike against Nazi Germany’s racist messaging. Several of his world records lasted for decades: his long jump record remained intact for 25 years, and his 100-meter dash mark held firm for 20.
After his athletic career, Jesse Owens struggled to find financial security, a challenge partly due to the limited opportunities for Black athletes at the time. Though he was celebrated for his four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics, he wasn’t invited to the White House or officially recognized by the U.S. government. Later in life, his contributions were honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 and a Congressional Gold Medal posthumously in 1990.
Jesse Owens demonstrated through his actions at the 1936 Olympics that politics cannot diminish the power of athletic excellence. His performance on the track captured global attention and left an enduring impact. Even today, his story continues to move Americans, just as it did people around the world during that time. As Gerald Ford observed, Owens’ courage and skill remain a source of inspiration.
Jesse Owens’ impact endures through schools, streets, and athletic venues bearing his name, including Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium. His life and achievements have been documented in books, films, and the biopic Race. The documentary Olympic Pride, American Prejudice explores his story within the larger narrative of Black American athletes who competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Owens is also recognized in several halls of fame, honoring his contributions to sports and history.
The dormitory where Jesse Owens stayed during the 1936 Berlin Olympics has been restored as a living museum. Inside are pictures showing his victories at the games, and among the items is a letter written by a fan—caught by the Gestapo—urging him not to shake hands with Hitler.
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In 1950, Jesse Owens was voted the greatest black athlete of all time and the greatest track and field athlete for the first half of the century by a poll conducted by the Associated Press. That same year, at the 50th anniversary of the Big Ten Championships, he was unanimously named the top track athlete of the half-century and the only athlete selected for the all-star team in more than one individual event—earning spots in the 100-yard dash, 220-yard dash, 220-yard low hurdles, and long jump. In 1959, Owens returned to Des Moines and was celebrated at the Drake Relays as the most outstanding athlete to compete in the first 50 years of the competition.
In 1976, Jesse Owens was awarded the Silver Olympic Order for his four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics and for standing up for the values of sportsmanship and ethics. Ten years later, in 1980, a school in Chicago named the Jesse Owens Academy in his honor, though it closed in 2013 and merged with Gompers Elementary. Public outcry led to the merged school being renamed once again after him. In 1981, USA Track and Field established the Jesse Owens Award, given each year to the nation’s top track and field athlete.
In 1981, the International Athletic Association began giving out the Jesse Owens International Trophy every year, though it was paused for ten years between 2004 and 2014. A statue of Owens in his Ohio State track suit was placed in Fort Huntington Park in Cleveland in 1982, west of the old Courthouse. Then in 1984, Owens received a plaque from the Coliseum commissioners at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, honoring his contributions to sports there.
In 1996, the town of Oakville, Alabama, where Jesse Owens was born, celebrated the 60th anniversary of his Olympic victories by dedicating the Jesse Owens Memorial Park and Museum, along with a statue, as the Olympic torch passed through the community. A Wall Street Journal article from June 7 of that year covered the event and included an inscription by poet Charles Ghigna, which appears on a bronze plaque at the park. In 1999, ESPN ranked Owens as the sixth greatest North American athlete of the twentieth century and the top performer in his sport. Then, in 2001, Ohio State University honored him by naming its track and field stadium after him, and a sculpture of Owens stands in the esplanade leading to the rotunda entrance of Ohio Stadium.
In 2009, athletes from the United States Track and Field team wore badges marked “JO” at the World Athletic Championships in Berlin to honor Jesse Owens’s wins in the same stadium 73 years earlier. The following year, the Ohio Historical Society put Owens forward as a finalist for a statue in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol after a statewide vote. On November 15, 2010, the city of Cleveland renamed a street in Public Square—East Roadway between Rockwell and Superior avenues—as Jesse Owens Way.
In 2011, Ohio State University honored Jesse Owens by revealing a memorial statue near the stadium that bears his name. That same year, the Big Ten Conference included Owens in its countdown of the Top 50 Athletes, where he was placed third on the list of greatest Big Ten athletes of all time.
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