What Peter Norman Taught Me About Genuine Solidarity

Be true in everything you do, especially your activism

Tommie Smith (center) and John Carlos (right), first and third place winners in the 200 meter race, protest with the Black Power salute as they stand on the winner’s podium at the Summer Olympic in Mexico City, Mexico on October 19, 1968. Australian silver medalist Peter Norman stands by. Photo: John Dominis/Getty Images

Actions speak louder than words. Learning about Peter Norman, the Australian athlete who stood in solidarity with American sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Olympics, made me realize that a man’s legacy is genuinely his deeds.

At the 1968 Summer Olympics, an iconic photo overtook all headlines.

In the photo, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their black-gloved fists on the Olympic podium to protest the racist atrocities on Black lives.

For the United States, 1968 was a chaotic year. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were both assassinated. The Olympic Project for Human Rights had started a movement urging Black athletes to boycott the 1968 Olympics. This movement inspired Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ protest.

Now let’s focus on the Australian sprinter who came in second. Although he may seem insignificant at that moment, Peter Norman is anything but. His stand is one of a true hero; his empathy is inspiring, beautiful, and filled with love for his co-athletes.

Norman gave Smith and Carlos the gloves to wear at the Olympic podium. He wore the OPHR (Olympics Project for Human Rights) badge and stood in solidarity with the fellow medalists.

The United States punished Smith and Carlos’ actions; they were ostracized for years by the sports world. Norman went back to Australia and faced a backlash that was hardly covered. In 1968, Australia was going through horrible apartheid. As Carlos later said, “If we were getting beat up, Peter was facing an entire country and suffering alone.” But Norman never regretted his decision.

Norman’s actions at the 1968 Olympics — and his entire life — taught me a valuable lesson: Be true in everything you do.

Although Norman gave his Black counterparts black gloves, he did not raise his hands with them.

He was gritty. In track and field, the 1968 Olympic Games were to be a fight between two American sprinters: Tommie “The Jet” Smith and John Carlos. Norman arrived for the finals after running 200…