Race (2016)

After Jeremiah Mahoney successfully engineered a U.S boycott by the AAU of the 1936 Olympics, the Jewish organizer of the Games, Theodor Lewald, visited the U. S. to beg for U. S. participation knowing full well that Jesse Owens had broken 4 world records in 1935 and was expected to have outstanding achievements in Berlin, as he did. Aryan supremacy had nothing to do with it. An Aryan, Luz Long, in fact coached Jesse Owens in the Broad Jump and won the Silver for Germany to Jesse's Gold Medal for the U. S. For his entire life, Jesse spoke only favorably about Germany and its people who treated him with great respect. Blacks in Berlin in 1936 could sit anywhere on a bus; stay at any hotel, eat in any restaurant, use any lavatory. It is only because Avery Brundage, at Lewald's insistence, overcame Mahoney and the AAU and obtained a re-vote that Jesse had the opportunity to shine. The organizers of the Berlin Olympics went to extraordinary lengths to give Jesse Owens and other Negro athletes a showplace. Their performance more than rewarded the hopes and expectations of the organizers.