In life, there's the beginning and the end. The beginning don't matter. The end don't matter. All that matters is what you do in between – whether you're prepared to do what it takes to make change. There has to be physical and material sacrifice. When all the dust settles and we're getting ready to play down for the ninth inning, the greatest reward is to know that you did your job when you were here on the planet.

Let's start with the black glove. We felt it necessary being the fact that the Olympic Games, for the first time ever [in 1968], had been televised worldwide. The second thing is the fact that it was in Technicolor. Never had the games been shown in color before.We wanted it to be understood that we were representing America, but we were representing Black America in particular, so that's why we put the black glove on.

[Peter Norman]was born and raised under the auspices of his mom and dad being involved in the Salvation Army. He believed in humanity. At all costs, he believed in humanity.

I think Peter Norman recuperated in the sense that people who knew who Peter Norman was, he built his character around the legacy of his family, in terms of what they taught him about equality and justice for all.

The beads around my neck [at Olympics in 1968] indicated that there were so many Blacks throughout the history of this country that have been maimed and killed by way of hangings.

I think the Olympic Games have been married to political statements. If I go back to Berlin in 1936, it was very politically orientated then, just with the Nazis.

Becoming involved in sports and traveling the world and seeing how people of color were treated around the world, and America being such a great nation, probably the greatest nation in the world, I think that the thing that would destroy this nation more than anything is the inequality that we have amongst people of color.