If you look at the Olympic Games as a whole, if we would say we didn't want to interject politics into the games, then why are we using nation's flags? Why don't we use one Olympic flag to encompass all the Olympians, as opposed to being separatists in terms of China versus Russia or Russia versus the United States? Why don't we just say man versus man?
John CarlosWe wanted to bring attention to the fact that we had so many deals taking place that we could have made change for the better for all people, and we felt that we would be a catalyst to bring this to attention to society.
John CarlosThe government did a lot of things to us in terms of sending pictures to my house. If I had to go to a school to give a speech and the sorority wanted to sign a song, they would send [a person] to my house and tell my wife that I had sex with this woman or that woman.It got to the point where my wife didn't know what to believe anymore, and the fact that I didn't have a job, I couldn't support my bills, the fact that I was getting ready to go through maybe a mental setback in terms of depression, we just had a tremendous amount of things on us.
John CarlosIt took some time for us to realize that [people] didn't particularly say they didn't like us or have the love for us that they had in the past, nor the respect. I think they chose to leave based on the fact that they felt a reprisal for being associated or having a friendship with John Carlos or Tommie Smith, or Peter Norman, for that matter.
John Carlos