Author(s): JOHNSTONE Damian NOR

Biography & Memoir

On 16th October 1968, at the Mexico Olympic Games, the image of two black American athletes, heads bowed, black gloved fists raised into the night sky in the so-called 'Black Power' salute, rocked the Olympic movement to its very core and also sent shock waves throughout the world; a world already reeling from the recent assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Senator Robert Kennedy, China's Cultural Revolution, the brutal murder of hundreds of Mexican students, and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. In the intervening 40 years, the salute has become an iconic image, not only of the Olympics, but of the 20th century. While most focus their attention on the Americans, there was a third individual on the 200 metres victory dais that night. A Race to Remember: The Peter Norman Story is the biography of the white Australian who stood tall, proudly wearing, alongside his silver medal, a civil rights badge in support of the silent protest made against racial discrimination. For the first time ever, the full story of the protest is told with inputs from all three Olympic medallists.