Harlem Civil Rights Virtual Tour

26. John Carlos

New York, NY

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John Wesley Carlos is an African-American former track and field athlete, professional footballer player, and civil rights activist. He was born on June 5, 1945, in Harlem, New York City. His father, Earl Vanderbilt Carlos, was the son of a sharecropper born in Camden, South Carolina. He was a cobbler/shoemaker with a shop in Harlem. Violis, his mother, was born in Jamaica and raised in Cuba until she was seventeen. She was a nurse aide and worked the night shift at Bellevue Hospital. They had four children, three boys, and one girl and lived at 626 Lenox Avenue in Harlem. John did not excel in school because of dyslexia; however, he was a gifted athlete. He excelled in swimming, boxing, track and field, and football. After graduating from high school, Carlos went to East Texas State on a track and field scholarship and was there two years before transferring to San Jose State in May 1968. He attended the 1968 Olympic trials at Lake Tahoe in Echo Summit trailhead. There he beat Tommie Smith’s record in the 200-meter dash by 0.3 seconds. The new record was now 19.92 seconds; the record elevated his status in the world of track and field. Carlos, along with Tommie, made it to the Olympic team that competed in the 1968 games held in Mexico City. Before Carlos ran his first race at the Olympics, he had demands through the Olympics Project for Human Rights (OPHR). He had four conditions: South Africa and Rhodesia must withdraw from the games, Muhammad Ali’s heavyweight boxing title must be returned, Avery Brundage the president of the IOC must be fired, and more African-American assistant coaches must be hired. None of his demands were met, and this led to his protest with Tommie. After Tommie won the gold medal and John the bronze medal in the 200-meter race, when they were on the podium, they raised their fists, each wearing a black glove representing the Black Power Salute for the whole world to see. Peter Norman from Australia, the silver medal winner, wore the OPHR badge as a show of support. John and Tommie were banned from the Games and stripped of their medals. Carlos married his high school girlfriend, Kim, and they had three children. After the incident at the Olympics, life was rough for Carlos and his family. He had odd jobs, his wife Kim committed suicide in 1977, four years after they split up. He met his second wife, Charlene Norwood, an owner of a cosmetology business, and married her in 1984. They moved to Palm Springs, California, in 1988, and he became a counselor at Palm Springs High School. Today he is married to Doris, his third wife, living outside of Atlanta and has nine children and stepchildren. On November 1, 2019, John and Tommie were inducted into the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame.