Over the past thirty years, a sprinkling of American Negro athletes has achieved international fame by competing in the Olympic Games. Jesse Owens is probably the best known for his four-gold-medal performance at Adolph Hitler's Berlin Olympaid. In addition, according to a recent Ebony survey, disproportionately high numbers of Negroes compete in American professional sports.

To many ghetto Negroes, better-than-average coordination is the only ticket out of poverty. Negro track stars like John Lindsay's Director of Recreation, Hayes Jones, often use the publicity of an Olympic medal to land good jobs, the standouts in team sports go on to play for pay, and boxers like Cassius Clay and Floyd Patterson win professional crowns.

Two months ago, however, several outstanding black athletes decided to risk sacrificing the success athletic achievement might bring. Led by a sociology professor from California, they voted to boycott the 1968 Olympics. As world record holding sprinter Tommie Smith said, they were willing to give up participation in the Games, "if it means that it will open a channel by which the oppression and injustice suffered by [our] people in America can be alleviated."

This is a unique boycott, because it doesn't punish the discriminating institution. When Martin Luther King boycotted bus lines in the South, the bus line, under white pressure as well as black, eventually acceded to his demands that Negroes be allowed to sit in the front, and the boycott was termined. But the proposed Olympic boycott, which is aimed of course not at the Games but at the American society, would have little effect on discrimination in the United States.

Gold Medals

Suppose the Negroes go through with the boycott (and it is by no means clear that a large number will). The United States will probably win anywhere from 5 to 10 medals fewer than in 1964, when Negroes won 16. It is unlikely that the international audience--a main target of the boycotters--will be jarred by the protest, because there will be some Negroes competing; sprinter Charlie Greene has said, "It comes down to a matter if you're an American or if you're not. I'm an American and I'm going to run." 1964 medal winner Ralph Boston will also participate.

Perhaps the biggest flaw in the idea of boycotting the Olympics is the assumption that there are enough white people in this country who care about the Olympics to warrant the protest. Sports may be one of the few areas in America where blacks have status, but can amateur athletic status be transformed into political leverage? I doubt it. Perhaps if pro stars like Bill Russell or Willie Mays were to refuse to compete in their sports until some particular bit of civil rights progress had been made and their white teammates joined them, then there might be a burst of pressure to effect the change. The city fathers of Boston or San Francisco might be willing to cooperate. But how many Americans care who wins the 440-yd. hurdles in Mexico City? There will be a few wails of wounded patriotism, if the Soviets win more medals than we, but it's unlikely that most white Americans will be moved to reform by a black boycott of the far-off Olympic Games.

But there are two factors mitigating such a joint action by the Negroes and whites. First, the blacks don't want the whites. At the meeting in Los Angeles which first announced the boycott, white reporters were barred. Second, if Negroes like Greene are unwilling to give up the glory of an Olympic medal, then whites not immersed in the cause are even less likely to pass up the Games.

The blacks say a major part of the boycott is to show the less privileged Negroes still in the ghettos that the athletes have not forgotten them. Boycotters like Tommie Smith have decided it is time for blacks to disabuse America of the notion that Negroes have "rhythm" but no brains. They hope their sacrifice will be an inspiration to the youngsters still in the ghetto. They have elected to scrap the inspiration of athletic glory for the dubious rewards of a political burden. It is a courageous but tragically misguided decision.