About this ebook
Published across five consecutive issues beginning July 1, 1968, "The Black Athlete: A Shameful Story" shattered the comfortable myth that American sport was a level playing field, a rare arena where race didn't matter and Black athletes had found true equality. Olsen proved it was a lie.
Black collegiate athletes were recruited for their speed and strength, celebrated on the field, and abandoned everywhere else. Ostracized on campus, denied academic support, discarded when their playing days ended. In professional sports, Black athletes could perform but rarely lead. Positions of authority and responsibility were reserved for white men. The system was not accidental. It was designed.
Olsen spent months interviewing sociologists, community leaders, coaches, athletic directors, and the athletes themselves. Men who had never been asked, or allowed, to tell the truth about their experience. What they told him sparked a national reckoning.
The series galvanized the movement that would produce one of the most iconic moments in sports history: the Black Power Salute of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, their black-gloved fists raised in silence on the medal podium, seen by more than 80 million people around the world.
More than fifty years later, the questions Jack Olsen asked, about exploitation, inequality, and the myth of sport as a meritocracy, remain as urgent as ever.
About the author
Jack Olsen is the award-winning author of thirty-three books, which have been published in fifteen countries and eleven languages. Olsen’s journalism earned the National Headliners Award, Chicago Newspaper Guild’s Page One Award, commendations from Columbia and Indiana Universities, the Washington State Governor’s Award, the Scripps-Howard Award and other honors. The Philadelphia Inquirer described him as “an American treasure.”
Olsen was described as “the dean of true crime authors” by the Washington Post and the New York Daily News and “the master of true crime” by the Detroit Free Press and Newsday. Publishers Weekly called him “the best true crime writer around.” His studies of crime are required reading in university criminology courses and have been cited in the New York Times Notable Books of the Year. In a page-one review, the Times described his work as “a genuine contribution to criminology and journalism alike.”
Olsen is a two-time winner in the Best Fact Crime category of the Mystery Writers of America, Edgar award.
