BoxRec

dempseyfire wrote:Especially since George's background was more an example of the 'poor and oppressed african-american' then many of the guys screaming against it . . . .

dempseyfire wrote:He was just a young kid caught in the moment. The crap he got from it was underserving.

KOJOE90 wrote: I have recently heard a theory that Foreman was 'pressured' into this act by the Americain Olympic commintee with the help of the FBI, to conter-balance any damage done by the Smith/Carlo protest.

KOJOE90 wrote:1968 was right in the midst of the Civil Rights movement, Muhammed Ali had been banned from Boxing and had also lost his passport withheld for refusing to go to vietnam. Malcolm X and Martin Luther-King had both been killed, whom were both hugely influential and powerfull members of the Civil Rights movement. The Black Panthers were on the rise and the Nation of Islam was still striking fear into the heart of 'white' America.

These wer indeed highly charged political times as the hit of the times said "the times are a changing".

At the 1968 Olympics during their medal ceremony Tommie Smith and John Carlo whilst on their podium did the 'black power salute'. For this action they were sent straight home in discrace.

At the very same Olympics a young George Foreman after winning the final of the Heavyweight Boxing tornament, walked around the ring bowing to the crowd and waving a small Americain flag. I have heard this did not make him popular amongst many 'Black power' and civil rights followers.

Foreman himself has since said something along the lines of "it was no demonstration, or anti-demonstratiomn. I was just proud to have won Gold, and I wanted everyone to know I was from America".

I have recently heard a theory that Foreman was 'pressured' into this act by the Americain Olympic commintee with the help of the FBI, to conter-balance any damage done by the Smith/Carlo protest.

As this happened before I was born I was wondering what other people had read, heard or can remember of Foremans flag waving. Did it create any interest at the time? Any one else heard Foreman may have been 'asked' to wave the flag?

Any info, thoughts or opinions fight fans?

DZ: You were born in 1949 in the South. What were your thoughts on the civil rights movement growing up?

GF:I didn't know anything about anything except being hungry until I went in the Job Corps in 1965. Once I went in the JobCorps, I was awakened to what was gong on with the civil right's struggles. I was awakened by a young Anglo-Saxon boy from Takoma, Washington named Richard Kibble. He was a young man like myself but he was 20 going on 21 and I was 16. He would have these old records, these old Bob Dylan records. And he would always play me Bob Dylan. I would hear those lyrics, "Well, they'll stone ya when you're walkin' 'long the street. They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to keep your seat. They'll stone ya when you're walkin' on the floor. They'll stone ya when you're walkin' to the door." I hope I didn't get that wrong. He had a lot of knowledge. He explained to me about things I had never thought about before, about civil rights. I had a thing about those Bob Dylan songs, boy. "How must many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?" He was always talking about that stuff.

DZ: In 1965 one of the most prominent and controversial leaders was Malcolm X. What did you know about him at the time?

GF: In 1965 I didn't know Malcolm X. I didn't even know there was another world. I was so ignorant I thought Lyndon Johnson was President of Texas because every time I saw him he was wearing a cowboy hat! I think it was end of 1966 or the beginning 1967 where I first learned about Malcolm X. I knew nothing about his life until I was given his book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. It was the most amazing thing to me. I was excited about his first life. He was trying to be a pimp and a hustler and he found peace. I was trying to lift myself at the time out of a life of mugging and robbing, and I loved that he could turn around his life. It was the first time I ever read a book about a person from the front to the back. It was amazing.

DZ: What about another political lightning rod of that time, Muhammad Ali? What did you think about him as a young man in 1966?

GF: I knew about Ali way before 1966. I knew him earlier than most. It was 1962 on the radio before his first fight with Sonny Liston. My brother and his friend and I would run all around looking for a radio to hear him speak, just to hear him talk. Every one was talking about this boy from the Olympics [Ali won the gold medal in the 1960 Olympics-dz] and here's Ali shocking the world every time he opened his mouth.

DZ: What about when he changed his name soon after the Liston fight from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali. What were your thoughts?

GF: When I first heard about it, all I ever heard anyone saying in the fifth ward was, "How could that boy change his name? What is that boy doing?" Then we heard he was a Black Muslim. My community was afraid of that word.

DZ: The word Muslim?

GF: No the word black! The word frightened everybody. No one had heard the word black in Texas to describe a so-called "Negro" at that time. Everyone was saying he was crazy. Then there were some people who said, 'I would like to meet him, to talk to him, to hear what he had to say.' I just had admiration for him at the time. You would hear about him being on the radio and you would just tear home no matter what was going on. We all liked him because he said he was pretty. None of us thought we were pretty. Then here is this man saying, "I'm pretty! I'm pretty!" And we thought we're good looking too.

DZ: What about seeing Ali as someone who was standing up to racism?

GF:I didn't think about it like politics. Standup to something? We didn't even know there was something to stand up to. Politics didn't even exist. I lived in a world where I was striving to get a scrap of food, striving to get a job. And the newspapers didn't report on Ali as much as you would think. Even the black newspaper wouldn't talk about him. So we didn't know everything that was going on around him.

DZ: In 1968, you won the gold medal at the Mexico Olympics, and then famously waved a small American flag and bowed a few short days after Tommie Smith and John Carlos made their black power salute on the medal stand. Tell us about the 1968 Olympics.

GF: I'm living in the Olympic Village at the time with all the other athletes. And I was loving it. And Smith and Carlos and [Bob] Beamon loved it too. The track and field guys back then were the celebrities, the rock and roll stars, the beautiful guys at the village. Everywhere they walked people said, there's Smith and Carlos! They loved it too. We were like a family. And we were all focused on trying to win our own gold medals so we didn't feel the outrage, the controversy after they raised their fists. So when they were immediately send home and sent packing we were all like, "How can they do that?" And they were just dismissed. I thought about going home myself. We all did. I'll never forget seeing John Carlos walk past the dormitory when he was sent packing with all these cameras following him around and I saw the most sad look on his face. This was a proud man who always walked with his head high, and he looked shook. That hurt me and it made us all mad. Forget about the flag. This was our teammate.... We loved each other and it made us mad. It made us shook.

DZ: When you waved the flag and bowed it was seen as a reaction, a rebuke of Smith and Carlos. Were you asked to do that?

GF: No way. It was spontaneous and had nothing to do with them. I always carried a small American flag red white and blue with me so people would know I was from America. Also it was tradition to bow to each judge after a fight so the next time you get points. And I wanted the world to know where I was from. I wanted to say to the world, "We gotcha." America gotcha.

DZ: What was the reaction back home?

GF: Most people thought it was great, but then something happened that caused me more pain than I ever felt as an individual. I was a happy 19 year-old boy, and some people came up to me in the 5th ward and said, "How can you do that when the brothers [Smith and Carlos] are trying to do their thing?" They thought I betrayed them. That people would think that caused great pain.

DZ: If you had to do it all over would you still wave the flag?

GF: If I had to do it all over I'd wave three flags! I feel that I had been rescued from the gutter by America. One day I was under the gutter, chased by police, thinking dogs were going to get me. I laid there listening to the dogs and the gutter. The next day there I am standing on the Olympic platform and you hear the anthem. I was proud. Thanks to the Job Corps, I had a chance. I had three meals a day and a chance. LBJ started this war on poverty from 1964 and that's why I would wave three flags. I know there are a lot of guys who had to do their thing to make a political stand. But some of us [on the 1968 US Olympic team] felt very separated from that. In 1968 there were people organizing to get us to boycott the Olympics. Did you know [the boycott organizers] only approached the college guys? The guys who competed in college? Not one of us high school dropouts were ever asked to be part of what they were doing. They never asked the poor people to join. And I didn't like being called or set apart as a "Black athlete." I was an American athlete.... I got a chance from this country and when I go to Africa or Germany, or anywhere else in the world, people don't see me as black, but as an American. (laughs) Not that that is always a good thing.

Sweet Scientist wrote:How would they 'pressure' George into waving a flag???....