Jesse Owens

Jesse Owens (born James Cleveland Owens; September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete born in Oakville, Lawrence County, Alabama. He won four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin and is widely regarded as one of the greatest sprinters and long jumpers in the history of the sport.[1][2] His achievements before and after the Games, and the memorial park that now stands in his Alabama birthplace, make him one of the state’s best-known sons.[3]

Early life

Owens was born in Oakville, in northern Alabama, the youngest of ten children of sharecropper Henry Cleveland Owens and Mary Emma Fitzgerald.[2] Around the age of nine his family joined the Great Migration and moved to Cleveland, Ohio. According to the familiar story, a teacher who misheard his answer of “J. C.” wrote “Jesse” on the roll sheet, and the name stayed with him for life.[2]

In Cleveland his junior high track coach, Charles Riley, allowed him to practice before school because Owens worked after classes. At East Technical High School he equaled the world record of 9.4 seconds in the 100-yard dash, and at the 1933 National High School Championships in Chicago he set a national high school record of 20.7 seconds in the 220-yard dash and jumped 24 feet 9½ inches.[2]

Ohio State and the 1935 Big Ten meet

Owens entered Ohio State University in 1933 and trained under coach Larry Snyder. He received no athletic scholarship, lived off campus and held part-time jobs, and on team trips he was restricted to segregated hotels and restaurants.[2] Even so, he won eight individual NCAA titles, four each in 1935 and 1936.

His most celebrated afternoon came on May 25, 1935, at the Big Ten championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Within about 45 minutes, and while nursing a back injury, he tied the world record in the 100-yard dash at 9.4 seconds and set world records in the long jump (8.13 metres, or 26 feet 8¼ inches, a mark that stood for 25 years), the 220-yard dash (20.3 seconds) and the 220-yard low hurdles (22.6 seconds).[2] Sources differ on how many records are credited to the day, with figures of five set and one tied commonly cited.

The 1936 Berlin Olympics

At the Berlin Games Owens won the 100 metres on August 3 in 10.3 seconds, finishing a tenth of a second ahead of his teammate Ralph Metcalfe. On August 4 he won the long jump with a leap of 8.06 metres (26 feet 5 inches). On August 5 he took the 200 metres in 20.7 seconds, ahead of Mack Robinson, the older brother of Jackie Robinson. On August 9 he ran on the United States 4 x 100 metre relay team with Metcalfe, Frank Wykoff and Foy Draper, which won in a world-record 39.8 seconds.[2][1]

The Games took place under Nazi rule, and Owens’s victories have long been remembered as a rebuke to the regime’s theories of racial superiority. Accounts differ on whether Adolf Hitler acknowledged him; Hitler had publicly greeted only German winners on the first day and then stopped attending medal ceremonies. The relay lineup was also controversial, because two Jewish sprinters, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, were replaced by Owens and Metcalfe.[2] Owens also became associated with the sportswear maker Adi Dassler, whose shoes he wore in Berlin, in what is often described as an early sponsorship of a Black American athlete.[2]

After the Olympics

Owens returned to a ticker-tape parade in New York, but the celebration did not translate into steady opportunity. After a post-Olympic European tour he declined to continue, and the Amateur Athletic Union suspended him from amateur competition, ending his athletic career.[2] He took work as a gas-station attendant and playground supervisor and ran exhibition races, including races against horses. From 1942 to 1946 he worked for the Ford Motor Company, and in 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower named him a goodwill ambassador to India, the Philippines and Malaya.[2][3]

Later in life Owens became a corporate spokesperson and public speaker, served on Illinois commissions, and wrote the books Blackthink (1970) and I Have Changed (1972). He retired to Arizona and died of lung cancer in Tucson on March 31, 1980; he is buried at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.[3][2]

Honors

Owens was named the Associated Press athlete of the year for 1936, and a 1950 AP poll named him the greatest track and field athlete of the first half of the century. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976, the Silver Olympic Order in 1976 and, posthumously, the Congressional Gold Medal in 1990. He is a member of the National Track and Field Hall of Fame (1974) and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame (1983), USA Track & Field created the Jesse Owens Award in 1981, and an asteroid, 6758 Jesseowens, bears his name.[2]

Jesse Owens Memorial Park and Museum

In Oakville, a 20-acre park and museum honors Owens at 7019 County Road 203. It was dedicated on June 29, 1996, as the Olympic torch passed through on its way to the Atlanta Games, with his widow, Ruth Owens, lighting an eternal flame in a replica of the 1936 torch before a crowd of more than 10,000. Auburn University and the Alabama Cooperative Extension System raised more than $2 million for the project.[4]

The site includes an eight-foot bronze statue by Birmingham sculptor Branko Medenica showing Owens breaking through the Olympic rings, a three-gallery museum with a small theater, a reconstruction of the dogtrot house where he grew up, and a long-jump pit where visitors can compare their jumps with his 1936 gold-medal distance of 26 feet 5 inches. The museum is open Monday to Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and on Sunday afternoons, and the grounds are open at all times.[4]

FAQs

Where was Jesse Owens born? He was born in Oakville, Lawrence County, Alabama, on September 12, 1913, before his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio.

What events did Jesse Owens win in Berlin? The 100 metres, 200 metres, long jump and 4 x 100 metre relay.

Can I visit his Alabama birthplace? Yes. The Jesse Owens Memorial Park and Museum in Oakville has a statue, museum galleries and a replica of his childhood home.

Sources

1. Wikipedia: Jesse Owens
2. Encyclopedia of Alabama: Jesse Owens
3. Encyclopedia of Alabama: Jesse Owens (biography)
4. Encyclopedia of Alabama: Jesse Owens Memorial Park

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed November 10, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue