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In October 1968, at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, the American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood on the medal podium after the 200 meters. As the national anthem played, each man raised a black gloved fist into the air and bowed his head. The gesture lasted under two minutes. It was meant to draw attention to racial injustice in the United States, at a time when the civil rights movement was met with violence and the Olympic Committee insisted that politics had no place in sport.
The International Olympic Committee disagreed with that interpretation only when the politics pointed in a direction it did not like.
