Olympic Pride, American Prejudice

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About The Film

OLYMPIC PRIDE, AMERICAN PREJUDICE examines the complex racial politics of the 1936 Summer Games in Nazi Germany, as experienced by the trailblazing but largely forgotten athletes most impacted.

Facing its own socioeconomic unrest at home due to the Great Depression and segregationist laws, the U.S. was torn between boycotting and competing in Hitler’s Olympics. As Nazi policies persecuting minorities and promoting Aryan superiority intensified, a national debate erupted over sending 18 African-American athletes and their Jewish counterparts to Berlin. Most ironic and surprising, is not the actions of Germans, but the implicit bias of U.S. Olympic officials in the dispute, and the discrimination that awaited black athletes upon their return. The victorious American team, however, emerges as a symbol of the racial equality the Nazis loathed, paving the way for the Civil Rights movement to come.

Narrated by actor-producer Blair Underwood, OLYMPIC PRIDE, AMERICAN PREJUDICE uses a wealth of rarely seen archival materials, and interviews with sports historians, spectators, and Olympians, past and present. 

Film Details

Atlanta History Center