Jesse Owens Accomplishments

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No one foresaw the mere African American Alabama cotton picker child Jesse Owens as a four-time Olympic gold medalist at the age of nine. Many people believe you are not born with a certain destiny, but pave your own path throughout life as you go. James Cleveland Owens known to the world as Jesse Owens not only achieved four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics, but also did so with a hard childhood, extreme racial obstacles and barriers, and a later life of little opportunities(IMDB.com, Wiki.com, NYtimes.com). Under the unfavorable circumstances of living amongst many other siblings and being commonly ill, Jesse Owens still achieved greatness in his lifetime. Owens was the youngest of ten children and went by the name of James while living in poor health quality…show more content…
Owens went on to compete and attempt to show up Adolf Hitler's Aryan-supremacy belief by winning over the Germans at the 1936 Olympics. At the Berlin, Germany Olympics in which Owens competed he single handedly won three gold medals, and was apart of a relay race in which he achieved his fourth gold medal to dominate the games (wikipedia.org). Fans and people from all over the world including Germany cheered and marveled at Owens’ great accomplishments, some looked at Owens in disdain. Adolf Hitler’s Aryan-supremacy idea was shrunk by Jesse Owens wins, however Owens’ feats were threatening to Hitler he could not get away with not acknowledging him so he waved at Owens (wikipedia.org). On the U.S Olympic team with ten out of sixty-six African Americans, segregation was still strongly present, even after Owens broke many world records including the long jump record that would last up to twenty-five years; he was still not treated equally (Wikipedia.org and IMDB.com). This was hard for Owens, for he had to eat, sleep, and sometimes do activities separate from the entire team due to segregation even after his

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