The Faithful Servant: Jesse Owens’s Last Three Decades, 1950-1980

Jesse Owens, American sprinter, four-time Olympic gold medalist, and hero of the 1936 Olympics initially failed to turn his fame into post-Olympic dollars. However, from 1950 until his death in 1980, Owens achieved not only financial stability, but prosperity. He achieved such wealth by becoming a spokesperson for the US government, the US Olympic Committee, and US corporations, which at times put him at odds with other Black Americans. These organizations and Owens had several overlapping and mutually beneficial interests. Rather than purely ideological, economic, or mercenary origins, Owens’s lived experiences led to this alignment. Five factors contributed to Owens’s visible alliances: anticommunism; faith; the Cold War and support for the White Establishment; race and Civil Rights; and the strict separation of sport and politics. Owens’s conservative-leaning views found a receptive audience among White Americans in this period. Believing that he benefitted from the White Establishment, Owens became a willing and valued spokesperson who achieved the stability and prosperity that eluded his early life. In doing so, he also contributed to a broader realignment of conservative politics in the 1970s.