"Fan Mail" Received by Tommie & Lee

(T&FN, December 1967)

1. To Tommie (No Guts) Smith: Your name has just been added to a petition addressed to the Olympic Committee asking that you and all the other boycotters be denied the opportunity to compete for a place on the US Olympic team in 1968. No thinking person wants you or your kind to be given an opportunity to compete and then pull the oldie, "I just got a bad start." Everyone is glad that you made it so easy to keep a punk out of a man's game. (Glendale, Calif.)

2. Dear Mr. Smith: I'm very sorry to hear you're refusing to represent the US in the Olympics. Enclosed is an autograph I received from you last year. I don't want it after you let your country down. I thought that the racists were a small black and white fanatical minority, and presumed you were above this kind of behavior. Your actions are forming anything but a positive imprint on my views toward the colored man. How do you expect the white man to listen to you when you let your country down? (Dinuba, Calif.)

3. Dear Tommie: Doesn't the world owe you something, you bum? (Santa Barbara, Calif.)

4. Smith: Thanks for pulling out of the Olympic Games. Now I can again be interested in our US team. I quit being interested in watching a bunch of animals like Negroes go through their paces. Please see what you can do about withdrawing Negroes from the professional field, such as boxing, baseball and football. (San Francisco, Calif.)

5. Dear Tommie: At last, African-Americans are shedding the cloak of our indoctrinated slave mentality. Those of us who have had the chance to break the chains were told by whites that we were exceptional "ones." All of this occurred while our brothers and sisters were still suffering from the inhumanity perpetuated by whites. The Olympic boycott is excellent. But it must not be a protest against the black man in sports, but against the treatment of black men throughout this society. (Pullman, Wash.)

6. Dear Tommie: My feeling is that a boycott by the Negro athletes of the Olympics would be a disastrous mistake, not only for the individuals who might boycott but for the US in general. We fail to realize that we are Americans first and Negroes second, and boycotting the Olympics for "Black Power", "White Power", "Green Power", "Yellow Power" and any other power is senseless and stupid.

I realize as well as you do that there are still many injustices to our people in this country and that these injustices should and must be corrected, and I sincerely believe someday they will be corrected but not by exploitation of one group by another, and especially by a group called "Black Power" who have lost the sense of "fair play" and the original objectives of the civil rights movement in this country. You and the rest of the great Negro athletes can show the world how well you can perform despite the many injustices that we face in our own country. (from a Negro track coach)

7. Mr. Smith: Let me remind you that it is a privilege, not a right, to compete in athletics and especially in the Olympic Games. The US can do without your presence on the Olympic track team. There are many deserving young men ready and willing to take your place. (South Laguna, Calif.)

8. You are right. Off the field, you are just niggers. Does UBSA mean United Black Sons of Bitches Assembly? Black boys, you need the Games. (San Jose, Calif.)

9. Dear Traitor: You are not only a disgrace to your College, your Country... but to yourself. Please don't try to win a place on the Olympic team. I'd rather have our country finish last, without you, than first with you. (Beverly Hills, Calif.)

10. Please post this (article) on your bulletin board. You'd better get a high ladder. This makes you about two inches tall. (Long Beach, Calif.)

11. Dear Lee: I would like to suggest an alternative to a complete boycott. Considering that there are a lot of black athletes who have worked hard and looked forward to the Olympics as a climax to their careers, it represents a tremendous personal sacrifice to give up participating in them. Beyond that, the lot of the black man in America is probably better than it would be had not he been so successful in sports.

My suggestion: the black athletes should try out for the Olympic team. Those that make it should go to Mexico City and compete in their events. Those that win medals should then, if they wish to protest, refuse to mount the victory stand. The American flag would be raised, the band would play the national anthem but there would be an empty place on the stand where Lee Evans or Tommie Smith should be. This way the whole world would witness America's shame in a very dramatic way.

I could not do what I have just suggested for two reasons: (1) I'm not black and (2) I can't run a 45-flat quarter. But if I were, I think I would go this route. It would shake us up a lot more to look at that empty space on the victory stand and hear a black athlete say over world wide TV, "Look, I refused to get up there not because I don't love my country. I do. But I love it not for what it is, but for what it can be." (Manhattan Beach, Calif.)

12. Tommie: Don't be a fool and try to pull rank or pressure. If you do, you're through because we wouldn't want to see a flock of letters to the Olympic Committee asking that you NOT be permitted to represent the US in any event. (Glendale, Calif.)

13. Congratulations. You surely are on the right track. By all means have all the Negroes out of the Olympics. Since this is the apprenticeship to professional athletics, then we would be rid of the Negro in all sports. (Sonoma, Calif.)

14. Incredibly good news. When are you leaving? (New York City)

15. How much are the Communists paying you to make damn fools out of your fellow Americans? (Fullerton, Calif.)

16. You are a fine nigger specimen—just another agitating militant. Hope you and your followers get your bloody heads bashed in. (San Mateo, Calif.)

17. Go to Africa, you lousy Commie. (city unknown)

18. Why in the hell don't you and all the jigaboo so called athletes boycott all things American and try the Congo. Now, there is a leading country-cook pots and dung piles everywhere, but that is black culture. If you can't stand that, try Biafra, Nigeria. I think you colored folks would be better off in your own tribes with your own unpronounceable names. (Westminster, Calif.)