A SALUTE TO S.J.

 

                                     
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A Salute to S.J.
by Mark Purdy, Mercury News
photo bySusanna Frohman / Mercury News
 

Urla Hill, guest curator for the "Speed City" exhibit, stands in front of a mural depicting the famed Black Power salute by Tommie Smith and John Carlos. The exhibit, which will opens to the public on January 12.



Once upon a time, San Jose ruled the world in human velocity.
As a consequence, it also spawned an iconic symbol for human rights.
That, ostensibly, is the reason for the newest exhibit at our local history museum.
 
But who am I kidding? If you are a sports geek, you will mostly love seeing the cool old starting blocks. They once held the feet of San Jose State's numerous world-record sprinters. Also, the USA warm-up suit from the 1960 Rome Olympics. It belonged to Muhammad Ali's coach there, Julie Menendez. Also, some unbelievably mammoth trophies that were presumed lost many years ago after San Jose State dropped track as a varsity sport.
 
These are among the artifacts displayed in ``Speed City: From Civil Rights To Black Power.'' After an opening VIP reception tonight, the display opens to the public Friday at the History San Jose complex in Kelley Park.
 
Let me put this as succinctly as possible: Every resident of our city -- and every lover of athletics -- should stop in for a look. And please take your kids.

Here is one of my pet peeves: Because our schools and teachers are so overwhelmed teaching the mandatory subjects for national tests, local history is often neglected. Kids grow up knowing so little about their own city's past. And no element of San Jose's history is more compelling than the scene that developed here in the late '60s, when San Jose State became a whirling, multiracial salad bowl of sports activism.

The whole thing climaxed with the famous raised-fist demonstration by SJSU athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos after they won medals at the 1968 Games in Mexico City.

Urla Hill, who graduated from Independence High in 1981, had seen a photo of Smith and Carlos' Black Power salute. But not until Hill enrolled at San Jose State did she develop a passion to explore the era that produced the salute. Her father's employment with United Airlines allowed her to take trips around the country to collect information and memorabilia. And now, as guest curator for the exhibit, she can finally show off her hard work.

``It feels really good to see it come together,'' Hill said recently as she tended to the exhibit's final touches. ``And I think my parents are going to feel even better about it. They probably want to see what I've been doing all these years.''

Hill has indeed been busy. Besides all of the above, the exhibit includes a jacket from Olympic discus thrower John Powell, a protest banner that reads ``LET US MARCH!'' and a mural painted at SJSU that depicts Smith and Carlos and is defaced with angry graffiti that reads ``DAMN COMMIES.''

Neat stuff. But the best museum exhibits -- in sports or otherwise -- do not just display neat stuff. The best exhibits explain why the neat stuff matters. And what it signifies.

For those of us who were not in San Jose during the '60s, one question rises to the top: Why did it all happen here? Why did two track athletes from San Jose State, rather than some other school in some other city, become such a focus for civil rights? Why did other athletes here back their cause?

The "Speed City'' exhibit makes a stab at an answer. Hill's interpretation points the arrow at several equality-minded coaches who landed at San Jose State during and just after World War II.

Among them was Bud Winter, a track and field genius. In 1939, the San Jose State yearbook shows no black athletes. By 1942, a picture of the track team coached by Winter includes four.

Meanwhile, a military veteran named DeWitt Portal had also arrived as the school's boxing coach. In the service, he had met Menendez, an Hispanic kid from East St. Louis. When the war ended, Portal invited Menendez to enroll at San Jose State.

"There were people angry at Portal for doing that because Menendez didn't speak English well,'' Hill says. "So what does Menendez do? He majors in English, graduates from San Jose State magna cum laude and then goes on to Stanford and earns a master's degree.''

After Portal died, Menendez took over the boxing team and followed Portal's non-discriminatory practices. By that time, San Jose had also become home base for Yosh Uchida, a Japanese-American veteran who started the school's judo team after the war and eventually became the U.S. national team's first coach, at the 1964 Olympics.

A photo of Yoshida's team from that year shows faces of all races, including a Native American named Ben ``Nighthorse'' Campbell, who went on to become a U.S. senator from Colorado.

This multicultural stew, combined with the outspoken nature of certain San Jose State faculty members, created the energy that led to the Mexico City moment. Hill would love to locate the two black gloves that were lifted skyward by Smith and Carlos. But their whereabouts remain a mystery. Instead, she is settling for something more tasty.

It seems that in the 1950s and '60s, many downtown restaurants would not serve the men. Winter and his wife took it upon themselves to keep his athletes from starving.

"Bud's wife would cook pies or cakes as a reward for winning races,'' Hill said.

"Tommie Smith's favorite was her pineapple upside-down cake. We got the recipe. We're going to serve it at our reception opening night."

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