Jesse Owens

James Cleveland 'Jesse' Owens was born in Oakville, Alabama, the youngest of ten children of sharecroppers. Moving to Cleveland, Ohio, during the Great Migration, Owens began running in junior high school under coach Charles Riley. Attending Ohio State University, Owens was forced to live off-campus and eat at segregated restaurants under Jim Crow, yet on 25 May 1935 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he achieved what is celebrated as the 'greatest 45 minutes in sports history', breaking three world records (long jump, 220-yard dash, 220-yard low hurdles) and tying a fourth (100-yard dash).

At the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, staged by the Nazi regime as a grand showcase of Aryan supremacy, Owens delivered a transcendent athletic rebuttal before 110,000 spectators. Over six days, Owens captured four Olympic gold medals: the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay, and the long jump, where he forged a famous sporting friendship with German silver medalist Luz Long.

Despite his worldwide acclaim, Owens returned to a racially segregated America where President Franklin D. Roosevelt never sent him a telegram of congratulations or invited him to the White House. Forced to race against horses and dogs to make ends meet, Owens maintained supreme grace and later served as an international goodwill ambassador for youth athletics. In 1976, President Gerald Ford awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.