Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith

Add to Wishlist

Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith

Paperback(Reprint)

$27.95

View All Available Formats & Editions

Paperback(Reprint)
$27.95

View All Available Formats & Editions

SHIP THIS ITEM

In stock. Ships in 6-10 days.
PICK UP IN STORE

Your local store may have stock of this item.

Available within 2 business hours

Want it Today?
Check Store Availability

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592136407
Publisher:	Temple University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2008
Series:	Sporting
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.96(w) x 10.28(h) x 0.69(d)

Foreword

1: Welcome Home - 1
2: October 16, 1968 - 26
3: Out of the Fields - 55
4: The Biggest City I've Ever Seen - 95
5: Run Before You Walk - 123
6: The Coach and the Professor - 147
7: Linked Forever - 147
8: No Gold, No Glove - 190
9: Paying the Price - 220
10: Going Underground - 247
11: Families Lost, and Found - 268
12: It Will Outlive Me - 296
Epilogue: Silent and Eternal - 324
Acknowledgements
About the Authors

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

Editorial Reviews

Although this book, written with the help of Baltimore Suncolumnist Steele, may go down as an important entry in the history of track and field and African American studies, it is not without its problems. Smith and his San Jose State University classmate John Carlos were the two men who raised their black-gloved fists on the winner's podium at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City (Smith and Carlos won first and third place, respectively, in the 200-meter dash). The events and the reasoning that led to this famous "gesture" are discussed, as are its long-lasting effects on Smith's life. The fallout from the publicity, along with the hate speak that has daunted him ever since, has made Smith a bitter man. He vents his spleen on many people who passed through his life, including Ronald Reagan, Jim Brown, Jesse Owens, his ex-wife, and his ex-teammate Carlos. He refutes Carlos's description (in his Why?: The Biography of John Carlos) of his (Smith's) role in the events at Mexico City. The result is that the reader may forget Smith's many accomplishments in education and coaching because of the anger expressed on almost every page. Still, an essential purchase for public and university libraries with extensive collections in track and field history.
—Todd Spires

Library Journal

"[H]is experiences at the Olympics [are] described so vividly that readers will feel as if they're witnessing it unfold themselves...Smith's candid reflections on life after Mexico City is compelling. Most striking, though, are revelations about the stresses he endured before the 1968 race. For Smith, at 24, to have not only won the gold, but to have issued his anything-but-silent gesture from the world's biggest stage, makes his story all the more extraordinary."
—Black Issues Book Review

“What is the worth of this book? I believe it to be one that accurately portrays Tommie Smith’s life and Olympic ordeal….We have waited a long time for this book. The result is worth the delay….Silent Gesture provides, by far, the most powerful punctuation mark in explaining one of the most historic of all Olympic moments.”
—Olympika: The International Journal of Olympic Studies

From the Publisher

Related collections and offers

Product Details

Table of Contents

Customer Reviews