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."
