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Empower U - John Kerezy - Jesse Owens · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: The five KR and C A talk station.
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  Speaker 2: At seven forty one to think about krc DE Talk Station.
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  Speaker 2: Happy Friday Eve Thanks to everyone involved with the Empower
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  Speaker 2: Youth Seminar series outstanding education opportunities over a wide variety
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  Speaker 2: of subject matter, proving that tonight. John Kersey the writer,
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  Speaker 2: former relations practitioner, and professor at Cuyahoga Community College in
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  Speaker 2: Cleveland area for the past twenty three years. He writes
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  Speaker 2: stories and posts about people at events in northeast Ohio
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  Speaker 2: on his website, which you can find i on Cleveland
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  Speaker 2: dot com. Bachelors degree from Wabash College, Master's degree from
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  Speaker 2: Ohio State University or the Ohio State University, and he
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  Speaker 2: also writes a weblog. But he's doing a seminar tonight
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  Speaker 2: on an amazing, amazing, legendary sports hero, Jesse Owens Ohio
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  Speaker 2: and Jesse Owens track and field phenomenon and symbol of resistance.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the boring show, John Kersey. It's great having
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  Speaker 2: you on today, Brian, thank you for that warm introduction.
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  Speaker 1: That's terrific.
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  Speaker 2: Oh no, this listen. You've got to have massive, massive
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  Speaker 2: respect for Jesse Owens in a period of time in
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  Speaker 2: this country and you're talking about the Olympics in Germany.
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  Speaker 2: He beat the Germans, which is a total embarrassment to
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  Speaker 2: Adolf Hiller, and I just it's a phenomenon. It's really
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  Speaker 2: a great story. And honestly, John, I did not know
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  Speaker 2: Jesse Owens was from Ohio. So I'm an enlightened man
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  Speaker 2: a little bit more so this morning.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, let's be exact. He was born in Alabama,
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  Speaker 1: but his family came to Ohio when Jesse was eight
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  Speaker 1: and a half years old as part of the Great Migration,
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  Speaker 1: huge influx of blacks from the South to the north,
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  Speaker 1: you know, getting away from sharecropping and cotton growing and
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  Speaker 1: all of that. And he grew up in Cleveland. He
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  Speaker 1: went to middle school, high school at East Tech in Cleveland.
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  Speaker 1: He got two state championships from East Tech in the
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  Speaker 1: early thirties, and he was a sensation in track. He
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  Speaker 1: was known for being a track star, and he maintained
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  Speaker 1: that until his sophomore year Ohio State when he became
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  Speaker 1: a superstar when he broke four world records in the
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  Speaker 1: span of about forty five five minutes at the Big
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  Speaker 1: Ten Track Championships at ann Arbream, Michigan. And to this
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  Speaker 1: day it is considered to be, by the way, the
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  Speaker 1: greatest forty five minutes in all of sports.
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  Speaker 2: To do something like that, that is great. To learn
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  Speaker 2: a little bit more about his background, well, let me
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  Speaker 2: ask you. I understand from at least the notes, and
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  Speaker 2: I need to be talking about this tonight. Now. You
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  Speaker 2: can either show up live to the Empower Youth Seminar
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  Speaker 2: Studio three hundred Great Oaks Drive, just go to the
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  Speaker 2: side annex entrance and walk on in, or log in
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  Speaker 2: from home empower You America Dot, or just register ahead
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  Speaker 2: of time. But you actually met Jesse Owens.
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  Speaker 1: I did. I was a pimply faced fifteen year old
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  Speaker 1: at a high school in Cleveland, and he came and
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  Speaker 1: spoke at an assembly at my high school, and I
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  Speaker 1: knew Jesse Owens was. I didn't know his life story,
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  Speaker 1: but I was wise enough we were all done to
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  Speaker 1: grab one of my fir bound notebook sheets of paper
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  Speaker 1: and shove it at him, and he gave me his autographics,
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  Speaker 1: his best of walk Jesse Owens. It's mounted on my wall.
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  Speaker 1: My wife has got a couple of pictures with him
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  Speaker 1: that's put next to it, and it's just a contant
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  Speaker 1: memento of how great that experience was. But I didn't
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  Speaker 1: write the book because just of that Brian, four years
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  Speaker 1: ago was a one hundred anniversary of the Owen family
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  Speaker 1: coming to Cleveland for them becoming Clevelanders, and I pitched
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  Speaker 1: the idea of doing a speech about that for a
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  Speaker 1: speakers program at Cohago Community College and they agreed. So
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  Speaker 1: that led to me doing more research on Owen's for
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  Speaker 1: the speech, and before I knew it, I was doing
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  Speaker 1: so much research as a matter of fact, that there
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  Speaker 1: will be a book coming out from Kenstate University Press
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  Speaker 1: next year titled Jesse Owens Sensation, Superstar, Survivor Symbol, which
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  Speaker 1: is really covering his entire life.
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  Speaker 2: Nice alert of title to a love that. Now, can
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  Speaker 2: I ask you specifically? I thought we had sort of
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  Speaker 2: solved the problem of racism in this country, but it
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  Speaker 2: generates a lot of business and a lot of political fodder.
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  Speaker 2: So we've my feeling we've moved back. But in Jesse
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  Speaker 2: Owen's time in the nineteen thirties, most notably at least
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  Speaker 2: that period of time when he won the Olympics, obviously
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  Speaker 2: we were awash with Jim Crow Laws or a whole
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  Speaker 2: lot of a lot more racism back then, we still
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  Speaker 2: had the existence of the Klan in the South. So
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  Speaker 2: did he personally experience are you aware of in writing
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  Speaker 2: your book Jesseo and Sensation, Supercar Survivor and Symbol. Did
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  Speaker 2: he personally experience challenges with racism in this country? Or
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  Speaker 2: was his prominence as one of the world's greatest athletes
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  Speaker 2: something that minimized that.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just kind of curious, Brian Sadly it did not. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: he was discriminated against horribly even after winning all those
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  Speaker 1: gold medals. The AAU actually stripped him of his amateur status,
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  Speaker 1: and people who know a bit about Owens might remember
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  Speaker 1: that he was resorted forced, basically humiliated to do things
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  Speaker 1: run against the race horses to make money. It's kind
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  Speaker 1: of like exhibitions. Yeah, that was going on in the
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  Speaker 1: thirties and in the forties in his life. Three years
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  Speaker 1: after the gold medals he filed for bankruptcy. He had
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  Speaker 1: a very difficult period of life when he was married,
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  Speaker 1: had three children and was just really finding it hard
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  Speaker 1: to get by. In the late nineteen thirties, he went
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  Speaker 1: back to Ohio State and was trying to get gain
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  Speaker 1: his degree because he didn't graduate, but he really didn't
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  Speaker 1: have the intellectual foundation in his high school experience to
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  Speaker 1: get a college degree. Nowadays we have you know, tutors
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  Speaker 1: and remedial learning and things of that nature, but they
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  Speaker 1: didn't have that back then. So what basically turned his
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  Speaker 1: life around was World War Two. He ended up being
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  Speaker 1: an HR manager for the Ford Motor Company up in
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  Speaker 1: Detroit and the will A Run plant where they were
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  Speaker 1: making all the bombers that helped win the war, and
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  Speaker 1: that gradually moved him from the survivor phase into a
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  Speaker 1: symbol phase because during the Cold War, our State Department realized, hey,
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  Speaker 1: we've got this guy that kind of proved to Hitler
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  Speaker 1: that the Iberian supremacy was nonsense. So the State Department
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  Speaker 1: actually began to use Owens for events and activities to
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  Speaker 1: go around the world and be kind of like a
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  Speaker 1: symbol of America.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'm just wildly curious if if Joe Lewis ever
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  Speaker 2: came up in the context of talking about Jesse Owens,
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  Speaker 2: because it seems to me a parallel could be drawn
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  Speaker 2: since Joe Lewis the boxer beat Matt Schmax Schmelling around
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  Speaker 2: the same period of time, embarrassing Hitler as well. That
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  Speaker 2: was a complete victory by a black man over what
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  Speaker 2: was supposed to be a superior race all white folks.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, Brian, they were friends. Joe Lewis came to Cleveland
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty five. This was before he'd become the
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  Speaker 1: world champion, but he was obviously the great hope for blacks,
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  Speaker 1: and Jesse Owens met Joe Louis because this was just
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  Speaker 1: after Owens had set those four world records. They became
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  Speaker 1: very good and fast friends and became pals over the years,
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  Speaker 1: and there's some great stories about that, and I covered
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  Speaker 1: some of that in my book. I think the one
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  Speaker 1: that's most Brian, The thing I'd be most interesting is
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  Speaker 1: just the month before the Olympics began was the first
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  Speaker 1: of the Lewis Smelling fights in New York City, where
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  Speaker 1: Smelling had beaten Lewis and not to Germany didn't expect
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  Speaker 1: that to happen, but boy did they ever take advantage
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  Speaker 1: of it. Hitler contacted the captain of the Hindenburg got
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  Speaker 1: a new seat reserved for Schmelling to get him back
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  Speaker 1: to Germany as soon as possible. They did propaganda films
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  Speaker 1: talking about Selling beating Joe Lewis and they curaded Shmelling
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  Speaker 1: around in the Olympic village and that was the first
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  Speaker 1: time that Schmelling met Jesse Owens. And let's just say
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  Speaker 1: it was a pretty icy meeting because Owens was friends
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  Speaker 1: with Lewis and he really resented the factor of what
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  Speaker 1: Hitler was doing with smelling at that point.
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  Speaker 2: How about that, Well, I'm glad I asked that question
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  Speaker 2: that sort of popped into my head because I was
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  Speaker 2: aware of the Lewis smelling fight, so parallels had been drawn.
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  Speaker 2: I guess they had a lot of shared experiences given
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  Speaker 2: the issues with race at that time.
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  Speaker 1: They did, and sadly was also discriminated. Again. I think
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  Speaker 1: the thing that makes the Lewis prasts a more sympathetic
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  Speaker 1: figure in the American districy at least is Lewis did
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  Speaker 1: enlist in the army and he was used in World
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  Speaker 1: War II in that capacity. But sadly, just like all boxers,
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  Speaker 1: you know, Muhammed Ali the same thing thirty years later.
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  Speaker 1: You know, they have handlers, they have contracts. In the
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  Speaker 1: case of Joe Lewis, sadley, he was addicted to drugs
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  Speaker 1: and he retired and then had to come back because
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  Speaker 1: he owed the irs ununbelievable of money, and Lewis's ending
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  Speaker 1: was really tragic in terms about his boxing career and
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  Speaker 1: later on his own life. Owens, by contrast, was much
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  Speaker 1: higher regarded. In the last twenty years of his life.
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  Speaker 1: Owens was a symbol and people kind of loved hearing
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  Speaker 1: from him to go and make talks, and he would appear.
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  Speaker 1: He came back to Columbus frequently. For example, he really
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  Speaker 1: was one of the favorites in Columbus for speaking engagements
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  Speaker 1: and of course activities with the Ohio State Athletics program.
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  Speaker 1: That one of the very first scholarships, one of the
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  Speaker 1: very first athletic scholarships in nineteen fifty was a Jesse
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  Speaker 1: Owens Scholarship.
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  Speaker 2: How about that, Well, you know what, I've learned a
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  Speaker 2: whole lot today in just these few minutes. In time,
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  Speaker 2: we're going to learn a whole lot more Tonight, empower
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  Speaker 2: you America dot org. You can log in from home
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  Speaker 2: and enjoy this wonderful presentation by my guest this morning,
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  Speaker 2: John Kurzy, or show up live. I presume you'll answer
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  Speaker 2: a question or two from the audience that people have them.
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  Speaker 2: But I'm glad you're doing this Ohiolan, Jesse Owens track
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  Speaker 2: and field phenomenon and symbol of resilience. That's night seven pm. John,
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  Speaker 2: it's been a real pleasure talking with you this morning.
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  Speaker 2: I appreciate the time you spill with my listeners. I'm
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  Speaker 2: glad you're doing the seminar.
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  Speaker 1: Tonight, Brian, thank you for having me.
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  Speaker 2: My pleasure, brother, my pleasure, all day long.
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  Speaker 1: It's