When was jesse owens born

In all, Owens competed in 42 events that year, winning them all. Continue reading from Biography. Jesse Owens Encyclopedia Britannica. Jesse Owens: Biography Olympics. Jesse Owens vs. It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge.

If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the president, either.

Following the Olympic Games, Owens retired from amateur athletics and started to earn money for his physical talents. He raced against cars and horses, and, for a time, played with the Harlem Globetrotters.

Owens eventually found his calling in public relations and marketing, setting up a business for himself in Chicago, Illinois, and traveling frequently around the country to speak at conventions and other business gatherings.

Jesse Owens, who smoked up to a pack of cigarettes a day for a good deal of his life, died of lung cancer in Tucson, Arizona, on March 31, Skip to Main Content.

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Site Map. American track star Jesse Owens became the hero of the Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany, as his series of victories scored a moral victory for African American athletes. James Cleveland Owens was born in Oakville, Alabama, on September 12, , the son of a sharecropper, a farmer who rents land. He was a sickly child, often too frail to help his father and brothers in the fields. The family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in , for better work opportunities. There was little improvement in their life, but the move did enable young Owens to enter public school, where a teacher accidentally wrote down his name as "Jesse" instead of J.

He carried the name with him for the rest of his life. When Owens was in the fifth grade, the athletic supervisor asked him to join the track team. From a skinny boy he developed into a strong runner, and in junior high school he set a record for the yard dash. In high school in he won the yard dash, the yard dash, and the broad jump in the National Interscholastic Championships.

Owens was such a complete athlete, a coach said he seemed to float over the ground when he ran. A number of universities actively recruited Owens, but he felt that college was only a dream.

He felt he could not leave his struggling family and young wife when a paycheck needed to be earned. Owens finally agreed to enter Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, after officials found employment for his father. In addition to his studies and participation in track, Owens worked three jobs to pay his tuition.

He experienced racism the idea that one race is superior to others while a student at Ohio State, but the incidents merely strengthened his desire to succeed. At the Big Ten Conference track and field championships at the University of Michigan in , he broke three world records and tied another. Owens was a member of the U. Olympic team competing in Berlin, Germany.

Jesse Owens. The African American members of the squad faced the challenges not only of competition but also of Adolph Hitler's — boasts of Aryan supremacy, or the domination of Hitler's ideal white, European athletes. Owens won a total of four gold medals at the Olympic games. As a stunned Hitler angrily left the stadium, German athletes embraced Owens and the spectators chanted his name. He returned to a hero's welcome in America, and was honored with a ticker tape parade in New York City.

Within months, however, he was unable to find work to finance his senior year of college. Owens took a job as a playground supervisor, but was soon approached by promoters who wanted him to race against horses and cars. With the money from these exhibitions, he was able to finish school.

In Owens lent his name to a chain of cleaning shops. They prospered until , when the partners fled, leaving Owens with a bankrupt business and heavy debts. He found employment with the Office of Civilian Defense in Philadelphia — as national director of physical education for African Americans.