I had truly believed that I would be six feet under before something like this took place. But I had lived long enough to see it, and to be part of it. My alma mater was welcoming me back. It was embracing me as one of its own, as a part of its history and of its legacy and of its contribution to American society. And it was going to immortalize me with a statue right on the campus grounds I once walked.

Thirty-five years earlier, I had thought I would never see the city of San Jose, the campus...

I cannot say what I remember most about that night in Mexico City because I remember everything. How could I possibly forget anything about it? Every detail, from the position of the starting blocks to the feeling of crossing the finish line—and after I crossed the finish line. What happened that night, October 16, 1968, was history, and you’d better believe I was aware of what was going on every second.

It began long before the starting blocks on the Olympic Stadium track for the men’s 200-meter final. But the starting blocks are, yes, a good place to start....

I’m a country boy. I grew up in the country, and even though I have lived in big cities and have traveled all over the world, I don’t think the country ever left me. Most of my memories growing up were of the outdoors, not inside—not watching television, not cleaning the carpet, not listening to my CDs or anything like that. None of that was even a possibility then, not TVs or CDs or carpets—well, carpet was, but not for us.

I was born on D-Day—June 6, 1944, in Clarksville, Texas, 35 miles west of the Arkansas...

I didn’t just do field work the summer before going away to San Jose State. I also scrubbed and waxed the floors at Central Union Elementary with my daddy. Once again, I was building up my body without ever going into a weight room or setting foot on a track: I had to move desks out of the way, big heavy wood-and-steel desks that weighed some 40 pounds not including the books in them, and run that big, heavy floor scrubber, stripping wax and applying new wax. But I wasn’t doing it to get stronger, or because I loved waxing...

By early 1965, the latter part of my sophomore year at San Jose State, the idea of black empowerment was becoming popular, as awareness of a system that was not treating people equally grew. At the same time, my prowess as one of the best sprinters in the world was growing as well. Little did I know that the two forces would converge within me on a single spring weekend.

Already by that time, much had happened in the civil rights movement, particularly down South. The bus boycotts in Montgomery, sparked by the protest of Rosa Parks, had been years...

It was no coincidence that my day of running and protesting during my sophomore year at San Jose State involved both Bud Winter, my coach, and Professor Harry Edwards. It’s also no coincidence that after having been a student of both men, I became both a coach and a teacher later in life. I learned from both of them, on the track and in the classroom and away from both locations; I incorporated their lessons and their ways of teaching them into my methods of instruction, so much so that one can see the traits of both men within me...

John Carlos and I ran together on the same team only twice in our lives. The second time was on the Olympic team in Mexico City. The first was not at San Jose State, because we were together at school for one academic year, 1966–67, and that was the year after John transferred from East Texas State University in Commerce, Texas. Then and now, NCAA rules dictate that a transfer has to complete a full academic year before becoming eligible to compete at his new school. If not for that rule, San Jose State would have had Tommie Smith,...

Dick Gregory, the nightclub comic then coming into his own as an activist, had talked about black athletes boycotting the Olympics as far back as the 1960 Games in Rome. The talk surfaced again in 1964. I don’t remember much about it. I do remember believing, after the freshman year I had at San Jose State, that I was ready to compete in the Games in Tokyo. I knew it from my very first meet as a freshman, when I ran a 20.7 in the 200 and ran a good leg in the 4-by-100-meter relay. I smiled internally and said,...

The first question out of most people’s mouths to me, when they talk about Mexico City, is: “How did you feel when they took your medal?” I can’t answer it, because John Carlos and I were not stupid enough to listen to the USOC, travel over to their office, and hand over those medals. They did ask for them, the next day, but of course we did not go, and each of us has his medal at this very moment.

The next question usually is: “How did it feel when they threw you out of the Olympic Village?” Well, technically,...

I stayed at Lee Evans’ little house on Hawthorne Street in San Jose, in a bedroom in the back, for about a year and a half. I had to do it, to get on my feet after my divorce from Denise and after my football career ended. I needed to work. I wanted to teach, but even though I had graduated from San Jose State a while ago, I did not have my full teaching credential from the state of California. I received temporary credentials to work semester by semester, reapplying each semester. I taught the fifth grade at Ravenswood...

A lot of people still don’t understand why it would be important for me to go underground, to keep my distance, to lose myself and get myself lost in where I live and where I work. That group includes my family, my parents and brothers and sisters and the nieces and nephews and cousins. It also includes my wives, plural—Delois is my third. When we met, she didn’t know what it meant to be around Tommie Smith, the good and the bad. I think that anyone who has ever gotten involved with someone like me, with a background like...

I had wanted for a long time for Santa Monica College to be my last professional stop. This is where I wanted to retire, and in the summer of 2005, I did, and Delois and I moved back to the South, to Georgia, near her home and her people. I’ve gone into partial retirement, actually; I would never just retire and go fishing, it’s not in my blood to do that. When I do stop speaking and writing for a living, I probably will keep on moving. But I was blessed to have found my place for a period of...

This time, when Tommie Smith and John Carlos returned to San Jose State University, 500 people greeted them with warmth, love, and admiration.

And with a 25-foot-high likeness of them, made of fiberglass, ceramic, and bronze.

On October 17, 2005—37 years and one day after Mexico City, two years and one day after Smith and Carlos gazed upon the model of the statue in a downtown hotel ballroom—the two men sat on a stage set up on a normally serene lawn in the middle of campus and gazed up at the memorial to their sacrifice, at that moment...