In October that year the Olympic Games were held in Mexico City and Tommy Smith and John Carlos were members of the American team.

The two athletes were black and when Smith won the gold medal in the 200m race in a world record time and Carlos won the bronze, they courageously agreed to perform a black power salute on the podium when they were awarded their medals, knowing full well that their action would be highly controversial.

For the medal ceremony they wore black socks without shoes to represent black poverty. Smith wore a black scarf to represent black pride and Carlos wore a string of beads to commemorate black people who had been lynched. They also wore badges of the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR).

They wore black gloves and as they stood on the podium with the Star Spangled Banner playing, they performed the salute with heads bowed. Silver medallist, Australian Peter Norman, also wore an OPHR badge in support of the two Americans.

The Americans were booed by the crowd as they left the podium and later the IOC president, Avery Brundage, ordered that the two athletes be withdrawn from the American team and banned from the Olympic village for issuing a political statement unfit for the apolitical forum that the Olympic games was supposed to be.

The US Olympic committee initially refused only to be told that the whole team would be banned. This led to the two athletes being stripped of their medals and expelled from the games.

On their return home the two received severe criticism of their actions from the US sporting establishment but the photographs were seen across the world and their message was very effectively delivered.

Tommy Smith later said: If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight.