https://www.counterpunch.org/2003/11/07/an-interview-with-george-foreman/


DZ: What about seeing Ali as someone who was standing up to racism?

GF:I didn’t think about it like politics. Standup to something? We didn’t even know there was something to stand up to. Politics didn’t even exist. I lived in a world where I was striving to get a scrap of food, striving to get a job. And the newspapers didn’t report on Ali as much as you would think. Even the black newspaper wouldn’t talk about him. So we didn’t know everything that was going on around him.

DZ: In 1968, you won the gold medal at the Mexico Olympics, and then famously waved a small American flag and bowed a few short days after Tommie Smith and John Carlos made their black power salute on the medal stand. Tell us about the 1968 Olympics.

GF: I’m living in the Olympic Village at the time with all the other athletes. And I was loving it. And Smith and Carlos and Beamon loved it too. The track and field guys back then were the celebrities, the rock and roll stars, the beautiful guys at the village. Everywhere they walked people said, there’s Smith and Carlos! They loved it too. We were like a family. And we were all focused on trying to win our own gold medals so we didn’t feel the outrage, the controversy after they raised their fists. So when they were immediately send home and sent packing we were all like, “How can they do that?” And they were just dismissed. I thought about going home myself. We all did. I’ll never forget seeing John Carlos walk past the dormitory when he was sent packing with all these cameras following him around and I saw the most sad look on his face. This was a proud man who always walked with his head high, and he looked shook. That hurt me and it made us all mad. Forget about the flag. This was our teammate…. We loved each other and it made us mad. It made us shook.

DZ: When you waved the flag and bowed it was seen as a reaction, a rebuke of Smith and Carlos. Were you asked to do that?

GF: No way. It was spontaneous and had nothing to do with them. I always carried a small American flag red white and blue with me so people would know I was from America. Also it was tradition to bow to each judge after a fight so the next time you get points. And I wanted the world to know where I was from. I wanted to say to the world, “We gotcha.” America gotcha.

DZ: What was the reaction back home?

GF: Most people thought it was great, but then something happened that caused me more pain than I ever felt as an individual. I was a happy 19 year-old boy, and some people came up to me in the 5th ward and said, “How can you do that when the brothers are trying to do their thing?” They thought I betrayed them. That people would think that caused great pain.

DZ: If you had to do it all over would you still wave the flag?

GF: If I had to do it all over I’d wave three flags! I feel that I had been rescued from the gutter by America. One day I was under the gutter, chased by police, thinking dogs were going to get me. I laid there listening to the dogs and the gutter. The next day there I am standing on the Olympic platform and you hear the anthem. I was proud. Thanks to the Job Corps, I had a chance. I had three meals a day and a chance. LBJ started this war on poverty from 1964 and that’s why I would wave three flags. I know there are a lot of guys who had to do their thing to make a political stand. But some of us felt very separated from that. In 1968 there were people organizing to get us to boycott the Olympics. Did you know only approached the college guys? The guys who competed in college? Not one of us high school dropouts were ever asked to be part of what they were doing. They never asked the poor people to join. And I didn’t like being called or set apart as a “Black athlete.” I was an American athlete…. I got a chance from this country and when I go to Africa or Germany, or anywhere else in the world, people don’t see me as black, but as an American. (laughs) Not that that is always a good thing.