名人轶事:Jesse Owens

（单词翻译）

Broadcast: August 8, 2004 (MUSIC)

((Note: This is a almost repeat report of PEOPLE IN AMERICA - June 9, 2002:

Jesse Owens))

VOICE ONE:

This is Gwen Outen.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Every

week we tell about a person who was important in the history of the United

States.

Today we tell the story of athlete Jesse Owens. He once was the fastest

runner in the world.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Jesse Owens on a United States Postal¹ Service stamp.

In the summer of nineteen-thirty-six, people all over the world heard the

name of Jesse Owens. That summer, Owens joined the best athletes from fifty

nations to compete in the Olympic games. They met in Berlin, Germany. There

was special interest in the Olympic games that year.

Adolf Hitler was the leader of Germany. Hitler and his Nazi² party believed

that white people -- especially German people – were the best race of people

on Earth. They believed that other races of people -- especially those with

dark skin -- were almost less than human.

In the summer of nineteen-thirty-six, Hitler wanted to prove his beliefs to

the world. He wanted to show that German athletes could win every important

competition. After all, only a few weeks before the Olympics, German boxer³

Max Schmeling had defeated the great American heavyweight Joe Louis, a black

man.
VOICE TWO:

Jesse Owens was black, too. Until nineteen-thirty-six, very few black

athletes had competed in the Olympics for the United States. Owens was proud

to be on the team. He was very sure of his ability.

Jesse Owens preparing to run.

Owens spent one week competing in four different Olympic track and field

events in Berlin. During that time, he did not think much about the color of

his skin, or about Adolf Hitler.

Owens said later: "I was looking only at the finish line. I thought of all

the years of practice and competition, and of all who believed in me."

VOICE ONE:

We do not know what Hitler thought of Jesse Owens. No one recorded what he

said about this black man who ran faster and jumped farther⁴ than any man of

any color at the Olympic games. But we can still see Jesse Owens as Hitler

saw him. For at Hitler's request, motion⁵ pictures were made of the Berlin

Olympic games.

The films show Jesse Owens as a thin, but powerfully-built young man with

smooth brown skin and short hair. When he ran, he seemed to move without

effort. When he jumped, as one observer⁶ said, he seemed to jump clear out of

Germany.
Jesse Owens won the highest award -- the Gold Medal -- in all four of the

Olympic competitions he entered. In the one-hundred meter run, he equaled the

fastest time ever run in that Olympic event. In the long jump and the two-

hundred meter run, he set new Olympic records. And as part of a four-man

team, he helped set a new world record for the four-hundred meter relay⁷ race.

He was the first American in the history of Olympic track and field events to

win four Gold Medals in a single Olympics.
VOICE TWO:

Owens's Olympic victories made him a hero. He returned home to parades in New

York City and Columbus, Ohio, where he attended the state university.

Businessmen paid him for the right to use his name on their stores. No one,

however, offered him a permanent job.

For many years after the nineteen-thirty-six Olympic games, Jesse Owens

survived as best he could. He worked at small jobs. He even used his athletic⁸

abilities, but in a sad way. He earned money by running races against people,

motorcycles and horses. He and his wife and three daughters saw both good

times and bad times.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Poverty was not new to James Cleveland Owens. He was born in nineteen-

thirteen on a farm in the southern state of Alabama. He was the youngest of

thirteen children. His parents did not own the farm, and earned little money.

Jesse remembered that there was rarely enough food to eat. And there was not

enough fuel to heat the house in winter.

Some of Jesse's brothers and sisters died while still young. Jesse was a

sickly child. Partly because of this, and partly because of the racial hatred⁹

they saw around them, Jesse's parents decided¹⁰ to leave the South. They moved

north, to Cleveland, Ohio, when Jesse was eight years old. The large family

lived in a few small rooms in a part of the city that was neither friendly

nor pleasant to look at.

Jesse's father was no longer young or strong. He was unable to find a good

job. Most of the time, no one would give him any work at all. But Jesse's

older brothers were able to get jobs in factories. So life was a little

better than it had been in the South.#p#副标题#e#

VOICE TWO:

Jesse, especially, was lucky. He entered a school where one white teacher,

Charles Riley, took a special interest in him. Jesse looked thin and

unhealthy, and Riley wanted to make him stronger. Through the years that

Jesse was in school, Riley brought him food in the morning. Riley often

invited the boy to eat with his family in the evening. And every day before

school, he taught Owens how to run like an athlete.

Jesse Owens running at Ohio State.

At first, the idea was only to make the boy stronger. But soon Riley saw that

Jesse was a champion. By the time Jesse had completed high school, his name

was known across the nation. Ohio State University wanted him to attend

college there. While at Ohio State, he set new world records in several track

and field events. And he was accepted as a member of the United States

Olympic team.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Owens always remembered the white man who helped change his life. Charles

Riley did not seem to care what color a person's skin was. Owens learned¹¹ to

think the same way.

Later in life, Owens put all his energy into working with young people. He

wanted to tell them some of the things he had

learned about life, work and success: That it is important to choose a goal

and always work toward¹² it. That there are good people in the world who will

help you to reach your goal. That if you try again and again, you will

succeed.

People who heard Owens's speeches said he spoke¹³ almost as well as he ran.

Owens received awards for his work with boys and girls. The United States

government sent him around the world as a kind of sports ambassador¹⁴. The

International Olympic Committee asked for his advice.

VOICE TWO:

In about nineteen-seventy, Jesse Owens wrote a book in which he told about

his life. It was called "Blackthink." In the book, Owens denounced¹⁵ young

black militants¹⁶ who blamed society for their troubles. He said young black

people had the same chance to succeed in the United States as white people.

Many black civil rights activists¹⁷ reacted angrily to these statements. They

said what Owens had written was not true for everyone.

Owens later admitted that he had been wrong. He saw that not all blacks were

given the same chances and help that he had been given. In a second book,

Owens tried to explain what he had meant in his first book. He called it "I

Have Changed." Owens said that, in his earlier book, he did not write about

life as it was for everyone, but about life as it was for him.

He said he truly wanted to believe that if you think you can succeed--- and

you really try -- then you have a chance. If you do not think you have a

chance, then you probably will fail. He said these beliefs had worked for

him. And he wanted all young people to believe them, too.

VOICE ONE:

These were the same beliefs he tried to express when he spoke around the

world about being an Olympic athlete. "The road to the Olympics," he said,

"leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond New York or Moscow, ancient

Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads -- in the end -- to

the best within us."

In nineteen-seventy-six, President Gerald Ford¹⁸ awarded Jesse Owens the Medal

of Freedom. This is the highest honor¹⁹ an American civilian²⁰ can receive. Jesse

Owens died of cancer in nineteen-eighty. His family members operate the Jesse

Owens Foundation²¹. It provides financial aid and support for young people to

help them reach their goals in life.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

This program was written by Barbara Dash. It was produced by Lawan Davis.

This is Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And this is Gwen Outen. Listen again next week for People in America in VOA

Special English.