Games of Discontent: Protests, Boycotts, and Politics at the 1968 Mexico Olympics Volume 2

by Harry Blutstein

Overview

The year 1968 was ablaze with passion and mayhem as protests erupted in Paris and Prague, throughout the United States, and in cities on all continents. The Summer Olympic Games in Mexico were to be a moment of respite from chaos. But the image of peace – a white dove – adopted by organizers was an illusion, as was obvious to a record six hundred million people watching worldwide on satellite television. Ten days before the opening ceremony, soldiers slaughtered hundreds of student protesters in the capital.In Games of Discontent Harry Blutstein presents vivid accounts of threatened boycotts to protest racism in the United States, South Africa, and Rhodesia. He describes demonstrations by Czechoslovak gold medal gymnast Vera Cáslavská against the Soviet-led invasion of her country. The most dramatic moment of the Olympic Games was Tommie Smith and John Carlos's black power salute from the podium. Blutstein furnishes new details behind their protest and examines how this iconic image seared itself into historical memory, inspiring Colin Kaepernick and a new generation of athlete-activists to take a knee against racism decades later.The 1968 Summer Games became a microcosm of the discord happening around the globe. Describing a range of protest activities preceding and surrounding the 1968 Olympics, Games of Discontent shines light on the world during a politically transformative moment when discontents were able, for the first time, to globalize their protests.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780228006756
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	04/15/2021
Series:	McGill-Queen's Studies in Protest, Power, and Resistance , #2
Pages:	248
Sales rank:	1,112,567
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Harry Blutstein is a research fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Table of Contents

Figures ix

Acknowledgments xi

Author's Note xv

Introduction 3

1 Bidding for Olympic Glory 12

2 True Colours 22

3 Manufacturing Discontent 37

4 Revolt of the Black Athlete 52

5 The Tlatelolco Massacre 65

6 Let the Fiesta Begin 87

7 The Salute 99

8 Take the Money and Run 118

9 Berets, Smiles, and Fear and Loathing in Mexico 128

10 After Spring, Mexico 138

11 Adiós, Hasta la Vista 153

12 Bearing Witness 160

Epilogue 173

Notes 185

Index 221

Editorial Reviews

"Games of Discontent enriches and enhances our understanding of the Olympic games in Mexico City. [Blutstein] captures the revolutionary mood of the era. He also reinforces the political significance and symbolism of sport, provides further evidence of the IOC's inability to match its moral rhetoric with moral action, and offers more examples of the lamentable words and deeds of its deplorable president, Avery Brundage." Doug Booth, Jane Austen Society for Sports History


“Thoroughly enjoyable and well-researched, this book provides wonderful insight into the full gamut of contentious politics surrounding the 1968 Olympics Games. Blutstein's account is filled with colour and verisimilitude, drawing together forms of resistance and protest from the anti-Apartheid movement to the black power salute, and from Czechoslovak opposition to the '68 Soviet invasion to the Tlatelolco massacre. Games of Discontent is well worth a read.” Peter Gardner, University of York


“Games of Discontent is a fresh and very accessible account of the 1968 Olympics, in all their complexity. Harry Blutstein appraises the interplay between acts of athlete dissent at the Olympic Games and protest movements outside the sports arena. In doing so, he uses a global lens to pinpoint the political and historical forces that helped detonate the explosion of athlete-activism at the 1968 Games. This unflinching analysis of the extended 1968 moment – a key historical conjuncture of politics and sports – helps us understand how sport can be a vital site for political resistance.” Jules Boykoff, Pacific University and author of NOlympians: Inside the Fight against Capitalist Mega-Sports in Los Angeles, Tokyo and Beyond


“More than half a century after the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico, parts of the underlying drama continue to emerge for examination and assessment. The spectacular sport performances have sunk into relative obscurity, eclipsed by the stunning visual impact of live television coverage, both sport and news, against the background of international protest. The postponed Tokyo Olympics will face the same issues of athlete conduct on the field of play and the podium. This book is an important part of a continuum that began long before but was made powerfully visceral to a worldwide audience on the Olympic stage.” Richard W. Pound, International Olympic Committee

From the Publisher