Read Shepherd Project’s discussion of Race here.
Larry: Me personally, I don’t trust naturals because they think they don’t need to do the work.
Larry: You should look a man in the eye when he’s speaking to you.
Larry: Can you work? Jesse: I was picking 100 pounds of cotton a day when I was 6 years old. You ever picked cotton? … Yes sir, I can work.
Larry: You win up here [points to mind]. That’s what I don’t know about you.
Larry: Some kid come and snatch a record from you like that. But a gold medal, that’s yours. For life.
Jesse: I hear they don’t care much for colored folk over there [Berlin].
Larry: Well, they don’t care much for ‘em in Columbus either. That gonna be a problem?
Jesse: No sir.
Avery: It’s not the purpose [of our organization] to tell Germans how to run their country.
Avery: You want to pull out of the greatest athletic event in the world because of a few rumors?
Avery to Germans: Do you want to be remembered as they guy who held the Olympics without America?
Avery: I’m not here to tell you how to run a country. I don’t walk into a man’s house and piss on his rug. But don’t serve me [poop] and call it foie gras. … You’ve got to clean up your act.
Larry: You’re gotta learn to block this all out. It’s all just noise.
Jesse: Let me do this. It’ll only be 10 seconds.
Larry: It better be faster than that!
Larry: They will love you; they will hate you… It does not matter. Either way, when you’re out there you’re on your own.
Larry: You want to tell me why you lost today?
Jesse: Thought that was your job.
Larry: Well, I can tell you how you lost, you looked for him at 90 meters and it cost you the race.
Larry: I don’t judge what you’re doing as long as you feel alright about it… The choices you’re making right now won’t even feel like choices until it’s too late.
Jeremiah Mahoney: A vote against [the Olympics] is vote against tyranny.
Avery: History remembers the winners.
Jeremiah Mahoney: I respect their decision, but in all conscience, I can’t be the one to carry it out.
Harry Davis [NAACP representative]: You have a chance to strike a powerful blow. … We got a chance here to show our solidarity for the oppressed people in Germany—it’s all part of the same great hatred.
Henry Owens: You think it’s gonna make a d*** bit of a difference??? [If he doesn’t go, they won’t notice. If he does go, they’ll hate him.]
Jesse: Do you run Mr. Davis? Figures. Out there, there ain’t none of all this… for those 10 seconds, you are completely free. Here you come telling me not to go, that I’m letting down my race if I do. What’s that supposed to do for me?
Jesse: I got people looking at me.
Larry: Black people? I don’t give a s*** about any of that.
Jesse: Yeah, well, you’re white. You don’t have to.
Larry: A man competes to prove something to himself. That he’s the best he can be.
Larry: You have every right to be angry. I don’t listen well. … Jesse, I don’t’ know anything about the kind of pressure that’s being put on your right now.
Jesse: You’re the only d*** person in the world whose opinion matters to me and you don’t got one.
Jesse: I’ll be there, all by myself, whole world watching. If I lose, it’ll mean those Nazi’s were right.
Ruth: Quit thinking so much, Jesse. It’s not what you’re good at. You were made to run.
Larry: You ain’t fit the train the fleas on a dog—that’s what you said to Coach???
Nazi Official: Hitler’s been forced to leave early and wont’ be able to congratulate the winners today. Traffic, you know.
Goebbels: Do you really think he’d allow himself to be photographed shaking hands with that?
Luz: Please, take your last jump.
Goebbels (?): What is he [Luz] doing? He’s throwing away his career!
Leni Riefenstahl: No, he’s making my film.
Luz: You beat me, square and fair.
Luz: I wanted your best, otherwise, what’s the point?
Jesse: Do they have any ugly girls in Germany?
Luz: They prefer to keep them out of sight. They keep a lot of things hidden.
Luz: I think all things considered, you’re actually better off in America.
Jesse: I don’t know if there’s any difference deep down.
Luz: If they want to make their games a weapon, they can’t complain when they’re used against them.
Luz: I hope very much you win. Not to prove anything to any [body], just to make me feel a little bit better about losing to you.
Film crew: We were ordered by Goebbels not to film the race.
Leni Riefenstahl: Don’t tell my crew when to film again. You can’t change what’s happening out there.
Bell hop: Sorry, sir. He’ll have to use the service entrance.
Larry: You know who this is??? They’re holding this dinner for him!
The White House never publically acknowledged Jesse or his participation in the 1936 Olympics.
It was 25 years before any of his records were broken.