Three of Three Great Americans

Jesse Owens:

 

"Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it and you'll start believing it."

James Cleveland Owens was born September 12, 1913 in Oakville, Alabama. He was the seventh child of Henry and Emma Alexandra Owens. When he was nine they moved Cleveland, Ohio were Jesse attended Cleveland East Technical High School, in his senior year of high school he set a new high school record by running nine point four seconds in the one-hundred meter dash, tying the world record. Jesse Owens was offered many track scholarships, but chose Ohio State University, even though they did not give him a scholarship. Instead he worked a number of jobs to support him and his young wife, Ruth Owens. In the 1935 big ten championship, a year before the Berlin Olympics, Jesse Owens set three new world records in the long jump, the 220 yard dash and the 220 low hurdles and tied a fourth in the 100 yard dash, in a span of only forty-five minutes. In 1936 he traveled to Germany to compete in the Olympics.  The leader of Germany at that time Adolf Hitler believed that the Games would support his beliefs that the German "Aryan" people were the Dominant race. However, Jesse Owens became the first American track and field Athlete to win four gold medals in one Olympic Games. Not only did Jesse take home the gold, but he also defied Hitler, the Nazi Campaign, and the German "Aryan" theory. Jesse Owens died on March thirty-first 1980 in Tucson, Arizona, were he was eventually buried in Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago, IL.
 

 

 

-Jesse Owens running the 100 meter dash at the big ten championship in 1935, a year before the Olympics.