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SAN JOSE STATEMENT

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Times Staff Writer

Its home will be a grassy area, ringed by trees and near a wooden kiosk stapled with advertisements for an online poker site, sleep-deprivation counseling, English tutoring and a men’s roller hockey championship.

If San Jose State’s interim president, Don W. Kassing, left his office in room 206A of the ivy-covered Tower Hall and moved to a window on the other side of the 19th-century stucco building, he would be able to see it.

Students leaving the new laboratory building or the old General Classroom building will find it right in front of them, and that’s probably a good thing, because they’re paying for it.

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Certainly, the sight lines improve when you’re talking about a 23-foot tall statue, because that’s what is coming here -- a statue depicting San Jose State student-athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos in their raised-fist protest against racial inequality as they stood on the medal stand after the 200 meters at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

The gesture instantly sparked controversy -- Smith and Carlos were banned from the Olympic village -- but there are no hints of unrest here, only school pride, and a desire to honor two pioneers of social activism on the campus they walked nearly four decades ago.

There was a groundbreaking ceremony here recently to mark the spot the huge statue will occupy. A fund-raising effort by the school’s Associated Students group -- a nonprofit student governing body -- has raised $225,000 of the $300,000 needed to pay for the installation.

It is expected to be completed Oct. 16, the 37th anniversary of the event that raised not only fists, but social consciousness.

“A hundred years from now, people will look at that statue and say ‘What was that about?’ and someone will say ‘Demonstrating at the Olympics,’ ” said Harry Edwards, an activist, sociologist and lecturer at what was then San Jose State College. “That will just open the door to the discussion.

“The real legacy of Tommie Smith and John Carlos in this statue is that they provided a point of focus to pose their enduring questions to a free society. What is the role of protest and patriotism in challenging times? To have this statue on a college campus, it’s so appropriate. These questions will be debated as long as America is a free society.”

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The idea to honor Smith and Carlos came from Eric Grotz, who was a political science major from Fremont. Inspired in class by a professor’s lecture that some don’t get recognized for their efforts, Grotz researched Smith and Carlos, then wrote a resolution to honor them to the student government three years ago.

“For a lot of people, Tommie Smith and John Carlos were a heart-felt memory,” said Grotz, now 25.

That the fund-raising is a project by the students and not the university makes a lot of sense to Alfonso De Alba, executive director of Associated Students.

“What Tommie and John did then, our current students are beginning to understand that there is a way toward change,” he said. “We’re telling Tommie and John, ‘What you’ve done is valued and a university setting is the most appropriate place to celebrate that.’ ”

Smith is retiring June 30 after 27 years at Santa Monica College. He still gets a lot of blank looks from students who know nothing about his role in the 1968 Olympics, but he thinks the statue might make more aware.

He is proud of the statue.

“I feel good about it. If it’s OK with the birds, it’s OK with me,” he said.

“Seriously, it’s been a long time, a lot of rainy track meets and a lot of memories and a lot of years ago.”

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If Edwards had been successful with his call for athletes to boycott the Olympics, the Smith-Carlos protest, the Olympics’ most significant, would never have occurred.

Edwards was at the forefront of the athletic activist movement. He was a lecturer at San Jose State and believed that academics were not being stressed for African American students, especially athletes.

He organized a student protest that led to the school’s canceling a football game against Texas El Paso in 1967 and later formed the Olympic Project for Human Rights, urging African American athletes to boycott the 1968 Olympics.

The boycott didn’t happen, the Games went on as scheduled and everything appeared normal, at least for a while.

In those 1968 Games at Mexico City, San Jose State athletes won four gold medals and a bronze. Only 12 nations won more gold medals than San Jose State College, but no medal drew more attention than the gold Smith won in the 200 meters.

He won in world-record time, 19.83 seconds. Carlos, his Spartan track teammate, was third.

What happened next became a swirling mix of black pride, athletic protest, a plea for equality and for a new social consciousness.

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Smith and Carlos took their places on the medal stand and when the national anthem was played, Smith raised his right fist, over which he wore a black glove. Carlos raised his black-gloved left fist. They both wore black socks, signifying poverty, and they lowered their heads.

The Associated Press photograph of that moment had a vulcanizing effect for protest and how people felt about it. Smith said the gesture wasn’t meant to express black power, per se, but to bring attention to social equality for all.

“It wasn’t a black-white thing, it was a social thing,” he said. “I’m a social-power person.”

Not everyone appreciated the protest. The crowd in the Estado Olimpia booed Smith and Carlos. They were heavily criticized by such media voices as Howard Cosell, they were asked to leave the Olympic village and they faced harassment for years.

Carlos fell on hard financial times and when he tried to get money from the city of Altadena to fund a youth program, only to be turned down, he didn’t have enough money to pay the heating bill. He chopped up his children’s furniture to burn in the fireplace.

The pressure resulting from their act -- viewed by many as defiant -- eventually cost Smith and Carlos their marriages, but they say their religious beliefs made them strong and both have remarried.

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Carlos, 60, works in the disciplinary area of Palm Springs High’s office of student services. He has five children: Kimme, Trevion, Malik, Shanna and Winsetta. Carlos’ children and his 90-year-old mother, Vioris, were on campus at the groundbreaking ceremony for the statue.

“I’m ecstatic,” Carlos said. “Just to prove a point to my kids, to do the right thing, weather the storm ... you were right after all.

“This thing keeps evolving, like flames on both ends of a candle.

“You know, this statue can make people focus on how society is more introspective, shedding more light on it. Is it improved? Let’s just say things have been cosmetically cleaned up.

“The times have changed. A lot of people are tripping on dollars and cents. Relative to social issues, people are thinking about economic issues now.”

Meanwhile, the thoughts of Smith, 61, are on his retirement. He is planning on retiring from Santa Monica College’s physical education department and moving to Georgia, where he already knows how he will fill his days.

“I’ll be watching the trees grow,” he said.

In the shade and in peaceful moments, he is sure that the protest moment, even though it may define his life, is not something he will rehash every day.

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“What happened in ‘68, it was from another moment. I don’t think I did anything wrong. This statue, then, is not vindication, because vindication is a word that projects a wrong notion. What I did -- I did something that made people aware.”

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The gloved fists and socks will be bronze with a black patina. The faces, forearms and hands will be bronze. The rest of the 23-foot-high statue of Smith and Carlos will be in hand-cut ceramic tiles, giving the impression that the tiles are their clothing.

Sophisticated 3D scanning technology and computer imaging will help shape the correct body forms of Smith and Carlos from 1968. The figures will be erected on a podium of white concrete and the place on the platform where silver medalist Peter Norman of Australia stood will be left vacant. The idea is that students and others who pass by will feel free to step into that spot on the podium between Smith and Carlos and take a stand beside them.

The artist is Rigo 23, or Ricardo Gouveia of San Francisco. Born in Portugal, Rigo 23, who received a bachelor’s degree at San Francisco Art Institute and a master’s at Stanford, specializes in art involving struggles for social justice and the environment.

There is a daunting aspect to the work, he said, but also a huge reward:

“There is a pervasive lack of courage in most people. The statue, it is a great reminder to students that students have always been at the forefront of social change.”

Rigo 23 said the trees in the area of the statue on the lawn behind Tower Hall would stand as strong, silent partners for Smith and Carlos.

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The day after the groundbreaking ceremony, Smith and Carlos wore gowns and attended graduation ceremonies at San Jose State, receiving honorary doctorates in humane letters.

Edwards said Smith and Carlos broke down at the groundbreaking and again when they were awarded their honorary doctorates.

“Tommie Smith was crying, Carlos was crying, I was saying, ‘Hey, you guys did something important ... it’s cool.’

“Their legend is honored by the art of creating this statue.”

Carlos says the project is even more meaningful because students, and not the university, are financing it.

“It says a lot for the young society,” he said. “This society has a lot more thought processes now to make the world more livable. What we don’t have are a lot of leaders to show the light.”

Smith said the statue would speak to San Jose State students for years to come:

“It gives me a great empathy for the students of the future. You can look at history and remember what happened.”

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In a few months, Smith and Carlos will be paired again, only this time for what may be a very long time. They will stand there, in bronze and tile, their arms raised in unity, black socks on white concrete, trees for company and beds of flowers at their feet.

To hear Carlos, it’s a comfortable arrangement, even if he’s not sure it all happened to either of them.

“God picked two grains of sand out of the ocean, and it was John Carlos and Tommie Smith, and he asked us to do something that would make a difference in society,” he said.

“We’re joined at the hip for life, for eternity, man. I guess you have to say we deserve to be together.”

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