Souvenir typescript, 12 pages,8.5 x 11, entitled Open letter to a Young Negro, signed on the last page in black felt tip by Owens. In part: “Does a black man have to be just about insane to exist in America? Do all Negroes feel a deep twinge of pleasure every time we see a white man hurt and a part of white society destroyed? Is reality something so stinking terrible that it’ll grab your heart out of your chest with one hand and your manhood with the other if you don’t meet it armed like a Nazi storm trooper?…Whether it’s Uncle Tom or ranting rioter doing the talking today, you’re told that you have to be afraid and angry. The only difference is that one tells you to hold it in and the other tells you to let it out. Life is going to be torture because you’re a Negro, they all say. They only differ on whether you should grin and bear it or take it out on everyone else…I was up against it, but long before I came to the broad jump. Negroes had gone to the Olympics before, and Negroes had won before. But so much more was expected of me. Because this was the time of the most intense conflict between dictatorship and freedom the world had ever known. Adolf Hitler was arming his country against the entire world, and almost everyone sensed it. It was ironic that these last Olympic Games before World War II was to split the earth were scheduled for Berlin, where he would be the host. From the beginning, Hitler had perverted the games into a test between two forms of government, just as he perverted almost everything he touched. Almost everything else…’Is it true, Jesse?’…’Is what true?’ I answered. ‘That Hitler walked out on you? That he wouldn’t watch you jump?’…This was too much. I was mad, hate-mad, and it made me feel wild.” Owens concludes his letter by saying: “Live every day deep and strong. Don't pass up your Olympics and your Luz Long. Don't let the blackthinkers sell you out for a masquerade rumble where the real you can never take off the mask. You see, black isn't beautiful. White isn't beautiful. Skin-deep is never beautiful.” In fine condition, with a bit of light creasing. A well-written and insightful Owens offering. Pre-certified Steve Grad/PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.
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