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celebratory reception at the Waldorf-Astoria.
▪️President Franklin D. Roosevelt, eyeing reelection and dependent on Southern white voters, ignored the entire team of 18 Black Olympians.
👉🏽 No telegram. No #WhiteHouse invitation.
Official recognition took decades:
✅ 1955: #President Dwight D. Eisenhower named Owens an “Ambassador of Sports.”
✅ 1976: President Gerald Ford awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
✅ 2016: President Barack #Obama finally honored the 18 Black Olympians of
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1936, noting they represented American excellence while being denied American equality.
🇺🇸Owens’s legacy—defying systemic inequities and racism with dignity—remains an inspiration. He showed generations that barriers can be broken and, more importantly, that we are strongest when we uplift one another.
🎯Join me in embracing diversity, honoring our histories, and celebrating our differences. That is patriotism. That is how we strengthen the very fabric of this nation.🗽
