New display at Jesse Owens Museum celebrates 90th anniversary of 1936 Olympics
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The Jesse Owens Museum in Morgan County will soon showcase some new features. The museum announced this week a new display celebrating the 90th anniversary of Owens’ performance in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
The 1936 Olympics have always been a central event for the museum (located at 7019 County Road 203 Danville, AL 35619), as it opened in 1996 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Olympics.
What’s new at the Jesse Owens Museum?
The new display will be unveiled Saturday, August 29, at 1PM, with new photos and memorabilia from the 1936 Olympics, donated by tech executive Russ Opdahl and U.S. Army veteran Justin Burns—two of the premier Jesse Owens enthusiasts in the world.
Following the ribbon cutting, the museum will host a variety of events, including kid-friendly Olympic-style games.
Celebrating the significance of the 1936 Berlin Olympics
When the 1936 Olympics began, Adolf Hitler had just become chancellor of Germany and had set laws discriminating against anyone not of the Aryan race.
According to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, the United States, along with several other countries, threatened a boycott—to many Black athletes, a “boycott for humanitarian reasons seemed hypocritical due to the racial oppression they experienced in the U.S. through Jim Crow laws, a segregated military, and all-white professional sports leagues.”
With Hitler watching above from his box seats, Owens put on a spectacular display at the Olympics:
- 🥇 100-Meter Dash: Won gold with a time of 10.3 seconds.
- 🥇 Long Jump: Won gold with a jump of 26 feet 5 1/4 inches.
- 🥇200-Meter Dash: Won gold with an Olympic-record time of 20.7 seconds.
- 🥇 100-Meter Dash: Won gold with a time of 10.3 seconds.
- 🥇 4×100-Meter Relay: Won gold alongside teammates Frank Wykoff, Foy Draper and Ralph Metcalfe, setting a world record of 39.8 seconds.
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