Olympic Pride, American Prejudice

PBS WESTERN RESERVE (WNEO 45.1 / WEAO 49.1):

Friday, July 5, at 9 PM
Saturday, July 6, at 2 AM 

Fusion (WNEO 45.2 / WEAO 49.2):

Monday, July 15, at 8 PM  

Explore the collective experiences of 18 African American Olympians who defied Jim Crow and Adolf Hitler to win hearts and medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. 

Set against the strained and turbulent atmosphere of a racially divided America, which was torn between boycotting Hitler’s Olympics or participating in the Third Reich’s grandest affair, the film follows 16 men and two women before, during and after their heroic turn of events at the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin. They represented a country that considered them second-class citizens and competed in a country that rolled out the red carpet for them despite an undercurrent of Aryan superiority and anti-Semitism.