Actor Stephan James portrays Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens in the upcoming biopic ‘Race.’ (Courtesy photo)
The motion picture Race, detailing Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens’ historic 1936 run in Berlin amid the rise of the Third Reich and Nazism, opens in U.S. theaters Feb. 19. According to Stephan James, who plays Owens, the movie challenged him with maintaining the authenticity of both Owens’ athleticism, as well as the global magnitude of his win.
Known for his work in Ava Duvernay’s “Selma” and Clement Virgo’s “The Book of Negroes”, Canadian-born James said he knew little about Owens’ life before accepting the role. “I almost had to step back and scratch my head a little because there was so much more to this story of this man’s life – especially just in those few years leading up to the Berlin Olympics that are not common knowledge,” he told the “AFRO”. “Just the fact that he was a grown man with a child and family to support while he was in college and prepping for the Olympics is something a lot of people overlook.”
At the Berlin 1936 Olympics, Hitler planned to show the world that the Aryan people were the dominant race, but Owens proved him wrong, making Olympic history by becoming the most successful athlete of the 1936 games. Owens also became the first American to win four track and field gold medals at a single Olympics (100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and long jump), a record that stood unbroken for 48 years.
With Owens’ three daughters Beverly, Gloria, and Marlene offering him necessary insight, James said he came to care about them and how he embodied and portrayed their father. In addition to adding nuance to a very private man’s public image, the daughters also made James aware of pressure from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to have Owens boycott the Olympics as a matter of racial solidarity with Hitler’s victims.
“This was not a man that just got up and decided to win gold medals, there was a lot, racially and as a man, he had to face that,” James said. “There was a lot he had to go through in America before he ever encountered the racism and bigotry of another country. In addition to all of the personal pressure he was under, Jesse Owens also had the weight of Black America and the NAACP on him as well as a global, scientific system that believed it was impossible for him to win.”
Nazism purported the racial superiority of the White (Aryan) race in all aspects of life, including having superior bodies and temperaments to sweep athletic competitions. On German soil and in Hitler’s “house,” Owens’ wins disrupted that mentality. “A lot of people were blown away by Jesse’s athleticism and what he was able to do. There were scientists who were trying to theorize and justify how he was able to run with such speed or jump to such heights,” James said. “The reality was that Owens’ success was really down to his dedication and how hard he worked.”
However, Owens’ success in disproving Hitler’s belief in Black inferiority did not improve the runner’s life when he returned home. “When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn’t ride in the front of the bus,” Owens told Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Jim Murray for his ESPN Classic Sports segment. “I had to go to the back door. I couldn’t live where I wanted. I wasn’t invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the president, either.”
James said it was precisely this level of storytelling – with unpleasant details and constant contradiction – that make films like “Race,” vital. “When you think that there are people today who will be able to see Jesse’s story in a way they could not 80 years ago, we have to continue to be the vessels that bring these stories to life,” James said. “It also becomes critical that we use these films to inspire young people who can look at Jesse’s life and say, if he could do it, there is no reason why I should accept second best.”