Five moments in sporting history that helped the fight against injustice
- kamcavanagh1
- Apr 15, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 16, 2025
Sport has the power to change the world for the better. Here are five moments throughout history that helped fight social injustice.
Jesse Owens ruins Adolf Hitler’s propaganda-fuelled Olympics
The 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin came just three years into Adolf Hitler’s reign as the leader of Nazi Germany.
The German capital had already been agreed as the host city for the Games prior to Hitler making Germany a Nazi state.
The Austrian-born dictator opted to use this as an opportunity to propagate the myth that the Aryan race was supreme.
However, an African-American track and field athlete by the name of Jesse Owens took only 10.3 seconds to tear through the German leader’s ideology when he sprinted home to take gold in the 100m.
The 23-year-old went on to become the first in his field to win four gold medals at the Games and cemented himself as an American and sporting icon.
Joe Louis unites a nation against fascism
Almost two years after Owens’ triumph in Berlin, there was another African-American pitting himself against Germany – and he had a whole nation behind him.
Joe Louis and Max Schmeling first fought one another in 1936, but at the time of their rematch in 1938, the political tensions between Nazi Germany and the rest of the Western world were at an all-time high.
Louis was a symbol of national pride in the USA by 1938 and, despite this still being a time of racial segregation in the States, had the country behind him when he stopped Schmeling at the sold-out Yankee Stadium in New York City.
Throughout his life, Schmeling did his best to distance himself from his country’s politics, providing sanctuary to two young Jewish boys during the Kristallnacht later that year.
He and his opponent would become good friends later in life until the American passed away in 1981.
Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise a fist at the 1968 Olympics
The 1968 Olympic medal ceremony of the men’s 200m saw one of the most iconic and powerful Olympic moments of all time.
At the height of the American civil rights movement, Tommie Smith and John Carlos took to the biggest sporting stage to make a stand.
After winning gold and bronze respectively, Smith and Carlos each raised a black-gloved fist while the American national anthem played – in protest of the human rights issues taking place throughout the country at the time.
This was highly controversial at the time but has aged into a piece of sporting history.
Billie Jean King wins the Battle of the Sexes
In 1973, world number one female player Billie Jean King faced former number one male player Bobby Riggs in an internationally televised exhibition tennis match.
King, 29 at the time, defeated Riggs, 55, in resounding fashion in front of 90 million worldwide viewers.
This was a landmark victory for women’s tennis, uplifting the women’s tour and ultimately helping to found the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) which is still active today.
Paddy Pimblett calls on men to open up
You would be remised to find many sports more testosterone-fuelled than mixed martial arts.
With this comes the territory of overlooking sensitive subjects that are often dismissed as ‘soft’.
This was until 2022 when Liverpool’s own Paddy Pimblett took to the mic during a post-fight interview and called on men to open up.
He said: “There’s a stigma in this world that men can’t talk.
“Listen, if you’re a man and you’ve got weight on your shoulders, and you think the only way you can solve it is by killing yourself, please speak to someone. Speak to anyone.
“People would rather — I know I would rather — my mate cry on my shoulder rather than go to his funeral next week.
“So please, let’s get rid of this stigma – and men, start talking.”
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