Smoke Signals
The "Nazi Olympics"
Community Found doirtiattoiri will help
educate childiremi about, racial Injustice
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Promoting educational presentations like the Nazi Olympics display
in Portland is one of the goals of the Spirit Mountain Community Fund.
By Oscar Johnson
A museum exhibit telling the story
of the 1936 Nazi hosted Olympics
will teach thousands of Oregon
youths about sports history, the ho
locaust and the perils of racism,
thanks to the Spirit Mountain Com
munity Fund.
"Nazi Olympics Berlin 1936" is a
tour of photos, film and facts at the
State of Oregon Sports Hall of Fame
and Museum in downtown Portland.
The exhibit recounts pre-World
War II Nazi Germany's successful
bid to host the 11th Olympic games;
Adolf Hitler's racist policies; and the
storm of national and international
debate that came with it.
Berlin's "Jews Not Wanted" signs
were swept under the carpet in
preparation for the event and Hitler
touted the games as a chance to
prove white Aryan 'superiority' But
12 Jewish and 10 African American
Olympic medal winners left him with
little to boast about.
The exhibit came from the United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum
in Washington, D.C. and will be show
ing in Portland through May 15.
A Hall of Fame official said they
were lucky to secure the exhibit for
the first of only two west coast show
ings. "We were looking to improve our
exhibits and to bring people in," said
Museum Vice President and Exhibit
Co-Chair, BudOssey. "With the gen
erous contributions like the Tribe's
Spirit Mountain Casino we were
able to negotiate and finalize an
agreement to have it here."
In keeping with an agreement be
tween the Tribe and the State of Or
egon, each year the Tribe donates
six percent of its casino profits to non
profit organizations.
7775- is a beautiful
expression of the
achievements and
accomplishments of
African American
athletes."
Delano Robinson
The decision to support the exhibit
was made jointly by Tribal Council
and the Board of Trustees according
to SMC Marketing Director, Chuck
Galford.
The grant is earmarked to cover
the admission and transportation for
8,000 Oregon youths to visit the ex
hibit primarily from outside the Port
land area.
"They felt very strongly that kids
should know about the holocaust be
cause of its special sensitivity," said
Galford.
He recalled that one Council mem
ber stressed the importance of edu
cating kids about such history by
noting that, "if it can happen once it
can happen again."
The Tribe's Community Fund has
also supported youth attendance at
the Oregon Museum of Science and
Industry (OMSI), the Portland Art
Museum and the Portland Zoo.
"Our main purpose is for educat
ing students," said Ossey who ex
pects some 10,000 youths from as far
as Grand Ronde, Tillamook and
Astoria to tour the new exhibit.
"But it's not just for the youth it's
for everyone," he added. "Sometimes
older people also need to be re
minded of what happened."
But for Delano Robinson, the wife
of 1936 Olympic silver medalist,
Mack Robinson, the exhibit was
more of an affirmation than a his
tory lesson.
Robinson stood in as honorary
guest for her 84-year-old husband
who was unable to make the trip
from their Florida home.
"This is a beautiful expression of
the achievements and accomplish
ments of African American athletes,"
she said.
In honoring such achievements,
the exhibit also notes that the dusk
of Germany's darkest hour was not
the only thing African or Jewish
American athletes had to contend
with in the 1930s.
Ironically, it would take more than
a decade after Robinson won a sil
ver medal for his country before his
brother, Jackie Robinson, would
break the color bar as America's first
black major league baseball player.
At the time of the 1936 Olympics
segregation laws kept African Ameri
cans from getting education, wages
or even toilet facilities equal to that
of whites while American Jews were
openly spoken out against and
barred from institutions available to
other whites. .
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A thank you to Council
Representative from the local Head Start
programs presented Tribal Council with a
"Thank-You" quilt last month in
appreciation of the funds donated to the
program every month. In the entrance of
Spirit Mountain Casino, many visitors
place money in the basket of the bronze
statue of Martha Jane Sands, which is
then donated to the programs. The Tribe
matches the funds donated. The funds
rotate among the Head Start centers in
the West Valley region.
Photo by Tracy Dugan
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