More than Just a Game: A conversation on sports and politics with Dave Zirin and John Carlos
Next Thursday, the Women’s Resource Center, the LGBT Resource Center and the Office of Multicultural Affairs will host left sportswriter Dave Zirin and 1968 Olympic athlete John Carlos.
John Carlos, along with Tommy Smith, was part of an organizing effort called the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR). This campaign involved numerous athletes who were attempting to draw global attention to racism and other human rights violations.
The OPHR was not only protesting South African apartheid, they were demanding the re-instatement of boxer Muhammad Ali and condemning the 1968 student massacre in Mexico City that took place just prior to the 1968 Olympics.
This was the backdrop to the action that John Carlos and Tommy Smith took, when they raise their fists demonstrating Black Power.
More than four decades later Carlos, along with sportswriter Dave Zirin have written an autobiography entitled the John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment that Changed the World. Carlos and Zirin bring their message of how sports and politics have always intersected to the downtown campus of GVSU, where Carlos will tell his life story and Zirin will talk about his most recent film, Not Just a Game: Power, Politics and American Sports.
This event is free and open to the public.
Not Just a Game: Politics and Power in American Sports
Dave Zirin & John Carlos
Thursday, February 2
4:00PM
Grand River Room, Kirkhof Center
GVSU Allendale Campus
Jeff,
Thanks for promoting this event. I noticed the room details in the article conflict with another event that day/time in Loosemore Auditorium. I checked the internets and found the John Carlos event listed as Kirkhof Center room 2250, Allendale Campus.
Here is the link on GVSU’s event calendar: http://www.gvsu.edu/events/never-just-a-game-politics-and-power-in/
Paul, thanks for catching this. I made the changes to reflect the event is at the Allendale campus. Maybe I will see you there.
Kirkhof 2250 and the Grand River Room are one in the same.
Hope you can join us for the event! I’m reading the book right now and it’s fantastic!