Killer Mike Interviews Tommie Smith, Olympic Medalist and Civil Rights Figure

In 1968, Tommie Smith won a gold medal in the 200-meter dash at the Mexico City Summer Olympics. Posing on top of the winner’s podium, he threw up a Black Power fist—as did bronze medalist John Carlos—in a moment that was captured in a now-iconic photo of the civil rights era. Recently, Killer Mike sat down at his Atlanta barbershop to interview Smith. You can watch the video below.

In the video, they discuss equal rights, Black Lives Matter, how athletes can help social change, the power of imagery—Mike refers to the photo of Smith as “mythology”—and much more. Of progress, Smith says: “The optimal way to get to society at its highest point is togetherness. And we don’t have to be talking about the issues in the same words, but on the same platform. Dr. King and Malcolm X were talking the same principle of freedom but they used using different actions to get there. But they were both killed because of getting to the same place differently.”

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