Obama honours snubbed 1936 black Olympians alongside 2016 team

Washington (dpa) - US President Barack Obama on Thursday honoured African-American Olympians from the 1936 Games in Berlin alongside members of the Olympic team that competed in Brazil this summer.Obama invited to the White House family members of the 18 athletes who themselves had never received honours at the White House despite their performance that served to counter Adolf Hitler‘s showcase of Nazi Germany.Among the stars of the US team that year was Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals in track and field. Despite their accomplishments, Owens and other African-American Olympians were never invited to the White House amid racial discrimination and segregation in the United States at the time."It was other African-American athletes in the middle of Nazi Germany under the gaze of Adolph Hitler that put a lie to notions of racial superiority," Obama said, noting the athletes had "taught them a thing or two about democracy and taught them a thing or two about the American character."Obama praised the contemporary Olympians as representing the diversity of the United States, before pointing to minority athletes of the past who helped to make that possible."There‘s no kid in America who can‘t look at our Olympic team and see themselves somewhere," he said.He also honoured 1968 Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who controversially raised their black gloved fists in a sign of black power on the medal podium.Smith and Carlos are honoured alongside Owens at the new African American History and Culture Museum in Washington.