CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) -He is one of the greatest athletes of the 20th Century and perhaps the most important.<\/p>\n
\u201cJesse Owens could be the greatest athlete to come out of Cleveland, out of our region,\u201d said Bob DiBiasio, President of the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
Jesse Owens ran from his humble beginnings in Cleveland and East Tech High School to The Ohio State University and then to Berlin, straight to the Olympic podium.<\/p>\n
Owens won four gold medals in the politically charged 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re standing on the podium four times as a four-time Gold Medal winner in the one hundred, two hundred, long jump, and the four hundred relay,\u201d continued DiBiasio. \u201cI can only what imagine what that felt like for a gentleman like Jesse Owens to be on the podium getting medals in Berlin in 1936 in front of Hitler.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an amazing thing for an American athlete to accomplish what Jesse Owens did but specifically a Black American athlete,\u201d said Margaret Lann, Cleveland Restoration Society, Director of Preservation Services and Publications. \u201cMuch of the Nazi propaganda that someone of the African American, other non-white races could not achieve this type of success,\u201d <\/p>\n
A teacher mistaking J.C. for Jesse, James Cleveland Owens, youngest of ten children, moved to Cleveland at age nine, part of the \u201cGreat Migration,\u201d as Blacks moved north from the segregated South.<\/p>\n
The Owens family rented a home at 2178 East 100th Street and the Cleveland Restoration Society is working to preserve the home. <\/p>\n
Owens was inducted in the first class of the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame in 1976.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe stands for achievement and success in the face of racism and prejudice and he did it with dignity and integrity,\u201d concluded Lann.<\/p>\n