The Power of a Voice

By Austin Schoff

On a recent trip to Berlin, I decided to visit the Olympic Stadium, home of the 1936 Olympics. These games were also known as the Nazi games, and Adolf Hitler used these games (and the success of the German team) to justify his racial laws that would eventually lead to the systematic murder of 12 million innocent individuals.

However, the 1936 Olympics should also be remembered for Jesse Owens dominant performance in Track and Field. Owens won four gold medals and, in the process, shattered Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy. 

Why wasn’t Jesse Owens performance enough to shock the German populous against the Nazis? Simple - he did not have a platform to share his message. Not only that, Jesse Owens was treated as a second-class citizen at home. How could Owens speak strongly against the Nazis when he himself had to follow strict racial laws that, while not nearly as bad as the Nuremberg Laws, prevented Owens from having the same volume voice that a white American athlete would have.

Increasingly, authoritarian regimes have used large sporting events to cover human rights abuses. However, one way to combat this is to provide athletes with a platform where they can share their content without fear of censorship. At Couro, we strive to give athletes a voice to speak out no matter who they are or where they are from. By promoting athletes, we can help turn the Olympics from a form of pure nationalistic propaganda to an event that not only celebrates athletic achievement but empowers competitors to be bigger than themselves. Most importantly, we can amplify athletic voices. This allows us to amplify the positive power of sports and continue to use sports for good.