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Definition: Owens, Jesse from The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide

US athlete Jesse Owens. An outstanding athlete, Owens broke many world records, including a long jump record that stood for 25 years. His supremacy at the Berlin Olympics in 1936, in which he won four gold medals, dealt a blow to Adolf Hitler's attempts to use the Olympics as a demonstration of Aryan racial superiority.

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Owens, Jesse


Owens, Jesse

From Gale Biographies: Popular People
Medal of Freedom, Living Legend Award, four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic games. American track star Jesse Owens (1913-1980) became the hero of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, as his series of victories scored a moral victory for black athletes. James Cleveland Owens was born in Oakville, Alabama, on Sept. 12, 1913, the son of a sharecropper. He was a sickly child, often too frail to help his father and brothers in the fields. The family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1921. There was little improvement in their life, but the move did enable young Owens to enter public school, where a teacher accidently wrote down his name as “Jesse” instead of J.C. The name stuck for the rest of his life. When Jesse was in the fifth grade, the athletic supervisor asked him to go out for track. From a spindly boy he developed into a strong runner. In junior high school he set a record for the 100-yard dash. In high school in 1933 he won the 100-yard dash, the 200-yard dash, and the broad jump in the…
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Full text Article JESSE OWENS

From Great Lives: A Century in Obituaries
Jesse Owens pictured with his grandson Stewart...
Jesse Owens, the great black American sprinter who won four gold medals at the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936, died yesterday in Tucson, Arizona. He was 66 and had been ill for some time. Not only did Owens win four medals in athletics events in Berlin, an individual medal haul that was to stand as…
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Full text Article OWENS, JESSE

From The Reader's Companion to American History
(1913-1980), track and field athlete. In three outstanding meets, Owens gained international fame by establishing long-standing world or Olympic records and challenging Adolf Hitler's conception of Aryan supremacy. Owens was born in Alabama as the tenth child of sharecroppers and moved with his…
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Full text Article Jesse Owens (1913–1980)

From African American Almanac
Jesse Owens (1913–1980)
Track and Field Athlete James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens was born on September 12, 1913, in Danville, Alabama, Jesse and his family moved to Ohio when he was still young; the name “Jesse” derived from the way a teacher pronounced his initials, “J. C.” In 1932, while attending East Technical High School…
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Full text Article Owens, Jesse (1913–1980)

From Freedom Facts and Firsts: 400 Years of the African American Civil Rights Experience
Born the tenth of eleven children to sharecropper Henry Owens and Emma Fitzgerald Owens in Oakville, Alabama, James Cleveland Owens experienced extreme poverty, poor housing, inadequate food, and no extra money for medical care. As a result, young J.C. endured a variety of childhood health problems, …
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Full text Article Owens, Jesse James Cleveland

From Chambers Biographical Dictionary
1913-80 US athlete He was born in Danville, Alabama. While competing for the Ohio State University team in 1935, he set three world records and equalled another (all within the space of an hour), including the long jump (26ft 8¼in), which lasted for 25 years. At the 1936 Olympics in Berlin he won…
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Full text Article Jesse Owens (1913–1980)

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
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Full text Article Olympics

From Freedom Facts and Firsts: 400 Years of the African American Civil Rights Experience Full text Article Sports
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Full text Article Owens

From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary Full text Article Biographical Names
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Full text Article Owens, Jesse

From Gale Biographies: Popular People
Medal of Freedom, Living Legend Award, four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic games. American track star Jesse Owens (1913-1980) became the hero of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, as his series of victories scored a moral victory for black athletes. James Cleveland Owens was born in Oakville, …
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