The Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) was an American organization established by sociologist Harry Edwards and multiple Black American athletes, including noted Olympic sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, on October 7, 1967. The purpose of the group was to advocate for civil rights and human rights for Black people in the United States and Africans abroad (such as South Africa), along with protesting racism in sport in general. The OPHR proposed a complete Black athlete boycott of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City to achieve its goals. While the OPHR advocated for a boycott backed by all Black Americans, the group did not actively include women in its discussions and in the end was mostly composed of track and field athletes.

The proposed boycott from the OPHR failed to materialize. Instead, multiple athletes affiliated with the OPHR performed individual protests at the 1968 Summer Olympics in October. These protests included Smith's and Carlos' Black Power salute at the Games. In his autobiography, Smith expresses his concern that the OPHR and his salute have become viewed as being strictly about Black Power and reasserts that they were about human rights, stating they were for, "all humanity, even those who denied us ours."Smith, Tommie, Delois Smith, and David Steele (2007). Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. p. 161. The OPHR and Smith's and Carlos' salutes are part of a long history of athletes advocating for racial equality. In 2020, Edwards described Colin Kaepernick's protests before National Football League (NFL) games in 2016 and the boycotts of multiple professional sporting leagues that occurred following the shooting of Jacob Blake in August 2020 as being natural continuations of the OPHR.

Background to the OPHR In the middle of the 20th century, many sports commentators and media outlets cited Black American athletes' success in sports as a sign of racial progress, implying that institutional racism was less of an issue in the United States than it was at the time. In an interview with Vox, Dexter Blackman, a professor of history at Morgan State University, states: "The media began to promote the black athlete as a symbol that racial democracy existed in the United States ... a factor that was used to dismiss the question of institutionalized racism." Amidst the growing Black Power and student movements in the 1960s, Black American athletes increasingly showed a heightened racial awareness. Some athletes began to speak against the idea of sport being an equalizer between races and discussed racial injustices they experienced on and off the field. Bill Russell was one prominent Black athlete that stressed the need for further progress in achieving equality in American sport and society at the time. He spoke, for example, about his experiences facing racial prejudices in his 1965 memoir Going Up for Glory.

Calls for Black Americans to boycott the Olympic Games over race relations in the United States emerged alongside these mid-20th century conversations about the role of athletics. The idea for a Black athlete boycott of the Olympics originated with comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, who promoted boycotts of the 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics. The idea to boycott the 1968 Mexico City Olympics originated from two different sources. First was Tommie Smith, who suggested the possibility that Black American athletes would boycott during an interview at the 1967 University Games in Tokyo. Second was Harry Edwards, who organized a successful boycott of San Jose State College's (now San Jose State University) first football game in the Fall 1967 season, drawing attention to the college's discriminatory policies in housing, admissions, and fraternity life. This boycott's success showed Edwards sporting protests' potential to accomplish positive changes in the lives of Black Americans.

Carrying on the momentum from his San Jose State boycott, Edwards hosted a meeting at his home on October 7, 1967, to organize a larger demonstration. At this meeting, attendees, including Smith and his San Jose State teammate Lee Evans, created the OPHR and planned a workshop to discuss the potential for a Black American boycott of the upcoming Summer Olympics. This workshop took place at the Lost Angeles Black Youth Conference on November 23, 1967, where there was an audience of 200. Those in attendance included several notable Black athletes, like Smith, Evans, John Carlos, Otis Burrell, and Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). Alcindor summarized the challenges Black athletes faced when he spoke at the conference: "I found out last summer we don't catch hell because we aren't basketball stars or because we don't have money. We catch hell because we are black." Following the meeting, Edwards announced that the athletes at the event unanimously voted to support a boycott of the 1968 Summer Olympics.

Proposed boycott of the 1968 Summer Olympics The OPHR sought to bring the public's attention to the need for human rights for Black Americans and the racism that existed in American sports with this proposed boycott of the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City. The group maintained that the boycott would occur unless its six conditions were met: The barring of South Africa and Rhodesia from Olympic competition (both countries were under white minority rule at the time). Despite this condition, athletes from Rhodesia at the time were in fact banned from competing in the 1968 Olympics, and also the two succeeding Olympics in 1972 and 1976, due to the nation being an unrecognized country.U.N. Action on Rhodesia Bars Participation in Olympic Games The New York Times. 8 June 1968Rhodesia Is Outraged The New York Times. 24 August 1972Olympics Exclude Rhodesia The New York Times. 23 May 1975 The restoration of Muhammad Ali's heavyweight boxing title and right to box The removal of Avery Brundage as president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), who OPHR members thought was racist and antisemitic The hiring of more Black coaches to the United States Olympic team, as there was only one Black coach at the time The inclusion of Black individuals in the United States Olympic Committee (USOC); there was no Black member on the committee as of 1967 The boycotting of New York Athletic Club (NYAC) events over the club's racist and antisemitic policies.

Harry Edwards announced these six demands on December 13, 1967, at the Americana Hotel, where he was joined by Floyd McKissick, then director of the Congress of Racial Equality, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Reactions to the proposed boycott varied amongst the media and Black Americans. Sports reporters generally dismissed the boycott, as they viewed sport as an avenue that provided many Black Americans opportunities, such as a college education, they otherwise would not have had access to. Differences in opinions on whether competing or boycotting most benefitted them existed between Black Americans. Some Black athletes believed in the idea many media outlets promoted, that sport served as an equalizer between races. American sprinter Jim Hines said the following in a 1968 interview: "I couldn't say I have been used...I was running for my benefit.""Body and Soul, Part 1: Body." On Black America. CBS News. Manhattan, NY, 1968. Others that supported the boycott, such as Tommie Smith, John Carlos, and Lee Evans, were more critical of sport's ability to improve conditions of Black people in the United States. Individuals like them believed sports exploited Black athletes and did not provide them with benefits equal to those received by their white counterparts. Evans explained his pessimistic view of sport in a 1968 magazine: "If I go to the Olympics and win a gold medal...I still would have to come home to the poverty and degradation and that just isn't fair."

OPHR before the 1968 Summer Olympics

New York Athletic Club (NYAC) Boycott Members of the OPHR acted upon one of the organization's six demands on February 16, 1968, when the group organized a Black athlete boycott of the NYAC's annual indoor track meet at Madison Square Garden. At the time, the NYAC excluded Black and Jewish individuals from normal membership at the club but allowed them to compete in its events, as their athletic performances drew large crowds and higher ticket sales for the organization. The efforts of the OPHR were supported by groups like the American Jewish Congress and individuals like H. Rap Brown, of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Sources at the time considered the boycott a success, which gave credibility to the possibility that a similar protest would work at the 1968 Summer Olympics. Media cited that times at the event were poor, with only 9 Black athletes amongst the 400 athletes that competed. Several teams of white athletes, including those from universities, like Villanova, Manhattan, and Georgetown, and a seven-man Russian squad, also pulled out to support this boycott against racism and antisemitism. The withdrawal of the Russian athletes was in line with other ways members of the Soviet Union weaponized sport and the subpar race relations of the United States to argue against democracy during the Cold War.

South Africa

At the same time the OHPR boycotted the NYAC, on February 15, 1968, the IOC announced its decision to readmit South Africa into Olympic competition, on the condition the country send an integrated team to Mexico City. This decision reversed the suspension the country received for its policy of apartheid in 1963 and conflicted with the six demands the OPHR had announced two months prior. A coalition of countries soon threatened to withdraw from the Games if South Africa was not once again banned. By March 1968, nearly all 32 nations of the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa committed to boycotting. Countries from Asia, the Middle East, and Caribbean similarly expressed their intention to boycott. Other nations, like Bulgaria, France, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Japan, Belgium, and Soviet Union, called on the IOC to reverse its decision.

The OPHR also involved itself in the campaign to oust South Africa from the Olympics. Individuals associated with the OPHR, such as Lee Evans and John Carlos, were among the 65 athletes that signed a petition from the American Committee on Africa that supported the boycotting of the Olympics over South Africa's involvement. Harry Edwards also released a press release on behalf of the OPHR, which expressed the group's support for the nations withdrawing from competition. The statement read: "To all nations which have pulled out of the Mexico City Games...the Black Nation in this country endorses fully their decisions to pull out and that it is our firm intention to follow suit." This pressure led the IOC to reverse its decision, which Avery Brundage announced on April 24, 1968. South Africa would not compete in the 1968 Olympics games, or any Olympics which occurred between 1964 and 1988. Following South Africa's resuspension, members of the media began to speculate whether the OPHR's proposed boycott would still occur, as the IOC had just met one of the six conditions the group outlined in December 1967. At the time of South Africa's resuspension, most members of the OPHR remained committed to the boycott unless their other five demands were met, but a final decision still had not yet been reached.

Decision on boycott