Why did two sprinters raise a fist on the 1968 podium?

On the podium in Mexico City on 16 October 1968, the American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos each raised a black-gloved fist while the US national anthem played. They had just won gold and bronze in the 200 metres, Smith in a world-record 19.83 seconds. They turned to face the flag and kept their hands up until the anthem ended.

Why? Smith later said they were concerned about the lack of black assistant coaches, about how Muhammad Ali was stripped of his title, and about the lack of access to good housing and top colleges. The pair stood shoeless in black socks, to represent black poverty, with Smith wearing a black scarf for black pride and Carlos with his tracksuit unzipped for blue-collar workers. Smith's own description of it, in an autobiography published nearly thirty years later, was that it was not a "Black Power" salute but a "human rights" salute.

They were not alone on the podium. Peter Norman, the Australian silver medalist, wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge too, as did the two Americans. He had expressed empathy with their ideals and criticised Australia's own White Australia Policy. Norman is also the reason Carlos raised his left fist: Carlos had forgotten his gloves in the Olympic Village, and Norman suggested he wear Smith's left-handed glove.

The reaction was fierce. IOC president Avery Brundage called it a domestic political statement unfit for the Games and ordered the two suspended from the US team and banned from the Olympic Village. When the US Olympic Committee refused, he threatened to ban the whole US track team, and the two were expelled from the Games. Contrary to a common misconception, though, the IOC did not force them to return their medals.