Fastest American You Don't Know

 Tommie Smith won a Gold medal for sprinting in the 1968 Olympics.  But what he is famous for is raising his fist on the Medal Podium in Mexico City.  The gesture was meant to show solidarity with  the Civil Rights Struggle as well as to protest human rights abuses around the world.  

But the press painted him as a radical black panther ungrateful to his country.  There was no Wheaties Box portrait for Tommie Smith.  There was no career as a commentator on Wide World of Sports.  

Almost 50 years later when artist Glenn Kaino met him, he felt that Tommie was stuck in that bubble of controversy from 1968.  Kaino spent several years collaborating with him on art projects: photographs were altered, sculpture was cast, prints were made.  

The resulting work is this exhibit at the High Museum With Drawn Arms.  The Healing power of art on display.