Trivia

Was invited back to Berlin in the 1960s, to the same stadium where he'd won his Olympic medals, and was given a hero's welcome. The mayor addressed him: "The last time you were here, Adolf Hitler refused to shake your hand. Today, I'm proud to give you both of mine." Owens and the mayor embraced, then Owens ran one last ceremonial lap around the track, with the crowd cheering.

Even though he defeated the top German athletes in the 1936 Olympics, the German people liked him. Crowds of 110,000 cheered him in Berlin's glittering Olympic Stadium - fans sought his autograph and picture when he walked the streets. In 1982, Berlin renamed the avenue leading to the Olympic stadium "Jesse Owens Allee" (Parkway) in his honor. His widow and family attended the dedication ceremony as guests of the German government.

The runner he beat in the 200-meter dash at the 1936 Summer Olympics was Jackie Robinson's brother, Matthew "Mack" Robinson, who also beat the world record at the time while taking the silver medal.

While Adolf Hitler was not fond of Jesse Owens as a black man per se, he never snubbed him by refusing to shake his hand. Hitler shook hands with only the German winners on the first day of the Olympics. When the Olympic officials demanded that going forward Hitler either shaken the hand of every medalist or none at all, he chose not to publicly greet any medalist regardless of nationality.

Won 4 gold medals in Track & Field (100 meters, 200 meters, long jump, and 4 × 100 meter relay) at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.

Inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame, 1983 (charter member).

During the 1968 Mexico City games, he was called in to talk to the black athletes to try to ease the tension created after the banishment of Tommie Smith and John Carlos. After he met with the athletes, he was seen leaving the meeting in tears because he felt that he was unable to reach the more radical athletes who saw him as nothing more than an "Uncle Tom".

Became famous for beating horses in a 100-yard dash - but there was a trick to it: They used a starting gun, which would startle the horse long enough to give Owens enough of a head start to win.

Was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African-Americans.

Owens once worked for exploitation titan Kroger Babb, traveling the road with the movie Les fausses pudeurs (1945) with an all-black crew serving African American theaters. Owens would deliver a lecture on "sex hygiene" during an intermission.

Ironically, he was not intended to be part of the relay team in the 1936 Olympic Games. He and Ralph Metcalfe replaced Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, the only Jewish members of the 1936 Olympic track team.

Jesse Owens carried a photograph of Adolf Hitler shaking hands with him at the 1936 Berlin Olympics in his wallet. It is unknown if the photograph still exists.

In 2014, Eric Brown, British fighter pilot and test pilot, the Fleet Air Arm's most decorated living pilot, stated in a BBC documentary: "I actually witnessed Hitler shaking hands with Jesse Owens and congratulating him on what he had achieved." Additionally, an article in The Baltimore Sun in August 1936 reported that Hitler sent Owens a commemorative inscribed cabinet photograph of himself.