"Jesse Owens, the son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave achieved what no Olympian before him had accomplished. His stunning victories and achievement of four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin has made him the best remembered of all Olympic athletes. His outstanding performance during the 1936 Olympic games not only discredited heinous claims of the dictator, Adolph Hitler, it also affirmed that individual excellence rather than race or national origin, distinguishes one man or woman from another. Jesse Owens was a dreamer who could make the dreams of others come true. As a speaker he could make the world listen and through his living example he held out hope to millions of young people. Throughout his life, he worked with youths, sharing of himself and the little material wealth that he had. He was as much the champion on the playground in the poorest neighborhoods as he was on the oval of the Olympic games. A true legend in his own time."

Source: The Jesse Owens Foundation.