Jesse Owens

James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens was born in Oakville, Alabama, in 1913 and won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics — the 100 metres, the 200 metres, the long jump and the 4×100-metre relay — in front of Hitler. Fame did not translate into a living: he returned to a segregated America, raced against horses for money, went bankrupt, and only much later became a paid goodwill ambassador and public speaker, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976. He spent the final months of his life arguing, unsuccessfully, that President Carter should drop his demand that the United States boycott the Moscow Games; he died of lung cancer in Tucson, Arizona, on 31 March 1980.