Presenter of
the National Book Awards
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Presenter of
the National Book Awards
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Dawud Anyabwile is an Emmy Award-winning and two-time Glyph Comics Award-winning comics artist. More about this author >
Derrick Barnes is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The King of Kindergarten and its companion The Queen of Kindergarten, the Newbery Honor award-winning Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut, and I Am Every Good Thing, and the only author to have twice won the Kirkus Prize. More about this author >
Dr. Tommie Smith was born in Texas in 1944 and moved to California at the age of seven. An outstanding high school athlete and member of the San Jose State College “Speed City” track team, he held 11 world records simultaneously, and at the 1968 Mexico Olympics became the first man to officially run the 200 meters in under 20 seconds, winning the gold medal. More about this author >
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From the publisher:
On October 16, 1968, during the medal ceremony at the Mexico City Olympics, Tommie Smith, the gold medal winner in the 200-meter sprint, and John Carlos, the bronze medal winner, stood on the podium in black socks and raised their black-gloved fists to protest racial injustice inflicted upon African Americans. Both men were forced to leave the Olympics, received death threats, and faced ostracism and continuing economic hardships.
In his first-ever memoir for young readers, Tommie Smith looks back on his childhood growing up in rural Texas through to his stellar athletic career, culminating in his historic victory and Olympic podium protest. Cowritten with Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Author Honor recipient Derrick Barnes and illustrated with bold and muscular artwork from Emmy Award–winning illustrator Dawud Anyabwile, Victory. Stand! paints a stirring portrait of an iconic moment in Olympic history that still resonates today.
Victory. Stand! Raising My Fist for Justice sets a new standard for collaborative excellence. Vivid illustrations pair beautifully with an evocative, triumphant tale. Starting the narrative with an injured Smith wondering whether he had the “strength and speed to outrun a hail of bullets” is the perfect, suspenseful pivot for flashbacks and the consequences of Smith’s choice to merge the personal with the political. This is a significant book of resilience and love blended with historical and contemporary relevance.
Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes, and Dawud Anyabwile at the 2022 National Book Awards Finalist Reading
