“Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.”

~ Buddha

 
(CNN) — It is perhaps the most iconic sports photograph ever taken.
 
Captured at the medal ceremony for the men’s 200 meters at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, U.S. sprinter Tommie Smith stands defiantly, head bowed, his black-gloved fist thrust into the thin air.

“The path to success is to take massive, determined action.”

~ Tony Robbins

 
Born in 1915, the oldest son of an Alabama sharecropper family, the young John Henrik Clarke left the South in 1933 by way of a freight train, for a life of scholarship and activism in New York. He developed his skills as a writer and lecturer through the radical movements of the Depression years

“The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.”

~ Chinese Proverb

 
R.I.P. Lil’ Bobby Hutton (1951-April 6th 1968). Lil’ Bobby Hutton was the first and youngest member of the Black Panther Party. He was murdered by the Oakland Police on April 6th, 1968 – just two days after the assassination of MLK – ambushing a carload of Panthers on a side street. Hutton was shot over a dozen times after stripping down to his underwear to prove he was unarmed.

 
You’re probably not familiar with the name John Carlos. But you almost certainly know his image. It’s 1968 at the Mexico City Olympics and the medals are being hung round the necks of Tommie Smith (USA, gold), Peter Norman (Australia, silver) and Carlos (USA, bronze). As the Star-Spangled Banner begins to play, Smith and Carlos, two black Americans wearing black gloves, raise their fists in the black power salute.

“There is far more opportunity than there is ability”

~ Thomas A. Edison

 
43 years ago Dr. Martin Luther King. Was reputedly addressing a religious congregation about the need for their support of civil rights activism in their own community. Many members of the audience had serious concerns and expressed why they should not get involved.

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do.”

~ Kahlil Gibran