Jesse Owens by Marvin G.

 

   Have you ever thought about how it would be to face an adversity? Facing adversity is a normal part of life. People choices can often affect the way they react to the adversity. Some take the adversity as a normal thing and use it as a motivation to help them keep going. One person is Jesse Owens who overcame adversity when he was young.

   To start with, Jesse Owens had a rough childhood. According to biography.com, he was a son of a sharecropper and a slave. Basically, he had a rough past. He was also a weak child with pneumonia. He grew up with difficulties but managed to overcome them to accomplish his dream. When he was seven, he had to pick up cotton each day to help his family. This shows that he would do anything to help his family. Despite everything that happened to him he picked up himself and became one of the greatest.  

    To continue, Jesse Owens faced unfair treatment in the Berlin Olympics  in 1936, according to ESPN, Jesse Owens faced a lot of adversity from the German leader Adolf Hitler. Hitler criticized the United States for having athletes of color and not white people. Jesse faced racism because of his skin color.  After being discriminated because of his skin color, Jesse used that as an impetus to succeed and later on won 4 gold medals. Even after winning the 4 gold medals, Adolf Hitler still refused to believe he was the best athlete in the Berlin Olympics. This shows the adversity that Jesse Owens had to face during the Berlin Olympics in 1936.

   Next, when Jesse Owens returned from the Olympics to the U.S., he faced racism too. According to biography.com, when Jesse Owens returned to the U.S. he only got offered a few jobs. Meaning that after winning 4 gold medals in the Olympics, he still was facing discrimination in the U.S. He also faced aggression. Which shows some of the ways people treated him. Even after all of this, he didn’t care what people thought about him and raced cars to make money. He also started a marketing business. Even through everything he went through, he still found a way to have a good life. 

  To conclude, Jesse Owens always found a way to live a better life despite everything he went through during his childhood. When he was young and struggling, he had been diagnosed with pneumonia, and during his time in the Olympics he faced racism. When he got to the U.S., he also faced racism and aggression. This shows that despite all the adversities and obstacles he faced, he always managed to overcome them.