Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice

Title: Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice

Author: Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes, Dawud Anyabwile

Publisher: Norton Young Readers

Date of publication: 2022

Number of pages: 208

Genre: graphic novel, nonfiction, sports

Audience age range: grades 9-12

A quick personal review:

Told in flashback form, this graphic novel tells the story of track star, Tommie Smith, whose humble beginnings as the son of a sharecropper in Texas, never could have foretold his catapult into stardom on the track.  His dad saw sports as games, and this family needed to work the fields to survive.  Soon, machines replaced the sharecroppers, and Tommie’s family along with many other black sharecroppers moved west to California for a better life.  Indeed, the Smith family did progress, little by little into bigger homes, ones with running water and indoor plumbing.  One day the bus to the fields was stopped and the principal of the school boarded and ordered all of the children to school.  Mr. Smith was a rule follower and he encouraged his many children to be educated because that was the only way to better their lives.

At school one day, the track coach told Tommie’s sister to get him out of class so that he could run a race against her and the fastest white boy. Tommie beat them all, a feat because he didn’t often beat his sister!  That was the start of it all!  Eventually, in high school, the coach offers Tommie’s dad the job of custodian so that the family can be free of the difficult farming life.

Interspersed with segments of backstory are the historic US Olympic race in 1968 in Mexico City.  Each time this modern race occurs, the readers see Tommie striving toward victory.  (Tommie’s dad once told him that he could never finish second and get to a better life.)  Tommie had been injured in a preliminary, but he had to push himself to win the final heat.

Tommie plays football, basketball, and runs track - all successfully, which brings him numerous scholarship offers.  He chooses San Diego State so that he can be somewhat close to home.  Was he wanted there as a student or only as an athlete?  Much had been happening in the US with extreme racial prejudice in the South and effects of segregation causing many people to look at people of color as less than accepted.  Tommie finds black friends, and he competes well which brings him notoriety, yet still there are no black coaches or housing for black students.  This needed to change.  Because of Tommie’s fame, he follows the footsteps of other successful black athletes to draw attention to the concerns of the black student. He is laughed at.  

Tommie does make it to the Olympics, and although he and his teammate had been told to not use the Olympics as a political stage, they have to draw notice to the concerns of black Americans throughout the country.  After the race, Tommie and his teammate do not put their hands over their hearts at the playing of the National Anthem.  Instead, taking their shoes off to recall the lives of their family’s histories as sharecroppers and donning black gloves in a sign of power, they both raised their fists in the air and kept them there through the song.  These men has=d won Olympic medals and both had broken world records, yet they were then suspended from the team and sent home without being able to compete in their remaining races.  They were harassed and taunted for their actions.  Tommie lost his job and struggled to feed his wife and child.  It was not until years later that these two men were finally recognized for their role in the Civil Rights Movement and acclaimed for their success in the Olympics.  

Unique qualities:

The artwork is superb in this graphic novel. Each page captivates the reader and represents the characters and their conditions extremely well.

Red flags:

I think this book is great, and although it contains concerns, they are valid and appropriate to the history being represented.  Here is a list of what I found that could concern readers: image of Klu Kluz Klan with a burning stick, attacking someone, and a man hanging, use of the N word used in context of the time, the death of Medgar Evers is explained, "Black people continue to catch hell", mention of an explosion that kills four children, the term "spook", image of Klu KluxKlan, mention of three black males killed by KKK and police, mention of Jimmie Lee Jackson being beaten and killed as he tried to register people to vote, image of men being beaten as they march to Selma, someone during a march says to the blacks, "You stinking monkeys", (the context is true to the time), N word again, image of a coach holding a hammer that he swung at black athletes and said that blacks had "non-human" bone structure that gave them advantages, calls the Back Panthers a "anti-police brutality group", another N, , three more N's in a hate mail, hell, , the words "death threats", the mention that pet dogs were killed and the owner found their pieces, mention of the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, the Mexican army aimed and fired at protesting students, ear that someone would shoot and kill a runner, athletes don't put their hands over their hearts for the anthem in protest, the use of Nazi 

Recommendations:

I highly recommend this book to high school students and adults.  The artwork is incredible and the story necessary.  I had not known about these runners and what they did to broadcast the concerns of blacks during the Civil Rights Movement.  The images could be concerning and the language offensive to some; however, they portray the time period accurately and as tastefully as possible.