The Mexico City 1968 Olympics in Global Context

This course uses the 1968 Olympic moment as a launchpad to explore United States, Mexican, and global history, with a special thematic focus on social activism and athlete activism. The year 1968 was momentous for a number of overlapping reasons that came together at the Games. Looking to mid-twentieth-century Mexico, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) and Mexico City Organizing Committee sought to use the first Olympic Games held outside the “First World”—and first to be live-broadcasted, in color—to showcase the new, modern Mexico. Just days before the Opening Ceremonies, however, the PRI government greenlighted the mass killing of hundreds of Mexican student activists and bystanders in what is now called the Tlatelolco Massacre. African American athletes from the United States used the Olympic platform to bring attention to racial injustice in the United States and around the globe. The Cold War politics of the Games played out in the medals race, and athletic shoe companies exploited the politics of amateurism in the battle for athlete brand endorsements. Beyond the Games and the world of sport, 1968 became more than a calendar year, but a movement. Our course will be organized around three overlapping themes: “world on fire,” “sports and politics,” and “then and now.”