President Trump’s outbursts against professional athletes protesting racial injustice and the defiant response of N.F.L. teams on Sundaybrought a renewed focus on political demonstrations during the national anthem at sports events.
Such acts of protest, often by black athletes and carried out recently by quarterback Colin Kaepernick and others who have knelt for the anthem at N.F.L. games, have a long history in the United States and an equally lengthy tradition of angering mostly white fans, sports officials and politicians.
Here’s a look at some of these controversies.
1968: Tommie Smith and John Carlos make their Olympic salute
During a medal ceremony at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, two African-American track athletes made what would become one of the most famous political protests in the history of sports.
The athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, stood on the podium for the national anthem after winning gold and bronze medals and raised their black-gloved fists to the sky in what was widely viewed as a black power salute. Under pressure from the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee suspended them and sent them home.
On The Times’s front page on Oct. 19, 1968, the news was announced: “2 Black Power Advocates Ousted From Olympics.” Some members of the American delegation “hailed it as a gesture of independence and a move in support of a worthy cause,” the article said. “Many others said they were offended and embarrassed. A few were vehemently indignant.”
The swift punishment by Olympic officials served as a warning to others, the article said.
The action obviously tempered the behavior of Negro American athletes who were involved in victory ceremonies today. In accepting their medals for their one, two, three sweep of the 400-meter run, Lee Evans, Larry James and Ron Freeman wore black berets, but in no way conducted themselves in a manner to incur official wrath.
1972: Vince Matthews and Wayne Collett are barred from the Olympics
Four years after the 1968 controversy, a new one arose. The track athletes Vince Matthews and Wayne Collett, who were also both black, took the podium in Munich, at a time when officials feared a repeat of the Mexico City gesture.
The Times’s 2010 obituary for Mr. Collett said that as the anthem was played, the pair “did not face the flag.”
“They stood casually, hands on hips, their jackets unzipped,” The Times reported. “They chatted and fidgeted.”
The obituary added: “When the anthem ended and they climbed off the stand, the crowd booed. Matthews twirled his medal and Collett gave a black power salute.”