He went on to compete in the Olympics in 1920. At the games, he won a gold medal in long jump and set a U.S. team was Solomon “Sol” Butler, an all-around athlete who had won medal after medal during his college career.
The most formidable Black player on the U.S. Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images
Solomon Butler in a track and field event during the Inter-Allied games in 1919. Rather, most were forced to labor on behalf of white service members. In addition, notes the National Museum of the United States Army, Black men were rarely allowed the opportunity to participate in direct combat. Though Black men had enlisted enthusiastically, draft boards had engaged in discriminatory behavior that resulted in disproportionately high numbers of Black soldiers being sent to war and a very low exemption rate on physical grounds. Given its message of tolerance, unity and self-determination in the face of the 14 Points, the United States decided to set an example by showing off a racially and ethnically integrated team-a far cry from the country's treatment of Black troops at home or during the war. When it came to its Black service members, the United States’ track record was checkered. Hand-grenade tossing was an event at the games, with the Americans taking the victory when former baseball player F.C.
Hand grenades had exacted a gruesome toll during World War I, causing an estimated 2.5 percent of all casualties in the war. The terrible cost of the war was evident in other ways, too. “There was little sign of either reconciliation or accord on the field of play, as the French won what was a horribly violent final against the Americans,” writes historian Bill Marshall. played France in a rugby match the day after the much reviled treaty was signed. The games took place as leaders were hashing out the details of the treaty, and tensions flared between athletes on both sides.
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