James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens was born September 12, 1913 in Oakville, Alabama to sharecropper parents. The youngest of ten children, the Owens family would move northward as part of the Great Migration, relocating to Cleveland, Ohio. Jesse attended The Ohio State University and excelled in track and field, earning him the nickname “The Buckeye Bullet.” Jesse Owens’s dominant performance at the 1936 Berlin Olympics Nazi Germany resulted in his winning four gold medals. Owens’s performance discredited the Nazi Party and Adolph Hitler’s claims of white superiority on the world stage. Owens remained an ambassador for sports through the remainder of his life and after relocating to Chicago he served as a board member and director of the Chicago Boys' Club.

Jesse Owens. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2004672056/>

Jesse Owens

Gravestone dedicated to Jesse Owens, 1936 Olympic champion, with green plants and a lake in the background.

Jesse Owen’s Grave is located in Oak Woods Cemetery (C-32).