Games Boycott Called Off

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31774, 3 September 1968, Page 15

Games Boycott Called Off

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright)

PHILADELPHIA, September 2. American Negro athletes have called off their threatened boycott of next month’s Mexico Olympic Games.

Mr Harry Edwards, a leader of the proposed boycott, told a Black Power conference in Philadelphia last night that lack of total support for the boycott was the principal reason for its cancellation. "Of the 26 Negro athletes who had an excellent chance of making the team, 12 and maybe 13 were not willing to

boycott in certain circumstances,” he said, adding that those who would not participate in a boycott could easily replace those who would. Despite its failure to organise a mass boycott of the Olympics, Mr Edwards claimed that the Black Power movement had been successful in furthering its aims through sport. “We have got world-wide recognition of the plight of black people without a single drop of black blood being spilled,” he said. “And Negro members of the United States Olympic team will wear black arm bands and demonstrate their support of the Black Power movement in some way during the Games.” In Mexico City, President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz promised his countrymen today that the Games would take place as arranged, despite the present student unrest. At the same time, the President made some concessions to the student demonstrators who have kept the Mexican capital in a turmoil for more than a month. He told the nation on television that he would reaffirm university autonomy—one of the student demands—and was ready to listen to reasonable arguments on their other five points. President Diaz Ordaz said he decided the Games must be held because their cancellation would create "unforeseen and dangerous consequences for Mexico in world money markets and her internal economy.”