Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. (Hulton Archive | Getty Images)

The new film ‘Race’ honors one of the most significant athletes in U.S. history.

“It’s an important story,” Gloria Owens Hemphill said. “And it’s time for this.”

It’s been nearly 80 years since Hemphill’s father, the track-and-field superstar Jesse Owens, made history at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, winning four gold medals in a performance viewed as a rebuke to Hitler’s Nazi regime. Owens is unequivocally regarded as one of the most significant athletes in U.S. history—ESPN put him at No. 6 on its top 100 athletes of the 20th century, ahead of Willie Mays, Jack Nicklaus and Babe Didrikson Zaharias, among others—and yet there has also been a feeling of opportunity lost, a legend denied his full recognition.

It was Wednesday morning in New York, at a midtown hotel, and Hemphill and her younger sister, Marlene Owens Rankin, were in town to promote a film based on those indelible moments of their father’s athletic career. “Race” opens Friday, starring Stephan James as Owens, and Jason Sudeikis as his coach, Larry Snyder.

For Hemphill and Rankin, who served as advisers to the project along with the middle Owens sister, Beverly Owens Prather, it is a celebratory week. The first time they saw the movie, they cried, Hemphill said.

“We still cry,” she said. “I can’t help it.”

Continue reading The triumphant Jesse Owens, on screen and on time