DETROIT (WWJ) — Paris has taken center stage this summer as the “City of Light” plays host to the 2024 Summer Olympics. But did you know the Motor City nearly had its own moment in the Olympic spotlight six decades ago?
Highlighting a story that many Detroiters may not know, a new documentary takes a look back at Detroit’s bid to host the 1968 Summer Olympics, a bid that was supported by then-President John F. Kennedy.
The city had been interested in hosting the Olympics dating back to the 1930s. After all, Detroit was known as the “City of Champions” in the '30s based on the success of the city’s sports teams. “But this time it was going to be different,” according to the trailer for “Detroit’s Olympic Uprising.”
A map of proposed venues for the Detroit games shows an Olympic Stadium was to be built near 8 Mile and Woodward, while swimming events would have taken place on the city’s west side and athletes were to be housed downtown near the riverfront.
“Detroit, in the middle of the 20th century, is one of the most iconic cities in the world. So it sort of raises the question, ‘why didn’t they get it?’” That’s one of the questions posed by director Stefan Szymanski in the documentary's trailer.
Szymanski, a professor of sports management at the University of Michigan, told WWJ’s Ryan Wrecker civil rights protests leading up to the bid told a different story of the city.
“Wherever Detroit is trying to push itself forward with a positive image, they want to say, ‘hang on, you’re not giving us our basic rights; you can’t project yourself as a great city if you’re going to not even treat all your citizens equally,” Szymanski said.
“Among the people who I was around, it was discussed as something that was absurd given the contradictions that existed in the city,” one man says in the trailer. “And when they started talking about bringing the Olympics, which represented brotherhood, and at the same time they’re talking about maintaining segregation, it was too much of a contradiction. So we took to the streets.”
The documentary explores the number of reasons why the ‘68 games were ultimately awarded to Mexico City, including the civil rights aspect, economic impact, politics, the international spotlight, and possibly a voting member of the Olympic Committee who “hated Detroit.”
Silke-Maria Weineck, the documentary’s writer and a professor of German studies at the University of Michigan, said the civil rights aspect was “probably not the decisive factor.”
“There was Cold War politics, all kinds of other things — bribery, possibly, as always in the Olympics,” Weineck said.
The doc also explores the “what-ifs” of the failed bid. What if Detroit had landed the Olympics?
“Sometimes these things can be positive, sometimes they’re negative,” Szymanski said. “And I think that’s the great ‘what-if’ — how would Detroit have behaved? How would it have prepared? And would it have made a difference; would it have made things better or made things worse?”
The documentary premiered last weekend on Fox 2 in Detroit and more information can be found at olympicuprising.com.
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