Paris (AFP)

Great star of the Berlin Olympics of Nazi Germany in 1936, the African-American sprinter Jesse Owens leaves forty years after his death a complex legacy, marked by a strange route and the search for redemption, for this hero that he could not be.

"In the imagination, it is a guy who fought against Nazism, but it is not at all the case. He did not fight against anything at all", reframes for AFP the ex-athlete Frenchwoman Maryse Ewanjé-Epée, author in 2016 of "Jesse: The fabulous story of Jesse Owens".

In August 1936 in Berlin, Jesse Owens, 22, entered the Olympic legend by winning four gold medals (100, 200, 4x100 m and long jump).

A colored man who triumphs before Nazi Germany, under the eyes of Hitler, the symbol is strong. But Jesse Owens will never dare to take it.

"It will take him a lifetime to understand what he represented and what role he failed to play. It is ironic to see him become this symbol of anti-racism when he was a poor black boy, who forged himself, "notes the ex-high jumper, now a consultant on RMC.

His hour of glory quickly passed, Jesse Owens connects jobs (manager of a pressing, creation of a female baseball league), experiences (with the Harlem Globetrotters for example) and coin his legs of fire in sad exhibitions where he runs against a horse, a dog, a car ...

- "A real model" -

At the time of the Black Power movement against racial discrimination in the 1960s and 1970s, he was criticized for his lack of position. It is even him that the American team sends to try to "calm" the protests of African-American athletes before the Games in Mexico in 1968, where Tommie Smith and John Carlos also make history, their fists raised on the 200m podium.

"He was considered a + Uncle Tom +, a guy who bowed his head," adds Maryse Ewanjé-Epée, about this grandson of a slave born "James Cleveland Owens" on September 12, 1913 in Danville, in the 'Segregationist Alabama.

"All his life, he did an enormous intellectual work, he read a lot, then wrote, he had an extraordinary knowledge of jazz."

"His evangelical education was work and success above all, he was obsessed with the idea of ​​going to university, and he realized very early on that he had this chance as a sportsman (he studied at University of Ohio), "she says.

"Jesse Owens, it is the symbol that one can get out of his condition by work. He is a real model".

"He rubbed shoulders with other African Americans, let's say better born, who were politically involved and explained to him that he + was not just a pair of legs +. After 1968, post-Black Power, he understood that despite everything he had gone through, we still didn't recognize (his heritage). "

In 1972, he published a second biography "I have changed", a series of letters of apology to African-Americans.

- "Listen to your heart" -

In August 2009, at the World Championships in Berlin, the American team paid homage to its former champion, who died on March 31, 1980 of cancer at the age of 66, by wearing his initials "JO" on his jersey.

"In more ways than one, Jesse Owens is a hero for me. It will be very special to run in the stadium where he ran," said American Tyson Gay, future vice-world champion.

Two of Owens' three daughters went to Paris in September 2013 to mark the centenary of his birth. Beverley (then 76 years old) and Gloria (then 81 years old) had mentioned the man, "deeply simple and good", and the father, "wonderful".

The latter had revealed what her illustrious parent had told her "before (her) first day of school": "I hope you will have the gifts of smelling the scent of flowers, listening to your heart, seeing the sun in people's smiles, gratitude and love. "

© 2020 AFP