Born September 12, 1913 in Oakville, Alabama to Henry and Emma Owens, was one of the first men to change the way people viewed black athletes and more importantly black people. The youngest of ten children, James "Jesse" Owens defied the beliefs of racism in this country and around the world. In 1922, he moved to Cleveland and attended Fairmont Junior High School where he started his track career. He grew up much like the other black kids of his time. His parents were sharecroppers and whites mistreated him. When he was seventeen, he attended East Technical School. After breaking records in the 100-yard dash and 200-yard dash, he was accepted to Ohio State University. While traveling with the track team Jesse and his black teammates experienced the cruelty of prejudice. When they stopped to eat at a diner they were denied service because they were black.
In 1936, Owens qualified for the Olympics by setting a record in the 100-yard dash. He won four gold medals in the 100-meter, 200-meter, long jump, and 400-meter relay. 
The gold medals that he won at the Olympic games in Berlin were achieved with Adolf Hitler in attendance. Owens success disproved Hitler's theory that there is a supreme Aryan race and that blacks were not on the same level and therefore inferior to this master race.
A quote by Benjamin Banneker describes the hypocrisy that Jesse Owens and other athletes of his time had to face. "How pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges, which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies.... That you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act which you professedly detested in others with respect to yourselves.
Jesse Owens died of lung cancer in Tuscon, Arizona on March 31, 1980.