March 31, 1980 – James Cleveland Jesse Owens dies. An Ohio State University grad, the Buckeye Bullet was the grandson of a slave and came to Glenville in Cleveland in 1922 when he was 9. Four golds in the 1936 Berlin Olympics drove Adolph Hitler nuts. After a New York City ticker-tape parade, Jim Crow laws forced Owens to ride the freight elevator to attend his own reception at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
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