Why Jesse Owens Saved Hitler's Mysterious Saplings

EPISODE 133: Meet the tree.

Just in case you slept through every history class you ever took, I should clarify that this is gonna be a story that starts with Jesse Owens — one of the greatest Black athletes of all time — and Adolf Hitler, who became chancellor of Germany when the Nazi Party came to power, in 1933, in the aftermath of Germany losing World War I.

All of which is why the 1936 Berlin Olympics wound up being a festival of swastikas and Aryan supremacy and anti-Semitic propaganda.

As evidenced by this famous picture:

But that history only begins to explain why Jesse Owens was standing atop that medal stand… surrounded by Nazi salutes… cradling a tiny potted plant.

So this week, almost a century later, we enlist correspondent Dave Fleming to investigate what Owens decided to do with his so-called Hitler Oaks — and why that decision remains an enduring act of defiance, here at home.

(PLUS: Tree people, myth-busting, redlining, and witch-doctor science.)

DKN/YOUTUBE SPOILER ALERT:

Patriotically,

Pablo