Lee Evans’ death this month recalled the Black Lives Matter event that came a half-century before George Floyd, when two Black U.S. sprinters raised their gloved fists during the 1968 Olympics victory ceremony in a silent shout for racial justice. And got the world’s attention.

It was two days after that Black Power protest by Tommie Smith and John Carlos, which got them banished from the Mexico Games, that Lee Evans led a U.S. medal sweep in the 400-meter run. After which he, Larry James and Ron Freeman—all Black men—wore black berets and black socks on the victory podium in another plea for the disenfranchised.

The second demonstration wasn’t as dramatic. Unlike Smith and Carlos, the gold and bronze medalists in the 200 who held their provocative pose during the playing of the “Star Spangled Banner,” Evans, James and Freeman removed their berets and stood at attention for the anthem. And were allowed to compete—and win—the subsequent 4×400-meter relay.

But here’s the rest of the story on Evans, who died at 74 on May 19, and his lifelong investment in Black progress.

He, like Smith and Carlos, had been part of the San Jose State University “Speed City” track team, all three of them holding the world record in their events at one point. (Carlos’ mark in the 200, set at the 1968 Olympic Trials, was later disallowed because of special spikes he had worn.)

Smith, Evans said, was so fast it was “like he was on a motorcycle.” Evans himself was essentially uncatchable—his ’68 world record set in Mexico City lasted for 20 years—but with a helter-skelter running style that made him look like “a drunk on roller skates.”

His shoulders rolled when he ran. His head snapped from side to side. His hands clawed ahead. He did not tippy toe. He pounded. He strained and gritted his teeth and puffed his cheeks—all appropriate looks for a race that is the closest thing to violence in track and field. A model of dominance.

Still, as he stood to receive his gold medal in the tumultuous days after the Smith-Carlos incident, Evans later said he was “70 to 80 percent sure” he would be shot. He was 21 at the time.

Across America in 1968, some cities literally were in flames over civil rights unrest, the Vietnam War was raging months after both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. At San Jose State, sociology professor Harry Edwards had formed the Olympic Project for Human Rights, with an eye toward a Black boycott of the Mexico City Games, in part because the International Olympic Committee was waffling over whether to admit South Africa in spite of that nation’s apartheid policies.

The irony is that the defiant Smith-Carlos display likely had a far greater—and longer-lasting—impact than a boycott would have. Meanwhile, though, Evans, in a 1999 documentary, “Fists of Freedom,” laughed at Carlos having emerged as a Black spokesman.

Carlos “never went to the [Edwards] meetings,” Evans said in the film. “I asked Tommie, ‘How’d you get Carlos to do that [raised fist]?’ He said, ‘I just gave him my other glove and told him to do what I do.’” Evans shook his head in disbelief.

Except for the social elements afoot, Evans almost surely would have won another gold at the ’72 Munich Olympics in the 4×400 relay, and might well have coached another relay team to a medal at the ’76 Montreal Games. But in ’72, Evans’ relay teammates, Vince Matthews and Wayne Collett, were sent home before the relay after chatting and paying little attention during the National Anthem as they celebrated their 1-2 finish in the open 400. So Evans was left without a team. And, in ’76, when Evans was Nigeria’s national-team coach building an impressive relay quartet, Nigeria joined other African nations in boycotting Montreal as objections to apartheid South Africa’s inclusion continued.

Evans endorsed that boycott so “the Blacks of South Africa could know that the Blacks throughout the rest of Africa cared.”

He had taken the job in Nigeria because “I always wanted to go to Africa,” he said, “to sort of find my heritage.” He ultimately coached six national teams on the continent, became fluent in several of the native languages—and was living in Lagos when he died—but had found incongruities there as well.

One lesson was that, while he quickly built Nigeria into a worthy rival of Kenya as an African track power, he found that “once you get a kid running international times, he’s gone. He’d be in the U.S. with a college scholarship. I couldn’t keep my team together. But you couldn’t’ tell a kid not to go get a free education. A college degree from America meant moving immediately to the middle class, and there’s a difference between middle class and not middle class in Nigeria. A much bigger difference than [in the United States].”

The other revelation, which he decided should not have been a surprise, was that “in Africa, I was considered an American first. If you’re Black, brown, white, red or yellow, an American is still an American first. I was Black, but I was always ‘the American.’ Well, I am. I am the American.”

A memorable one.