Who were the first Africans at the Olympics? The disturbing story of two 1904 marathon runners

By Francois Cleophas, Stellenbosch University

Who were the first Africans to compete in the modern Olympic Games? The answer to that question reveals the surprising story of a 1904 marathon – and exposes the history of racism and white supremacy that characterised the Olympics in its early days.

The first modern Olympic Games was held in 1896 in Greece. This was at the height of European colonialism and there is no record of Africans participating. It was only after the second world war, in the late 1940s, that African countries began to join the Olympic movement in significant numbers, as African independence took hold.

There exists, however, a little-known story of two black South African runners who competed in the first US-hosted Olympics, in St Louis in 1904. They were Jan Mashiani and Len Taunyane (Tau), who appeared along with a white South African runner – B.W. Harris – on the Olympic marathon programme. (A Boer tug-of-war team from South Africa also took part in the Olympics that year.)

A photo of Mashiani and Tau is housed at the museum of the Missouri Historical Society, which switched their names around in the caption, resulting in the two men being given the wrong identities for decades.

Mashiani and Tau did not officially represent South Africa at the games. That’s because, in 1904, South Africa was not South Africa at all, it was a colony governed by Great Britain. This was two years after the South African War between Great Britain and two independent Boer (Dutch Afrikaner) republics.

Both sides used black South Africans in various roles, including running with messages. Which is how Mashiani and Tau enter the picture – along with their appearance at a world’s fair in St Louis that was tied to the Olympics. The fair presented “savages” competing in physical displays as part of its international exhibition of science and culture.

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