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1964 Billy Mills after winning the 10,000m gold medal in Tokyo
1media/Screen Shot 2022-10-19 at 5.24.49 PM_thumb.png2022-10-20T00:32:25+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a4911When Billy Mills arrived in Tokyo for the 1964 Olympic Games, few people knew much about the lanky US athlete. By the time he left two weeks later, he was a global star. The Olympics are full of inspirational stories but few are as compelling as that of Mills, the Native American distance runner who pulled off one of the greatest upsets in Games history and went on to become a prominent advocate of humanitarian causes and racial and social justice. Mills’ electrifying sprint in the final straight to overtake the leaders and win the 10,000m gold medal in Tokyo and his personal and spiritual journey to ‘heal a broken soul’ resonate more than ever in today’s turbulent times of racial protest. A member of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) tribe, Mills was born in 1938 and grew up in poverty on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. His mother died when he was eight; his father died when he was 12. Mills – whose Lakota name is Tamakoce Te’Hila (pronounced Tama-kosha Tech-a-heela) – overcame racial discrimination, hypoglycaemia, type 2 diabetes, suicidal thoughts and his own self-doubts to become an Olympic champion and a leading role model and campaigner for Native American youth.plain2022-10-20T00:32:25+00:00October 14, 1964Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49
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12022-10-28T23:42:28+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49Native American MovementGina Leon4Research Frameworkgallery2023-10-23T05:16:25+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49