Final


a national-based black political party.2 One might have expected

La Crosse to revel in the success of two of its native sons.

That however was not the case.

    But what had happened in Saint Louis beginning in August

1904? Billed as the Saint Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition

Games, the games were connected to the world's fair which Saint

Louis then was hosting. From its inception, the fair had been

plagued with dissention concerning the distinctions being drawn

between white and black exhibits, with the latter, called

Colored, located separately and away from other exhibits.

Nationally, militant blacks called for a boycott both of the fair

and the games, claiming that separation of exhibits was matched

only by discrimination against black laborers at the fair's

site.3 George Coleman Poage rejected this call for boycott and

was among several black athletes to do so. Running for the

Milwaukee Athletic Club as its first black member, Poage was

among a select group to compete at these games. Only 20,000

spectators attended the track and field events, and there were

only 496 competitors from eleven countries in all of the

competitions.4  The American contestants, many coming from

competing athletic clubs, dominated the games. Among the winners

was Poage, who won third place in two events, the 200-meter

hurdles and the 400-meter hurdles. His was a remarkable

success--the first medals to be won by a black in a modern

olympiad.5



          La Crosse in the 1880s--the formative years.


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