{"id":62996,"date":"2022-02-08T00:22:31","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T00:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62996"},"modified":"2022-02-08T00:22:32","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T00:22:32","slug":"taffy-abel-medaled-in-the-1924-olympics-few-knew-of-his-indigenous-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62996","title":{"rendered":"Taffy Abel medaled in the 1924 Olympics. Few knew of his Indigenous heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/02\/07\/1078270098\/taffy-abel-medaled-in-the-1924-olympics-few-knew-of-his-indigenous-heritage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>Taffy Abel medaled in the 1924 Olympics. Few knew of his Indigenous heritage<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">National Public Radio<\/a><br \/>\n2022-02-07<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GoodBadOppie\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Troy Oppie<\/strong><\/a>, Host\/Reporter<br \/>\n<em>Boise State Public Radio, Boise, Idaho<\/em><\/p>\n<figure><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/02\/07\/1078270098\/taffy-abel-medaled-in-the-1924-olympics-few-knew-of-his-indigenous-heritage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 95%; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: 0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2022\/02\/04\/taffy-abel---1924-olympic-usa-flag-bearer---silver-medal-hockey-c-jones-family-collection-b12b4877a7b027becf3d35271f6feccb3cb995c9-s1800-c85.webp\" \/><\/a><figcaption style=\"width: 95%; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; font-size: x-small;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Taffy_Abel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Taffy Abel<\/a> was the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1924_Winter_Olympics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1924 Olympic<\/a> USA Flag Bearer in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chamonix\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chamonix, France<\/a>.<br \/>\n<em>Jones Family Collection<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"NPR embedded audio player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/player\/embed\/1078270098\/1078481561\" width=\"98%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>At the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1924_Winter_Olympics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1924 Winter Olympics<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chamonix\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chamonix, France<\/a>, about two dozen American dignitaries and athletes <a href=\"https:\/\/olympics.com\/en\/original-series\/episode\/chamonix-1924-official-film-the-olympic-games-held-at-chamonix-in-1924\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">trudged<\/a> through snowy streets in the opening parade. The American flag &#8211; then with just 48 stars &#8211; was carried by hockey player <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Taffy_Abel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Clarence &#8220;Taffy&#8221; Abel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>What few outside his family and close friends knew at that time: Taffy Abel was Native American &#8211; the first Indigenous athlete to carry the flag at the Olympics. Within days he&#8217;d become the first Native American to win a medal in winter games history.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A Native American, carrying our stars and stripes, nearly 100 years ago,&#8221; reflects George Jones, Abel&#8217;s 73-year-old nephew by marriage. His voice quivered with pride as he spoke of that moment.<\/p>\n<p>Family stories passed down tell how Abel, his sister Gertrude, and his mother Charlotte &#8211; a Canadian Chippewa (now called <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ojibwe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ojibwe<\/a>) &#8211; all <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=5864\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">passed themselves off as white<\/a>, mostly by not talking about it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The main thing that they were fearful of,&#8221; says Jones, &#8220;[was] that Taffy and his sister would be taken away to an <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_Indian_boarding_schools\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Indian residential school<\/a>.&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire story <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/02\/07\/1078270098\/taffy-abel-medaled-in-the-1924-olympics-few-knew-of-his-indigenous-heritage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What few outside his family and close friends knew at that time: Taffy Abel was Native American &#8211; the first Indigenous athlete to carry the flag at the Olympics. Within days he&#8217;d become the first Native American to win a medal in winter games history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2850,1245,28,459,3015,6462,20],"tags":[32944,32950,32945,32947,32949,2309,2833,7222,32946,32948],"class_list":["post-62996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-audio","category-biography","category-europe","category-history","category-native-americans","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-1924-winter-olympics","tag-boise-state-public-radio","tag-clarence-taffy-abel","tag-clarence-john-abel","tag-george-jones","tag-national-public-radio","tag-npr","tag-sports","tag-taffy-abel","tag-troy-oppie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62997,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62996\/revisions\/62997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}