"A Totally Loyal Cuban": Afro-Cuban Boxer Teófilo Stevenson and the 1972 Olympic Games.

The Afro-Cuban Teófilo Stevenson entered the world boxing scene at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. It was at those games that he won his first of three gold medals in heavyweight boxing and emerged as a Black celebrity, sports icon, and Cuban national hero. This article examines the overlapping and, at times, competing identities as they were constructed in Cuba's official discourse and in popular US and Cuban newspapers and magazines. The son of Black West Indian migrants, Stevenson stood out for more than his rejection of million-dollar offers to leave the island to pursue a professional boxing career in the United States. His remarks in support of the Cuban Revolution served as a kind of Black athletic activism that celebrated, at least implicitly, Cuba's progress on matters of racial equality and racial discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]