Between the Covers

Hardcover. Quarto. Pictorial boards illustrating Olympic scenes. Boards slightly soiled, about fine. The album contains 92 color snapshots (3" x 5") of a young African-American torchbearer and the community excitement surrounding his participation in the festivities leading up to the 23rd Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles in 1984. The album shows him carrying the torch, with various relatives brandishing the unlit torch, posing for photos, signing autographs, and cutting into a congratulatory cake for “Elliott” thanking the Morley Construction Company, who appears to have been his sponsor, and with many street scenes. The photos are housed in an official Olympic album.

The 1984 torch relay was the first to invite nominations from the public, a system replicated in future years. It was also the first to charge torchbearers for their participation, with the fee working out to about $3,000 per kilometer. Anybody who could raise the entry fee would be able to sponsor one kilometer and bear a torch or designate a person to do so. The scheme, called the "Youth Legacy Kilometer" raised nearly $11 million, all of which was given to charities. The Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC), unhappy with what they considered to be the commercialization of the torch relay, threatened to stop the event from happening, but an agreement was negotiated just days before the planned ceremony. On the morning of May 8, the torch relay left on its 84-day journey from Olympia, Greece to Los Angeles, California. The relay passed through 33 states and Washington, DC, reaching 41 of the largest American cities and incorporated 3,636 runners. The location of the album photos is not definitely known by us, but it appears to be on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

Item #391087