12. Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens made the world fall silent when he ran in the 1936 Olympics in Germany when Hitler was in power. It was a giant middle finger to the face when Jesse Owens proved Hitler’s ideas of racial superiority wrong. He not only set a new Olympic record but did so to spite the American stance of treating black Americans as less-than. And Owens looked good doing all of it. He had a winning smile that won over the hearts of the crowds, despite everything going against him in a world that hated the color of his skin.
