He broke many barriers and defied odds as an athlete and the grandson of slaves. Sixty years after his Olympic achievements, the Jesse Owens Museum & Park arrived in his hometown of Oakville, Alabama, with the Olympic torch en route to the Atlanta Games in June 1996.

The Jesse Owens Memorial Plaza is outside of Ohio Stadium. Jesse Owens winning four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics, right up in Adolf Hitler's face, is one of the most epic stories in all of sports — and maybe American — history.

The Museum itself consists of a small building that houses a historical exhibit about Owens. It includes a life-size replica of a 1936 Berlin Olympics torch, as originally manufactured by Krupps, a bronze statue commemorating Owens (see photo), and an exact scale model replica model of Owens's childhood home.