LOS ANGELES—It was nearly noon on a hot Sunday when Kai Chen and a core group of supporters completed the first ever Olympic Freedom T-shirt Global Movement Run on August 5, 2007.
After running or walking about five miles on the streets of Los Angeles, the group, including an attorney, a Chinese dissident poet, and a Ph.D., arrived at their final destination—the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
"If you don't value freedom, you are not with me," said Kai Chen as he stood in front of the Coliseum under the Olympic rings where the 1932 and 1984 Olympics were held.
Chen is a former Chinese National Team Basketball Player that suffered through the Cultural Revolution in China. He created the run to help Chinese athletes under the current communist regime to participate with a free spirit in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Chen's autobiographical book entitled One in a Billion which tells of his life in China as a professional basketball player was published earlier this year.
"I fought for freedom all my life" says Neal Donner, Ph.D. "This is a gesture of loyalty and support for my friend Kai Chen. We share the same values, liberty essentially."
The run's t-shirt back lists liberty as one of the values of the movement. The values in both Chinese and English are Truth, Justice, Liberty and Dignity. The front captures an image of the Tiananmen tanks on June 4, 1989 during the student democracy movement.
Was Chen disappointed in the small group that turned out to support? His answer was that he didn't do things to be popular. If he had wanted that, he would have stayed in China.
Chen also said, "I am determined to carry this thing through. No one stopped me in China, no one will stop me here."
Chen added the next t-shirt design will boast the Goddess of Democracy, the statue that was destroyed in the student democracy movement in Beijing in 1989.
The Olympic Freedom Run series will continue on September 2, 2007 in San Francisco. It begins at 10:00 am in the center of Chinatown where the statue of the Goddess of Democracy is located. The run will go about five miles towards the Golden Gate Bridge.
The run continues to Vancouver on September 9, 2007 starting from the Chinese Cultural Center in Chinatown, ending at Canada Place.
Donations to help support the Olympic Freedom T-shirt Global Movement may be sent to: OFTGM, PO Box 1341, Rohnert Park, CA 94297-1341.
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