Jesse Owens, 1936, AP File Photo

In February we posted about the documentary film Olympic Pride, American Prejudice, that highlighted the history of the 18 African American athletes attending “Hitler’s Olympics” in 1936 Berlin.

They returned home to their segregated country, receiving zero recognition from President Roosevelt, despite winning a quarter of the metals won by the U.S. team in the games.

Eighty years later, the athletes—16 men and two women—received their overdue recognition by a U.S. president Thursday when their relatives visited the White House for an event honoring the U.S. team at this year’s Rio games.

“It wasn’t just Jesse. It was other African American athletes in the middle of Nazi Germany under the gaze of Adolf Hitler that put a lie to notions of racial superiority—whooped ’em—and taught them a thing or two about democracy and taught them a thing or two about the American character,” President Obama said Thursday.

The other athletes were Dave Albritton, John Brooks, James Clark, Cornelius Johnson, Willis Johnson, Howell King, James LuValle, Ralph Metcalfe, Art Oliver, Tidye Pickett, Fritz Pollard Jr., Mack Robinson, Louise Stokes, John Terry, Archie Williams, Jack Wilson, and John Woodruff. Eighteen relatives attended the White House event and shook the president’s hand, according to the AP.

After the 1936 games, Owens gained national attention. The lives of the other athletes, largely forgotten to history, were the focus of Olympic Pride, American Prejudice, a documentary by Deborah Riley Draper released in July. “They were Olympic athletes when they were on the medal stand,” Draper told NPR in an interview last month. “When they came back home to a segregated America, they came back to being Negroes.”

See more photos from the White House event honoring the 1936 and 2016 Olympic athletes here.