Harlan Joseph MARBLEY

Harlan Marbley competed as a light-flyweight at the 1968 Olympics. He came to Mexico City with a 189-5 amateur record, having won the All-Army title and a bronze medal at the 1967 Pan American Games. At the time of the 1968 Mexico City Games he worked as a security guard at the DC police department. Life was never as good for him again.

Marbley grew up under difficult circumstances and scrambled for money to make ends meet. He never boxed professionally but later became a youth counselor. His wife, Jane, worked as a janitress at the Washington Navy Yard. In 1979, she was shot several times by an acquaintance, then was locked in a room at the Navy Yard and her body was found five days later. Marbley carried on, supporting his two young sons as a single father by working in the kitchen at a VA Hospital near Washington. In 1988, one of those sons, Riveyone, was 18-years-old when he was gunned down and killed around the corner from their home.