Harry Edwards continues his life’s work of social activism with another major recognition coming ...Middle East

Unaware that his life was about to take a dramatic turn, Harry Edwards came to class at San Jose State on his 21st birthday with two things in mind.

“I had my filled-out voter registration — you had to be 21 to vote in those days — and was getting ready to go find my first legal bottle of beer,” Edwards said in a recent interview. “The school was closed. People were standing around, some folks were crying. I was wondering what was going on, because I was getting ready for this birthday celebration.”

It was Nov. 22, 1963. President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated during a motorcade in Dallas and the fuse was lit for one of the most explosive and divisive periods in American history.

Thus began Edwards’ life as a social activist. Looking back on it, Edwards is incredulous at the reality that more than 60 years later, he’d still be searching for justice while awaiting induction into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame on May 15.

“To imagine still being in the struggle as I approach my 83rd birthday — 82 trips around the sun — it never crossed my mind,” Edwards said. “I didn’t expect to live to be 30.”

Which explains why Edwards is unruffled and serene as he battles both bone cancer and advanced prostate cancer, receiving a dire diagnosis in 2023.

“The doctors of my medical team told me, they are unpredictable, progressive, lethal and terminal,” Edwards said. “I’m not perturbed or afraid. They could stop development tomorrow and not have any more problems for another two years. Or all of a sudden, everything could escalate and you could be on a ventilator by the end of the week.”

Edwards will be enshrined along with former Cal and international soccer star Alex Morgan, Athletics’ outfielder Joe Rudi, 49ers’ cornerback Eric Wright and Stanford, Cal and Warriors coach Mike Montgomery on May 15 at the Embarcadero Hilton.

Seeking credit and acclaim is foreign to Edwards, but he’s humbled by the induction.

“That’s the measure of the honor, the people that are already in the Hall,” Edwards said. “The second thing is I would say it says something, perhaps, about the scope of my contribution.”

Perhaps?

Edwards’ “contributions” were met with hate mail, death threats and FBI surveillance in the 1960s. Some of the highlights for why the professor emeritus of sociology at Cal is being celebrated decades later include the following:

• Founded the Olympic Project for Human Rights in 1967, which led to the victory stand gloved-fist protests of sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos in 1968.

• Pioneered the study of the sociology of sport as a discipline while earning his doctorate at Cornell University. He wrote four books on the subject, fighting for social justice alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Maya Angelou.

• Served as a consultant with the 49ers, the Warriors and other sports teams as an advocate of Black participation in sports management. Edwards still works with the 49ers and helped formulate the Bill Walsh Diversity Fellowship coaching program.

• Worked with Major League Baseball toward getting more Black representation in management positions, including the hiring of Dusty Baker by the Giants, who was hired as a coach and eventually became the manager.

• Launched the Institute for the Study of Sport, Society and Social Change at San Jose State, where as a student, he was a 6-foot-8 team captain in basketball and a discus thrower on the track team. He was talented enough to draw interest from the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA and the Minnesota Vikings and San Diego Chargers in football.

Edwards was too busy in the middle of the fray to think of anything long-term as the ’60s unfolded, and he processed a series of events that would shape his own future and the direction of the country.

Civil rights activist Medgar Evers was murdered in June of 1963, followed by the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church which killed four young girls in September of 1963. Next was the assassination of John F. Kennedy on Edwards’ 21st birthday, the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in June of 1964, the assassination of Malcolm X in February of 1965, Martin Luther King in April of 1968 and Bobby Kennedy in June of 1968.

Racial terror and lynchings were used as tools to enforce Jim Crow laws and racial segregation. Locally, the Black Panther Party was formed in 1966 in Oakland, with Edwards lending his support for Black empowerment.

“That five years was one of the volatile and violent periods since the Civil War in this country,” Edwards said. “It framed a lot of my commitment.”

In the current political climate under President Donald Trump’s administration, which has rolled back emphasis on civil rights, women’s reproductive rights and access to affordable education, Edwards sees it as an ongoing process without a “happily ever after” ending.

“There was never a time when there was not a need for struggle,” Edwards said. “The Constitution starts out with the words, ‘In order to form a more perfect union.’ It was crystal clear it would never be perfect. The struggle is perpetual and ongoing, and there are no final victories.”

Edwards sees women’s rights and the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 as a current battleground.

“The greatest crisis that we confront in terms of human rights in this society today are the circumstances of women and girls,” Edwards said.

Blaire Fleming, a transgender volleyball player at San Jose State, Edwards’ alma mater, made the issue a political flashpoint. The matter of trans participation is an area Edwards believes needs more study, given the minuscule number of trans athletes that are actually competing in the NCAA. He sees invoking competitive disadvantage as a dubious argument given the existence of regularly scheduled college football mismatches that pay off financially for the weaker team.

“You see what they call ‘body bag games’, and we rationalize that as a consequence of participation, (the competition) will get better,” Edwards said. “Why would that same option not say that a woman who is playing volleyball as a trans woman would raise the level of competition even if she is a cut above the competition as a consequence of her trans status?”

Edwards is uninterested in defining his legacy other than to be known as a teacher.

“Over 30 years on the faculty at Berkeley, I taught over half the students that took courses in sociology,” Edwards said. “They had a saying that if you go to Berkeley and haven’t taken a class from Edwards, then you really haven’t been to Berkeley.

“I get so many texts and emails and cards and letters, ‘Dr. Edwards, you changed my life.’ That’s what teachers really live for, those indications that they made a difference in people’s perspectives and outlooks and their vision of what was possible.”

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Edwards recently completed “The Last Lectures,” a project examining the intersection of sports, race and society. There’s an ESPN “30 for 30” in the works. With 23 days of radiation therapy behind him, Edwards’ plan is to keep his family close, including his wife Sandra of 57 years, three children and grandchildren. He will continue working as long as his health allows.

Putting together a guest list for the BASHOF induction was eye-opening for Edwards in that so many friends and colleagues from the ’60s and later have passed away.

“I wind up inviting the children and grandchildren of folks who came through that era with me because a lot of them are gone,” Edwards said. “I feel very, very good about where I am and have absolutely no fear or concern. It’s just part of the deal on this planet.”

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