‘The Struggle That Must Be’: Harry Edwards, Sport and the Fight for Racial Equality

Abstract

This essay assesses the contributions of Harry Edwards to the Civil Rights Movement and the quest for racial equality in the USA. Through the utilisation of Edwards' own writings and a number of other primary and secondary sources, it examines how Edwards attempted to secure equality of opportunities for Black athletes and how he used sport in the battle for racial justice and fairness. It is evident that Edwards is a revolutionary who has altered the way that sport is viewed, making individuals aware that sport is an institution that encompasses similar forms of inequality prevalent in other societal institutions, and is not the great saviour for Blacks in the USA. Demonised by some for much of his career, Edwards has been honoured multiple times recently in an assortment of different ways for his many accomplishments both within and outside the sports world.

Keywords::

• athletics
• Civil Rights
• Olympics
• Black protests

Notes

^1.Edwards, The Struggle That Must Be; Mark Kram, “Gale Contemporary Black Biography: Harry Edwards,” http://www.answers.com/topic/harry-edwards

^2.Ibid.; Robert Lipsyte, “An Outsider Joins the Team,” The New York Times, May 22, 1988.

^3.Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete; Edwards, The Struggle That Must Be; and Kram, “Gale Contemporary Black Biography.”

^4.Ibid. Quote is taken from Kram, “Gale Contemporary Black Biography.”

^5.Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete.

^6.Ibid.

^7. Mal Whitfield, “Let's Boycott the Olympics,” Ebony, March 1964, 95–6, 98–100.

^8.Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete. For very nice interpretations of the 1968 Olympic boycott, see Bass, Not the Triumph But the Struggle and Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete.

^9.Baker, Jesse Owens.

^10.Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete.

^11. For Boston's views, see Wiggins and Miller, The Unlevel Playing Field.

^12.Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete. For a Black Olympic athlete who was highly critical of Owens, see Matthews, My Race Be Won.

^13.Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete. For other FBI reports, see Edwards, The Struggle That Must Be.

^14.Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete; The Struggle That Must Be.

^15.Ibid.; , “The Year of Awakening”; Wiggins, “The Future of College Athletics is at Stake,” 188–208; and Brooks and Althouse, “Revolt of the Black Athlete.”

^16.Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete; Edwards, The Struggle That Must Be; Bass, Not the Triumph But the Struggle; Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete; and Smith, “‘It's Not Really My Country’.”

^17.Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete; Edwards, The Struggle That Must Be; Bass, Not the Triumph But the Struggle; Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete; Wiggins, “The Year of Awakening”; Smith, Silent Gesture; Carlos and Zirin, The John Carlos Story; and Brooks and Althouse, “Revolt of the Black Athlete.”

^18.Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete; Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete; and Bass, Not the Triumph But the Struggle.

^19.Edwards, “The Olympic Project.”

^20.Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete.

^21.Edwards, Black Students.

^22.Edwards, Sociology of Sport.

^23.Edwards, The Struggle That Must Be; “Change and Crisis in Modern Sport”; “Crisis of Black Athletes”; “The Black Athletes”; “The Single-Minded Pursuit,” 138, 140; “The Collegiate Athletic Arms Race”; and “Beyond Symptoms.”

^24.Ibid.

^25.Edwards, The Struggle That Must Be.

^26.Ibid.

^27.Ibid.

^28.Ibid.

^29.Edwards, Sociology of Sport.

^30.Edwards, “Sport in America”; Sociology of Sport.

^31. For a nice listing of Edwards' various publications, see Greene, “The Impact of Dr. Harry Edwards's Work.”

^32.Edwards first lays out most fully his conception of the relationship among race, sport and American culture, in his Sociology of Sport.

^33. Ronald Glover, “Change Agent: Dr. Harry Edwards,” The Black Sports Network, July 16, 2006, http://blacksportsnetwork.com/articles/features/Dr.E_071606.asp.

^34.Edwards, “Edwards vs The University of California”; The Struggle That Must Be.

^35.Edwards, The Struggle That Must Be.

^36.Loy, “The Emergence and Development”; Coakley, “Sociology of Sport in the United States.”

^37.Gorn and Oriard, “Taking Sports Seriously.”

^38.Edwards, The Struggle That Must Be.

^39.Ibid.

^40.Edwards, “Edwards vs The University of California.”

^41.Ibid.

^42.Edwards, The Struggle That Must Be.

^43.Ibid.; Edwards, “Edwards vs The University of California.”

^44.Ibid.

^45.Ibid.

^46. Nathan's interview with Bowker, September 6, 1991, content.cdlib.org/view?docld = hb1p3001gg&doc.view = entire_text

^47.Edwards, The Struggle That Must Be.

^48.Edwards, “The Collegiate Athletic Arms Race”; Edwards, “The Black ‘Dumb Jack’”; Edwards, “Educating Black Athletes”; Edwards, “Beyond Symptoms,” 3–13; and Smith, Pay for Play.

^49.Ibid.

^50.Ibid.

^51.Ibid.

^52.New Pittsburgh Courier, December 27, 1986.

^53.Edwards, “Crisis of Black Athletes.”

^54.Edwards, “The Single-Minded Pursuit,” 138, 140.

^55.Leonard “The Decline of the Black Athlete”; Edwards, “Crisis of Black Athletes.”

^56.Edwards, “Crisis of Black Athletes.”

^57.Ibid.

^58.Leonard, “The Decline of the Black Athlete.”

^59.Ibid.

^60.Ibid.

^61. Lipsyte, “An Outsider Joins the Team”; Kram, “Gale Contemporary Black Biography”; Glover, “Change Agent: Dr. Harry Edwards”; and William D. Murray, “Edwards to Assist Ueberroth in Effort to Find ‘Creditable’ Minorities to Fill Variety of Posts,” New Pittsburgh Courier, June 27, 1987.

^62. Eddie Jefferies, “Edwards Under Fire, But He Can Handle It,” New Pittsburgh Courier, September 19, 1987; Mary Hyman, “Some Black Players are Critical of Edwards,” Baltimore Sun, October 19, 1987; and “Black Group Blasts ‘Failing’ Edwards,” The Washington Post, August 19, 1987.

^63. Lipsyte, “An Outsider Joins the Team.” See also, Mike Well, “Edwards Silent After Being Called a ‘Puppet’,” New Pittsburgh Courier, September 5, 1987.

^64. Lipsyte, “An Outsider Joins the Team”; Kram, “Gale Contemporary Black Biography.” See also, Scott, The Athletic Revolution; Meggyesy, Out of Their League.

^65. See Hoose, Necessities; Peter Gammons, “The Campanis Affair,” Sports Illustrated, April 20, 1987; Steve Springer, “April 6, 1987: The Nightline That Rocked Baseball,” Los Angeles Times, April 6, 1997; Reggie Jackson, “We Have a Serious Problem That Isn't Going Away,” Sports Illustrated, May 11, 1987; and Ruck, Raceball.

^66. Quoted in Lipsyte, “An Outsider Joins the Team.”

^67. Ibid.

^68. “Major League Baseball Earns Top Grade for Racial Hiring Practices,” http://www.spokesman-recorder.com/2012/10/17/major-league-baseball-earns-top-grade-for-racial-hiring-practices.

^69. Ibid.

^70. Lipsyte, “An Outsider Joins the Team”; Kram, “Gale Contemporary Black Biography.”

^71. Janine DeFao, “Harry Edwards to Head Oakland Parks-Rec/Expert on Sports and Race is Major Jerry Brown's Pick,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 13, 2000, http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Harry-Edwards-to-head-Oakland-Parks-Rec-Expert-2779937; Ellen Griffin, “Time Out With Harry Edwards: Oakland's New Director of Parks and Rec,” MacArthur Metro, November 2000, http://macarthurmetro.org/pdfs/metoo-11pdf; and Sandra Gonzales, “Oakland Activist Takes on New Career,” September 23, 2000, http://lists.village.virginia.edu/lists_archive/sixties-l/1798.html.

^72. For Edwards' resignation as Director of the Oakland Department of Parks and Recreation, see J. Douglas Allen-Taylor, “The Oakland City Hall Shakeup,” July 4, 2003, www.berkeleydailyplanet.com. Some of the best insights regarding Edwards' thinking can be gleaned from his many interviews. See for example, Leonard, “The Decline of the Black Athlete”; Johnson and Masucci, “No Final Victories.”

^73. Lipsyte, “An Outsider Joins the Team”; Kram, “Gale Contemporary Black Biography.”

^74. Ibid.

^75. The NCAA Scholarly Colloquium was the brainchild of Myles Brand, former university administrator and NCAA president. In 2013, the NCAA decided to stop funding the colloquium. See Ellen Staurowsky, “NCAA's Decision to Withdraw Funding for Scholarly Colloquium is an Attack on Academic Freedom,” College Sports Business News, June 21, 2013, http://collegesportsbusinessnews.com/issue/January-2013/article/what-does-the-ncaas-decision-to; Paul Steinbach, “Scholars React to Cancellation of NCAA Colloquium,” Athletic Business, April 2013, http://upload.athleticbusiness.com/articles/keyword.aspx?keyword=athletics

^76. See Edwards, “Transformational Developments.”

^77. See the Journal for The Study of Sports and Athletes in Education (Summer 2009) and Polite and Hawkins, Sport, Race, Activism, and Social Change. At the time of this writing, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History was putting together a session, “45 years since the Black power fists protest at the 1968 Olympics” at its 2013 conference. See http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgiID = 202401.

^78.Smith, “Frozen Fists in Speed City”; Nathan, “Bearing Witness to Blackball.”

^79. See the Journal for The Study of Sports and Athletes in Education (Summer 2009) and Polite and Hawkins, Sport, Race, Activism, and Social Change.

^80.Hartmann, “Activism, Organizing, and the Symbolic Power of Sport”; Leonard and King, “Revolting Black Athletes; and Johnson and Masucci, “No Final Victories.”

^81.Hartmann, “Activism, Organizing, and the Symbolic Power of Sport.”

^82.Ibid.

^83.Leonard and King, “Revolting Black Athletes.”

^84.Johnson and Masucci, “No Final Victories”; DuBois, TheSouls of Black Folk.

^85.Edwards, “An End of The Golden Age.”

^86.Johnson and Masucci, “No Final Victories.”

^87.Polite and Hawkins, Sport, Race, Activism, and Social Change.

^88.Lomax's essay (“Revisiting The Revolt of the Black Athlete”) was previously published in the Journal of Sport History and Polite et al.'s essay (“Fostering Dr. Harry Edwards Legacy”) was previously published in the Journal for the Study of Sports and Athletes in Education.

^89.Greene, “The Impact of Dr. Harry Edwards's Work.”

^90. See Journal for The Study of Sports and Athletes in Education.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David K. Wiggins

David K. Wiggins is a professor in the School of Recreation, Health, and Tourism at George Mason University in Manassas, VA, USA. His primary research interest is the history of sport in the USA, particularly as it relates to the interconnection among race, sport, and American culture. He has published a plethora of articles in highly regarded scholarly journals and written or edited nine books. He is also the former editor of Quest and the Journal of Sport History.