My StumbleUpon Page
2010 Black History Month: Harry Edwards Sociologist
“We must teach our children to dream with their eyes open. The chances of your becoming a Jerry Rice or a Magic Johnson are so slim as to be negligible. Black kids must learn to distribute their energies in a way that’s going to make them productive, contributing citizens in an increasingly high-technology society.”
~ Harry Edwards, author and Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley as quoted in Time Magazine March 6, 1989.
Sociologist, scholar and author Harry Edwards, born 1942, is from East St. Louis, Illinois; he received his doctorate in sociology from Cornell University.
Harry Edwards stated desire is to be a role model of “the promising athlete who gave up the possibility of a career in professional sports to become a scholar instead.”
Harry Edwards is the founder of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, (OPHR) which led to the Black Power Salute protest by Black African-American athletes at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
The author of “The Revolt of the Black Athlete” Edwards has been described by a writer for the New York Times Magazine in May 1988 as a man who sees ” himself as one who provokes and incites others to action, a reformer, not a revolutionary. And indeed, no other single figure in sports has done as much to make the country aware that the problems of the larger culture are recapitulated in sports, that the arena is no sanctuary from drugs, racism and corruption.”
Edwards is known as a vigorous advocate for black managers in professional sports. Harry Edwards, in addition to having been a sociology professor at the University of California at Berkley, has taken the academic theory from the college campus to the real world board room; from
serving as a staff consultant to the San Francisco 49ers football team and to the Golden State Warriors basketball team, Edwards has also been actively involved in recruiting black talent for front-office positions in major league baseball.
Articles and essays by Professor Edwards have been published in leading sports journals and magazines such as Sports Illustrated and Psychology Today.
There is no doubt the result of his influence in the world of professional sports can be seen throughout the professional sport teams leagues.
Recently
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.