The Black Boycott

TRACK & FIELD THe Black Boycott At California's San Jose State College a few years back, Harry Edwards, now 25, was quite an athlete: captain of the basketball team, school record holder in the discus, and such a hot upi prospect in football that several pro teams made him offers. Edwards, a tall (6 ft. 8 in.), brainy Negro, passed them all up to become an assistant professor of sociology at virtually all-white San Jose because "scholarship was my longest suit." Not quite. For the past six months, Harry's long suit has been Black Power and bitter protest--specifically, a campaign to cajole or coerce Negro athletes into boycotting what he considers "white-dominated" sporting events, from next fall's Mexico City Olympics on down.

"What value is it to a black man to win a medal if he returns to the hell of Harlem?" asks Edwards. "They are only being used to further the racist attitudes of the U.S.A."

So far, Edwards' Olympic boycott has drawn more scoffs than support from Negro athletes. Last week, though, he did find one pressure point to hit: the rigidly all-white New York Athletic Club, which was celebrating the 100th anniversary of its annual track meet at Manhattan's new Mad ison Square Garden. With the support of militant Negro groups, including H. Rap Brown's ill-named Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Edwards got scores of Negroes to withdraw from the meet. For those who remained unconvinced, he announced that he would throw a picket line around the Garden, and "any black athlete who crosses that line will be in trouble."

When Edwards heard that Jim Hines, Texas' world record-holding sprinter, still planned to run, he growled: "I hear he wants to play pro football. Some cats in Texas have personally said they'd fix it so he'd be on sticks if he's crazy enough to run in that meet." Hines withdrew, and so did Olympic High Jumper John Thomas, after receiving telephoned threats.

The night of the meet, Edwards and Rap Brown promised 5,000 demonstrators outside the Garden. Only about 500 showed up--to spend the evening roaming around in little knots, pushing and shouting at 400 police. During the melee, ten Negro athletes, including Indoor World Record Long Jumper Bob Beamon, entered the Garden, performed in their events, and went quickly home.

By Edwards' standards, the night was enough of a success to encourage him to campaign all the harder against the U.S. Olympic team. A factor that no doubt will figure in his campaign emerged last week when the International Olympic Committee agreed to reinstate South Africa in the 1968 Olympics, after having banned it from Tokyo in 1964. The South Africans now promise to field a completely integrated team. Nevertheless, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Algeria, Uganda, Mali and Ghana immediately announced their withdrawal from the Games.

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