How Harry Edwards continues to honor Jackie Robinson's legacy

Harry Edwards speaks at Jackie Robinson Day ceremony to Jackie Robinson scholar program participants, the Washington Nationals and the Dodgers. We are better than civil rights leaders being shot dead in broad daylight.” Harry Edwards, left, and former Dodgers All-Star Reggie Smith attend a ceremony honoring the legacy of Jackie Robinson at Dodger Stadium on Monday. “For them, Jackie Robinson was America’s Gandhi model.” In 1969, Edwards asked Robinson if he believed King and the civil rights movement appreciated what Edwards called the “monumental debt” owed for his contributions to social change on and off the field. “In a profoundly modest, unassuming and almost self-effacing tone and countenance, he turned to me,” Edwards said, “and said, ‘Yes, I think they knew we were traveling the same path.’ “The fact, of course, is that Jackie blazed and paved that path.” Edwards was one of the first to turn the study of sport into a legitimate academic discipline. “They offshored player development,” he said, “to academies in places like the Dominican Republic.” For the good of a badly divided country, Edwards hopes Americans take heed of the lessons Robinson taught us.