Edwards has lived long enough to go from being feared to being revered, long enough to see America change for reasons both practical and performative. But throughout his esteemed career as a civil rights activist and the seminal scholar in the sociology of sport, Edwards has recognized that change is never permanent. Progress requires patience and persistence, an acknowledgment that the work never ends.

“There are no final victories,” Edwards said, sternly stating one of his signature phrases as he tapped the mahogany table. “Even what looks like a victory can be reversed in the course of a single election.”

For so long, Edwards, professor emeritus from the University of California at Berkeley, has been the conscience of sports, the one who recognized that power resides in not only the gatekeepers but also the athletes who are the reason the gates exist. From organizing the Olympic Project for Human Rights that influenced Tommie Smith and John Carlos to raise their black-gloved fists toward the clouds at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, to supporting Colin Kaepernick as he took a knee in protest of police brutality, to advising and mentoring dozens of prominent sports figures in between, Edwards has sought to flash a mirror upon America and demand that it live up to its foundational principles.

Edwards became a significant figure through his ability to articulate how sports recapitulate society. And he has always understood the Black struggle often means planting seeds in a garden that may never grow.

“I used to say that, ‘Blessed are those Black people who expect only the worst from America because they shall not be disappointed,’” Edwards said. “Even though it was stated more for eye-opening impact than substantive validity in every case, for the most part, I stand by that. America has never disappointed me.”

On this September afternoon, Edwards is in a reflective mood. He’s two months shy of his 82nd birthday, grateful that he’s about to complete another trip around the sun but embracing the harsh reality that it probably will be his last. Three terminal cancers — in his bone marrow, prostate and thyroid — are ravaging his body, leaving him in frequent pain and fatigued, but he has denied any medical treatment, combating the struggle with an upbeat attitude and the occasional Tylenol.

His weakened health hasn’t slowed his wisdom or wit. Get Edwards on the right topic, and that intimidating baritone overwhelms the room, with the cadence of a Baptist minister determined to save lost souls. He recently turned an audience of one into his classroom for nearly three hours, weaving through the evolution of sports activism and his personal journey, predicting the depth of future engagement for activism and name-dropping friends many Americans consider icons. Bill Russell. Jim Brown. Jackie Robinson. Arthur Ashe. Huey Newton. Angela Davis. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Edwards said asking for more than what life has already given him is almost being greedy. But before he’s gone, he has a few more lessons to impart.

There are no final victories

During nearly four decades as an adviser to the 49ers, working closely with the likes of Bill Walsh, Ronnie Lott, Joe Montana and Kaepernick, Edwards earned four championship rings.

But the ring he chooses to wear on his right hand is instead the one he received from Coach Billy Donovan in 2007 after advising the University of Florida men’s basketball program on its way to back-to-back NCAA titles. It’s because it commemorates that America has, indeed, changed during his lifetime.

“In 1960,” Edwards said of the year he graduated from high school, “I couldn’t have even walked onto the campus at the University of Florida unless I had a rake or a mop in my hand.”

But for Edwards, the ring also reflects how forward movement isn’t always permanent. In the time since Edwards received that ring, this nation has elected its first Black president, Barack Obama, for two terms. Since then, Donald Trump has been elected for two non-successive terms, and the Supreme Court, with a supermajority following Trump’s appointment of three conservative justices, has substantially weakened the Voting Rights Act; overturned Roe v. Wade, which established the constitutional right to an abortion; and struck down race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions.

“Progress is one of those concepts like history, like profit. At some point it comes down to who’s keeping the books,” Edwards said.

The University of Florida eliminated all diversity, equity and inclusion positions this year, drawing criticism from one of its sports legends, Pro Football Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has aggressively attacked how race and African American history are taught in K-12 classrooms, with his administration imposing restrictions on books and going so far as rejecting an Advanced Placement African American studies class.

Edwards placed the ring back on his finger and said: “This would have been impossible in 1960. But is it enduring progress? Did the system change? Not really. Look and see where the university [is], where Florida is now as a state.”

Bill Russell saw this coming

Of all the people Edwards has met in sports, academia or anywhere else, Russell “is probably the brightest individual I have ever encountered.”

Edwards first came to admire Russell as a kid growing up in East St. Louis, Illinois. He was disappointed when the St. Louis Hawks traded Russell after selecting him second overall because they feared the city couldn’t handle a Black franchise cornerstone. He followed him throughout his career with the Boston Celtics, with whom he won 11 championships in 13 seasons and earned a reputation as the greatest winner in the history of team sports.

But he later got to know Russell, who died in 2022, on a personal level, learning that his brilliance extended well beyond his ability on the basketball court. And in 2010, he watched as Russell gave what Edwards describes as the best speech he ever heard delivered. It was at the Final Four in Indianapolis, where both men had been invited to speak, and Russell’s keynote address was concise yet powerful. He told the audience to never be too scared to interact, that problems could be resolved with a better understanding of one another.

“Fear has this capacity to metastasize, to become part of the culture,” Edwards recalled Russell saying. “And the next thing you know, we are afraid of each other. And once that happens, we’re up against the greatest enemy we will ever face as a society — ourselves. Do not be afraid.”

Edwards remembered the crowd quizzically applauding, stunned by the bluntness and brevity. But as Edwards flew back home to the Bay Area, the brilliance of Russell’s message started to sink in.

“Lo and behold, here we are in 2024, Bill Russell is gone, but the greatest problem we have in American society today, the greatest challenge that we’ve got to overcome is our fear of each other,” Edwards said. “Bill Russell was not just right. He was prophetic. He saw where America was headed.”

The next battle will be over women’s rights

Edwards has spent the bulk of his life anticipating where society is headed and in particular the role that athletes will play in taking it there.

Using his personal research, observations and trends to accurately predict several outcomes, Edwards foresaw violence at the Munich Olympics in 1972, Russia boycotting the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 and an underbelly of drug use in American society eventually leading to the Len Bias tragedy. He told MLB Commissioner Peter Ueberroth in 1987 that baseball’s continued investment in Latin America would eventually lead to a rapid decline of American Black players without an equally aggressive commitment in those communities.

As he scans the current landscape within this country and sports, Edwards is confident that a sixth wave of sports activism will occur, with women at the forefront.

There have been five previous waves of sports activism since the start of the 20th century, Edwards said, all bound to the “cultural scaffolding” of an underlying movement for social justice and change. Led by the likes of Rube Foster, Jack Johnson and Paul Robeson, the struggle for legitimacy came first; followed by the struggle for access, which saw Jackie Robinson breaking MLB’s color barrier; and then the struggle for dignity and respect, which featured prominent, uncompromising athletes such as Smith, Carlos, Russell, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Curt Flood. After a four-decade pause, which Edwards referred to as “the so-called post-racial America” period, the struggle for definitional authority was highlighted by Kaepernick taking a knee in protest of police brutality and racial inequalities. The most recent struggle for the exercise of power saw NBA and WNBA players disrupt the corporate and political machine by demanding tangible efforts for change.

When he spoke in September, Edwards felt that just as the Black Lives Matter movement was sprouted under the Obama administration, a women-led wave would take place under the first female president in Kamala Harris. Contacted after the election, Edwards said he believes that another Trump presidency (during his campaign, Trump proposed eliminating the Department of Education, potentially endangering Title IX) will accelerate a movement that is quietly underway.

“You already have athletes who are suing because they feel they’ve been discriminated against once they became pregnant. People aren’t connecting it up, but that’s already out there,” he said.

“What’s going to happen when a young lady has a scholarship that she’s been offered to play basketball, to run track, and all of a sudden, September rolls around, she can’t take it. Why? Because she’s getting ready to have a baby. And what does a school do? What does she do? What happens to the scholarship?”

Progress comes at a cost

Previous waves of athlete activism have come with a considerable price. Foster died at 51, a decade after organizing the Negro Leagues and nearly 15 years before Branch Rickey signed Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball but died at 53; the burden of being the first and his unyielding passion for swift and more sweeping social change resulted in him suffering from an immeasurable toll. Smith and Carlos were banned from amateur track after their Olympic protest. Flood was forced out after fighting to establish free agency in baseball. Kaepernick lost his career.

“If you are fighting for what America promises and what America purportedly stands for,” Edwards said, “you have to recognize that things are the way they are and so often lacking because there are those powerful interests who want it that way.”

A former Black Panther party member, Edwards has outlived many of his contemporaries and encountered his own detractors over his esteemed career. He was fired from his position as an assistant professor at San Jose State after the Olympics protest, which prompted him to complete his doctorate in philosophy from Cornell in 5½ years. He also endured death threats and being investigated by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI.

“They had me down as armed and dangerous, which was nothing but a shoot-to-kill edict, in that day and age,” he said. “I’m blessed to simply still be here.”

Others will take his place

After decades of engaging in what Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as “the right to protest for right,” Edwards has entered another fight that he already has conceded.

In 2022, Edwards was diagnosed with myeloma, a cancer in the bone marrow that causes pain throughout the body. Over time, the other two cancers have developed. “There’s no elixir that I’m going to take that’s going to get rid of that,” he said. “I’m good with it. I have no problems with it. That’s part of the deal on this planet. Nobody gets out of life alive.”

Even as he understands the end is nearing, Edwards remains committed to working on projects that will last long after he’s gone, mixing in some productivity with his regular doctor visits. Edwards is completing a six-part documentary on the intersection of sports, race and activism called “The Struggle and the Power” and a 12-part video series called “The Last Lectures.”

“I’m very selective with what I do. I want them to be of some substance and consequence in terms of where I am. Because at this stage, this one is done. I’m finished,” Edwards said, while explaining why he has declined any treatment for his ailments. “Next thing you know, I’m standing up some place in the corner with a thousand-yard stare, lost in the corridors of my mind, trying to figure out whether I’m to use the restroom, my credit card or my fork. I’m not going to do that.”

Exhausted from the lengthy conversation, Edwards takes another sip of water, then braces himself to rise from his seat. Before gingerly walking toward his white Chrysler 300 to head home, he makes clear the movement won’t end with him. The struggle will continue.