Britain’s first black Olympic medalist, sprinter Harry Edward, will be commemorated with a blue plaque hanging at his London home.
Edward won bronze medals in the 100m and 200m at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics and was British sprint champion for three consecutive years, winning the 100, 220 and 440 yards finals in one hour in 1922.
English Heritage has confirmed that the plaque will be placed at his former home in Huntley Street, Bloomsbury, London. A spokesman for English Heritage said: “This is a very exciting prospect. Harry will join a beautiful line-up of Olympic stars commemorated on blue plaques.
They included boxer Harry Marin, middle-distance runner Philip Norbeck, tennis player Kitty Godfrey and rower Jack Beresford, all members of the 1920 British team.
Edward’s memorial comes after his memoirs were discovered in an obscure New Orleans archive. The book, published this year by Yale University Press and titled “I Became Black as I Passed the Statue of Liberty,” details not only his illustrious athletic career but also his remarkable life story.
The book was launched on Monday during the Paris Games at the OLY House, home of the World Association of Olympians at the Games, by Marlene Dortch and Julia, granddaughters of 1936 legends Jesse Owens and Luz Long -Co-presented by Vanessa Long.
Edward was born in Germany, his father was a Dominican master and his mother was a Prussian piano teacher. Instead, he was held in a prisoner of war camp during the conflict and emigrated to Britain after its liberation.
He lived in England for four years in a house near Bloomsbury University College before immigrating to the United States, where he worked in theater with Orson Welles and ran food and milk projects in Harlem, Fighting against school segregation and volunteering in the United States. He also managed a foster children program in Vietnam. A tireless civil rights activist, he died in 1973 while his family was visiting relatives in Germany.
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