Leading From Where He Is

Willis Edwards had always dreamed that civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks would one day be honored in a State of the Union address. So, L.A. activist legend Edwards did what he usually does when he has a dream. He negotiated. "I had this idea if Mrs. Parks was in [then-President] Clinton's speech, that moment would take away all the negativity of the impeachment," the 60-year-old civil rights leader remembers. "So, on the day of the [1999] State of the Union, we brought Mrs. Parks to D.C. And then I went through a firestorm of negotiations."

Looking back, the concept was so perfect, it's hard to imagine that the Clintons didn't think of it themselves. But, according to Edwards, it almost didn't happen. "I got 'maybe' and 'maybe not.' You have to be invited. So, I called up the speaker's office [Dennis Hastert, R-Il.] and said, 'Could you give Mrs. Parks three tickets in your box?' That's the speaker of the House and he's a Republican, right? Then I went back to the Clinton people and said, 'The speaker says we can have tickets in his box.'"

Within an hour, Edwards, who sits on the National Board of Directors for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), got a call back from the Clinton camp. "The first lady would like Mrs. Parks to sit in her box," the caller said.

Edwards laughs, remembering how Parks got a seven-minute standing ovation from Congress that night. "Then it became, 'Oh my God, this was such a great idea.'"

"So after all that negotiation we can look back and say it finally happened. You have to be persistent about what you want."

Willis Edwards speaks declaratively, perhaps the byproduct of four decades running political campaigns, and years of nonstop outreach - out front and behind the scenes - for issues of civil rights and social equality. He slips easily into speechifying. "Mrs. Parks had dignity. If she walked into a room right now, people would start clapping, you know? She never asked anyone for anything, but she stood for something. That's what I mean about leading from where you are. It's doing what you can from where you are."

Since the late '60s, Willis Edwards has been doing what he can from where he is - which has always been an unassuming Hollywood apartment. Few of his friends have been inside, and they'll all tell you - as he will - that Edwards is an extremely private person. But his résumé on social and political issues is an open book. In fact, he's something of a political Zelig: There's his work with the NAACP, which includes having founded the NAACP Image Awards, and his work with the Minority AIDS Project, trying to raise funds to build a clinic. He is vice president of development and planning for the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute in Detroit, and boardmember of the Rosa Parks Museum and Library. He wrote and co-produced the critically acclaimed film, The Rosa Parks Story, which starred Angela Bassett and was first broadcast on CBS in 2002.

He is also part of an L.A. story currently being reexamined with the release of the new film, Bobby. On the night Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel, Edwards was working for Kennedy and was standing six feet away on the stage. He's deep in the mix of the recent flap over L.A. fireman Tennie Pierce, who won - and then lost - a $2.5 million settlement when his fellow firemen put dog food in his spaghetti. For playing all these roles in the nation's political history, however, Edwards is virtually invisible on L.A.'s political and social landscape.

Edwards grew up in Palm Springs, the son of Frank ("a businessman who was just trying to make ends meet") and Anita Edwards, who raised her son to be an activist. "In my family it was either go to the NAACP or go to church," he explains. "So, my mother was an activist in her time."

As a kid, Edwards says he was unaware of racism. "There are only a certain segment of people who are part of that racist stuff. As a kid you have to learn about racism, you don't know it outright. I had to learn a lot because I was sheltered in Palm Springs."

Edwards moved to L.A. to attend California State University Los Angeles. He got a job at the Hughes Market in Hollywood to pay his way through school. And that was when he first became acutely aware of racism - when he tried to rent his first Hollywood apartment. He was 19 and he was devastated. "I felt I wasn't going to get this apartment even though I wanted this apartment. It felt like they were shocked that you were black." Edwards was drafted and went to Vietnam in 1970. "I came back from Vietnam and moved back into the same place."

Edwards has always lived in Hollywood. Years ago, he says, there was a sense of community. You got invited to homes for dinner. "People honestly wanted to know you as a human being," he explains. "You don't get that now. People now are afraid to know you. Friendships are not gathered like they used to be."

We're having a long breakfast at the Square One Café, a block from his apartment. They know him here. They greet him and he introduces me, tells them he's going to be the subject of our cover story. He jokes with the waitress, who is going to cook Thanksgiving dinner for her boyfriend's family.

He's interested in food - very interested. Since we arrived, he has ordered a small dish every hour - oatmeal, salmon benedict, fruit, cauliflower soup. The small meals help him tolerate the many medicines he takes to treat the AIDS virus he was diagnosed with 12 years ago. So, when he can, schedule permitting, he eats four meals a day. Since contracting the disease, Edwards has included it in his long list of causes, and he devotes a ton of time now to the Minority AIDS Project. He is assistant producer on Faces of AIDS, the new documentary film by noted actor/director Bill Duke (The Cemetery Club, A Rage in Harlem).

He was inexplicably sick for four years before the doctors figured out what was wrong. When they finally did, he was told he had maybe three months to live. He worried the most about his mother. "I brought her to the hospital to tell her I had the virus, she said she loved me. My mother was there. But most people don't have their mothers. Most people don't even have a friend."

Back then, folks were even more afraid of the AIDS issue. "And in the African-American community, the whole AIDS thing was something people didn't understand. I had some friends that didn't come to see me for like three months," he notes.

The first person to reach out to him was Rosa Parks. "She came to my house, we had dinner and all that. And she talked to me as if I was not sick. Hah-hah, it was really great! I knew what I looked like at that point. I think I weighed 90 pounds [writer's note: Edwards is 6'3"]. We talked about her vision, what she wanted to do with her Institute. And at that time, all the other people I knew who I thought would give me a consultant's job were not doing that at all."

Edwards doesn't drink anymore. He tries to stick to a healthy routine, even when traveling, and he's very candid about being celibate since being diagnosed with the virus. "I think it's so important for us to say these things, because you have to have the responsibility of not having sex for awhile."

Best friend Jackie Hawthorne has known Edwards for 12 years. Hawthorne is chair of the Los Angeles African American Women's Political Action Committee, but she still manages to find time to take care of Edwards's affairs, keeps his calendar, and even travels with him to D.C., all as a tireless unpaid volunteer. "I was working for the Diane Watson campaign as a volunteer when I first met Willis," Hawthorne recalls. "And the campaign headquarters were renovated from a café. I could smell the residue of the kitchen, because I have an acute sense of smell. It was such a vile odor I would feel like gagging.

"Willis was the finance manager and I really had not taken a liking to him because he was very high-handed. But then I told them, 'I can't come here anymore. This odor is killing me.' So he said to me, 'Come over to the finance office. We're in a nice clean building. Come over there and work with me.'"

The first day that Hawthorne walked in, Edwards said in a very straightforward manner, "There's something I need to tell you. I have HIV/AIDS. Does that make a difference in your working with me?"

Hawthorne told him she appreciated his sharing it with her but that it didn't make a difference.

Edwards said, "Great, let's get to work."

Where There's A Willis

It's still hard for him to talk about the night Bobby Kennedy was killed. "It's been so long, I've almost shut it out of my mind," he says. He remembers that there was an excitement in the air. They believed that Kennedy was going to win the presidency. "We had fought a good fight. Bobby Kennedy called people to do stuff from where they were. True leadership came out of that campaign because they had the focus. King, Rosa Parks, all these people were activists in their own communities. And certain issues we deal with today: homelessness, voters' rights, all of that. There was a hope we would have a voice in the White House that really understood African Americans," he says.

After Kennedy died, Edwards went to Vietnam, where he served 14 months. He was awarded the Bronze Star and returned home in 1970 to go to college. "My parents couldn't afford to send me to school, so I came to L.A. and put myself through school." While at Cal State L.A., he became student body president and also formed a lasting friendship with fellow classmate Steve Cooley (currently L.A. District Attorney). They worked on many issues together and still do.

"When I got back from Vietnam, there was a guy named Poindexter Williams who was killed in Vietnam. And his mother wanted to bury him in a cemetery near her house but it was an all-white cemetery," Edwards recalls. He, Cooley, and others organized vets all over the country so Williams could be buried where his mother wanted. During his college years, Edwards also helped found the National Student Lobby, the group that helped give 18-year-olds the right to vote.

Congresswoman Diane Watson (D-Ca.) has been a close friend of Edwards since his college days, when he ran her first campaign for Board of Education: "Back in the '60s and '70s, if you were out socially, as an activist, on any campus you would run into Willis Edwards. He has a unique ability to connect and that is for life."

He would be involved, over the years, in a succession of historical moments. When Jimmy Carter was chosen as the Democratic presidential candidate at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, Edwards led the Pledge of Allegiance. In 1998, Edwards got Rosa Parks enormous visibility by having her invited to the Oscars. Beyond getting Parks seated next to Hillary Clinton at the State of the Union, he even arranged for her to have an audience with the Pope. When she died in October 2005, Edwards arranged for her family to fly free to attend the many memorial services. And it was Edwards who "negotiated" for Parks's body to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda, only the second time in history for an African American to have received this honor and the first time ever for a woman.

For as long as Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Ca.) has known Edwards, he has been quietly leading. "It's amazing how he knows how to work it, how to gain access. I've been with him during presidential campaigns. He makes sure those who need to can have access to the candidates, not to promote himself or anyone else, but for an important agenda. He knows how to put people together and it's always above-board," she says.

It's impossible to figure out how the media has managed to avoid covering Edwards. There was a seven-page Los Angeles Times Magazine cover story called "The Fixer" in 2002. And he's got a short online bio at the History Makers website. But otherwise, he appears as a footnote in Kennedy's story and in Hollywood's production credits for his film work. But when you look at L.A.'s key civil rights struggles, very often Edwards was there.

Take the much-publicized case of Pierce and his infamous dog food incident. "Willis and the NAACP took up the cause, standing next to Mr. Pierce and demanded that the fire department and the city do the right thing," says Pierce's attorney Genie Harrison. "And Willis gave tremendous moral support to Mr. Pierce and let him know that it was important and OK for him to stand up and fight." Tuesday, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced he was vetoing the award as Pierce was found to have also participated in LAFD hazing incidents.

The Pierce case has been splashed on the headlines, but nowhere is Edwards mentioned. Watson says that's the way Edwards wants it. "He's not in an elected office," Watson says. "He's had a lifetime of being able to schmooze and being effective. He makes things work. I call him the creative genius. He's the kingmaker."

"People know what's going on," Edwards says, brushing off his anonymity. "They know who the activists are in their own community. I mean, because they don't write about us? Block by block, street by street, everybody knows who is in charge."

Experience says he's right. "I first met Willis over a decade ago while shopping in Leimert Park. He was escorting an elderly lady who looked like Rosa Parks. As they passed me on the sidewalk, I looked closer and it was Mrs. Parks," says Project Islamic Hope's Najee Ali. "He asked if I was OK and then proceeded to introduce me to Mrs. Parks. He indicated he knew who I was and admired my work in the community. We've been good friends ever since."

"Ever since I've known Willis, he has been committed to uplifting not only his community, but all communities, ensuring we all have a chance to achieve our dreams," says L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has known Edwards since his own college days and for whom Edwards obtained an invitation to Parks' funeral.

"When my dad had his heart attack, one of the first people to come to the hospital was Willis," says Lorraine Bradley, daughter of late Mayor Bradley. "When my dad passed, Willis was there [to] make arrangements." Bradley is the vice chair of the Tom and Ethel Bradley Foundation for Intentional Civility, of which Edwards is a board member.

The list is impressive, not just for the illustrious names, but for the diversity and gravity of the issues he's addressed, from AIDS activism to the Black Panther Party. And because it's about Willis Edwards, everyone calls you back. Urban revitalization expert, corporate executive, and president of Rebuild Los Angeles Bernard Kinsey called from a plane en route to Miami. Councilwoman Jan Perry called from the floor of the city council. Director Bill Duke not only called back within the hour, he thanked me for calling him. When Villaraigosa sent one statement that we felt wasn't personal enough, he immediately sent a second. Congresswoman Barbara Lee called late on Saturday night from her car on the way to catch a plane.

I also learned that I was the second reporter to point out to Edwards that his list is just too long. "It's an article, not a memorial service," I say. (I later learned that L.A. Times writer John L. Mitchell told Edwards that it was an article, not his phone book.)

He laughs, in fact he roars, and totally ignores this. You don't get to be Willis Edwards if you take no for an answer. "To know me you have to speak to the people who know me," he says. "Did you call my brother yet?"

My Brother's Keeper

According to everyone who knows fireman Johnny Greene, were it not for Edwards, Greene would have lost his job, family, home, and his entire identity. And he'd be serving a long stint in prison. "All of us knew Johnny Greene as a kid. He never got in any trouble," Edwards explains. "Still, they tried to charge Johnny Greene with nine counts of assault. And people who knew him were shocked."

The incident occurred about 10 months ago when Green, who collects classic cars, took one of those cars to an auto body shop to be restored. Unbeknownst to Greene, the shop was about to go under. The employees and the owner were doing drugs and stealing cars from that location. Car owners like Greene would show up for their cars and there was no explanation as to where their cars had disappeared. Greene was just one of many, but he was the one who was accosted by some of the employees. Greene was arrested. Nine charges were filed against him, including assault.

Greene and Edwards had been friends for several years through the NAACP. "It was my contention that I was being set up by the sheriff's department and I brought that to Mr. Edwards," Greene explains. "He was instrumental in bringing the necessary attention to the city officials. The D.A.'s office realized it was an unfortunate event. I was told that it should have never happened. Mr. Edwards got the right questions asked and ultimately it led to me being exonerated and the charges being dismissed."

The cases of both Johnny Greene and Tennie Pierce have highlighted what many say are known cases of harassment inside the L.A. Fire Department and this is now another cause for the NAACP that Edwards helped bring to their attention. He says this is appropriate, because "if we have racism in the fire department that means the average person will not get the best firefighting services."

But there are so many causes, he says. There are the rights of seniors to proper housing, and even to be able to work while collecting SSI, something Edwards feels is imperative for the well-being of retirees. "A man retires and goes from earning $100,000 a year to living on a fraction of that."

There are seniors with AIDS, who hide from society. There are the vets who come home from the wars and have nothing, the poor who get trampled by landlords and don't know how to fight, the shootings, the lack of outrage that the African-American community is forced to tolerate, murders which would not be tolerated in West Hollywood ... . So many causes.

So many phone calls. Once I'm on this story, Edwards is calling me constantly. About the list. About the firemen. About a niece with a drug problem, and what we can all do to keep her children from going to foster care. About Villaraigosa's school plan.

To longtime friend Jan Perry, Edwards is the guy who starts calling people at 6 a.m. When the phone rings that early, nine times out of ten it's him. "And he starts with 'Hello darling, what's going on?'" she says. "Usually the conversation ends with some form of instruction to what he feels is the issue of the day and how it should be handled. He's tremendously funny and intelligent and he's worth his weight in gold. Because of him I was able to meet Mrs. Rosa Parks and sit and listen to her. That's the way Willis leads his life. He's always offering to take care of people and to help."

Najee Ali feels Edwards is increasingly being recognized as a mentor to young activists. Edwards is on the advisory board of the Latino/African-American Alliance that Ali founded with Christine Chavez one year ago, which focuses on unity between young people, particularly those still in school. Ali notes that Edwards is civil rights history. "Many of the pioneers of the civil rights movement have passed away. With the recent deaths of Rosa Parks and Mrs. King, Willis serves as a living and historical link to the civil rights movement, and always has a story to tell us, whether it's about Jesse or Mandela, we all shut up and pay attention when he's talking," Ali says.

He adds that Edwards will never seek the limelight. "He will probably go down in history as one of the most important and influential Angelenos that the rest of the city has never heard of."

Summing up his own legacy, Edwards says, "We have a responsibility to do what we can as individuals in our lives. If you see something wrong, stand up and be counted. You might have AIDS, you might have cancer, but pick up the phone and lead from where you are. If Bobby Kennedy were alive today we'd be better citizens. And we'd all have health care."