Virtual funeral planned for former legislator Edwards

The family of former Houston state representative Al Edwards, who died last Wednesday at 83, has scheduled an online memorial service that will be streamed from the Community of Faith Church Friday morning.

Services are set to begin at 10 a.m. and will be co-led by Bishop James Dixon and Pastor L.L. Atkins

of the Progressive New Hope Baptist Church, according to a news release issued by Mayor Sylvester Turner’s office. Turner served with Edwards in the Texas House for about two decades and said he was “like a brother to me.”

Links to watch the services will be made available on the church’s website, thecommunityoffaith.org, and on Edwards’ Facebook page, facebook.com/RepAlEdwardsSr.

Edwards will be interred Friday at 3 p.m. at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin, where a “brief graveside service” will be streamed online, according to Turner’s office.

In a joint statement, three of Edwards’ children — Alana Edwards Holloway, Jason Edwards and Al Edwards II — asked those wishing to send flowers to instead “support Dad’s favorite cause; the education of Juneteenth and the story of emancipation. Please send checks to ‘Juneteenth USA’ at 3355 West Alabama St., Suite 640 Houston TX 77098.”

Edwards, a Democrat, introduced the bill that would commemorate June 19, 1865, the day slaves in Texas first learned they had been freed under the Emancipation Proclamation. The 1979 legislation created a state holiday to mark the end of slavery in the United States, and since has been replicated in most other states.

Edwards represented House District 146 in south Houston from 1979 to 2007, and again from 2009 to 2011. In between his time in the biennial Legislature, Edwards worked as a real estate broker and ordained minister.