Dr. Harry Edwards is the founder of the academic discipline he named “The Sociology of Sport.”

His doctoral dissertation of the same title became the foundational textbook establishing the genesis of the field and the sweeping scope of its subject matter.

His self-designated “scholar-activist” status was demonstrably validated and displayed globally in 1967 when, as a member of the Sociology faculty at San José State University, he organized the “Olympic Project for Human Rights” (OPHR) movement. Owing to his strategic leadership and articulation of the societal circumstances generating the OPHR movement, in many media and political circles he was regarded as “the third American gloved fist” on the medal stand during the iconic protest by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

After a scholar-activist career that spanned over half a century – including three decades on the Sociology faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, and over 1300 lectures at nearly 600 educational institutions in 14 countries around the world – Dr. Edwards created THE LAST LECTURES. It is a sweeping overview of the history, evolution, and trajectory of his life’s work that is also meant as a catalyst to inspire and encourage current and coming generations of scholar-activists, athletes, and more “traditionally academic” students of sport and society to continue to grow both the “Sociology of Sport” discipline and “The Activist Struggle.”