< Previous page

Wilson leaped from his comfort zone. He enrolled at Loras College, in Dubuque, Iowa, one of just a handful of black students there and the only one studying chemistry.

"I was in lab by myself," he recalls.

His first job was teaching sixth grade at an inner-city Catholic school in Chicago. The kids he taught -- the struggles they faced, the gangs they belonged to -- made an impression. Though his background was in chemistry and biology, he navigated to the social sciences. He got a master's degree in social work and a doctorate in criminal justice.

Contributions to NCCU

Wilson spent six years on the University of Cincinnati faculty before coming to NCCU in 1984, where he turned a criminal justice program into a full department and then bolstered it with a graduate curriculum. He spent 20 years as the program's director and department's chairman.

He did the academic work required for job security; then, he dove into service.

"I did enough publishing to get tenure, but my passion is getting involved," he says. "If you're not involved, nothing changes. If you don't get involved, don't complain."

Wilson is 60, with bushy hair, a wry smile and a beard flecked with gray. Around campus, he is in constant motion, always on the way to this meeting or that. Students, colleagues -- and at least one newspaper reporter -- seeking a quick chat often have to dive in alongside him as he moves. These days, NCCU's Faculty Senate, which he leads, keeps him busy.

"He's very high-energy," says Arnold Dennis, director of NCCU's juvenile justice institute. "That's the only way he can get everything done."

Wilson smiles when he talks. He jokes with students. He speaks so fast his words run together, and in an interview, he answers questions as if he's quizzing a student.

He urges policymakers to be proactive rather than just reacting to violent crime with tougher gang laws. "Reacting is not what? Solving the problem," he says.

Wilson says Durham's crime and gang problems are neither new nor disproportionate. He thinks a local judge's call for tougher anti-gang legislation in the wake of recent high-profile slayings of Carson, the UNC student, and Duke graduate student Abhijit Mahato is reactionary and falls short of addressing the root problems so many young black men face.

And perhaps most of all, he thinks felons need a hand when they get out of prison.

"I'm not against punishing folks, but if you punish folks, you have to have a way to help them readjust to society," he says. "We're setting them up to fail."

< Previous page