BA Journalism and Public Relations, California State University, Los Angeles; MA Journalism and EdD Higher Education Administration, University of Southern California. He is Professor of Journalism and graduate professor of Mass Communication and Media Studies at Howard University. Dr. Wilson came to Howard as Associate Dean for Administration in the School of Communications, a position he held for five years before serving five years as chair of the Journalism Department. He has authored or co-authored six books including Racism, Sexism and the Media: The Rise of Class Communication in Multicultural America. The Society of Professional Journalists honored the book with its 2003 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence in Journalism Research. In 1996 the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights honored the second edition of that work as the “Outstanding Book” on the subject of human rights in North America. His book A History of the Black Press, which completed the unfinished work of the late distinguished African American journalism historian Dr. Armistead S. Pride, was cited as one of the 35 “most significant books of the 20th century” by Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly.
I have a longstanding interest in issues relating to the rights of African Americans and other disfranchised groups to obtain fair and equitable treatment in all aspects of communications media including ownership, employment and image portrayal. My activism in these areas dates from the 1980s when I served as a director of the National Black Media Coalition in addressing such issues before the FCC along with David Honig, now director of the MMTC, and others. The work of the Howard Media Group continues to progressively serve the ends toward which I have worked for four decades.