Amos N. Wilson

Amos N. Wilson
Born	Dr. Amos Nelson Wilson (1941-02-23)February 23, 1941 Hattiesburg, Mississippi, United States
Died	January 14, 1995(1995-01-14) (aged 53) Brooklyn, NY
Fields	Psychology, Sociology, Black Studies
Institutions	CUNY, New York Institute of Technology
Alma mater	Morehouse College The New School of Social Research Fordham University
Influences	Marcus Garvey

Dr. Amos N. Wilson (February 23, 1941 – January 14, 1995) was an African-American psychologist, social theorist, Pan-African thinker, scholar and author.

Early life and education

Born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 1941, Wilson completed his undergraduate degree at the Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, mastered at The New School of Social Research, and attained a PhD degree from Fordham University in New York. Wilson worked as a psychologist, social caseworker, supervising probation officer and as a training administrator in the New York City Department of Juvenile Justice. As an academic, Wilson also taught at City University of New York from 1981 to 1986 and at the College of New Rochelle from 1987 to 1995.^[1]

Political views

Wilson believed the power differential between Africans and non-Africans was the major social problem of the 21st century.^[2] He viewed this power differential, and white racist attitudes, as principally responsible for the existence of racism, domination, oppression, and deprivation in the lives and interpersonal relations of black Americans and other people of African descent.. As an African-centered scholar, Wilson felt that the social, political and economic problems that blacks faced were unlike those of other ethnicities and thus equal education ought to be abandoned for a curriculum tailor-made for black America. Wilson affirmed that the purpose of education and intelligence for black people is to solve the problems in their communities and secure their survival in the world and any school—regardless of prestige—that failed to provide blacks with the tools necessary for these tasks was in fact mis-educating them.^[3] Wilson taught that the notion of progress (i.e. situations and conditions necessarily get better over time) to which many Blacks subscribe is really a fallacy and that integration is based upon economic expansion and prosperity and if reversed could result in racial conflict. Blacks should thus be prepared for this potential conflict with the understanding that integration does not necessarily last forever.^[4] Wilson also held that racism is structurally and institutionally driven and will persist even when more overt expressions of it are no longer present. Racism, then, must be transformed structurally if Blacks are to improve:

"As a matter of fact, this society is going to become more supremely racist when it is apparently non-racist...you can have a society that removes all public expression of racism, you can have a society where people no longer overtly express racial hatred and race[sic] statement[s] and behavior is outlawed, but you can still have a system that destroys millions and millions of Black people...You must recognize that racism is not an attitude; it is not a feeling of hatred toward another people...you must understand that racism and white supremacy is in the very structures and values of the institutions of the society itself! And until you revolve and change those structures and attitudes and values, you will always be under the bottom I don't give a damn if white people expressed no hatred toward you."^[5]

Books

• The Developmental Psychology of the Black Child (1978)
• Black-on-Black Violence: The Psychodynamics of Black Self-Annihilation in Service of White Domination (1990)
• Understanding Black Male Adolescent Violence: Its Prevention and Remediation (1992)
• Awakening the Natural Genius of Black Children (1992)
• The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness: Eurocentric History, Psychiatry and the Politics of White Supremacy (1993)
• Blueprint for Black Power: A Moral, Political and Economic Imperative for the Twenty-First Century (1998)
• Afrikan-Centered Consciousness Versus the New World Order: Garveyism in the Age of Globalism (1999)
• The Developmental Psychology of the Black Child — Second Edition (2014)

References

External links

• "Dr. Amos Wilson’s Last Interview (1995)", African Blood Siblings.
• "Dr. Amos N. Wilson", AALBC.