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Research dossier · History & Society

Harrison B. Wilson

President of Norfolk state University (1925-2019)

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ16090134
Source-derived summary

Harrison Benjamin Wilson Jr. (April 21, 1925 – July 28, 2019) was an American health educator and college basketball coach who served as the second president of Norfolk State University from 1975 to 1997.

Early life

Wilson was born on April 21, 1925, in Amsterdam, New York, the son of Marguerite (Ayers) and Harrison Benjamin Wilson Sr. After serving in the United States Navy from 1945 to 1947, he enrolled at the Kentucky State College for Negroes (now Kentucky State University) and received his B.S. degree, was an honor student and became a star athlete in basketball, football, baseball, and track.

Career

Wilson was the head basketball coach at the Jackson College for Negro Teachers (now Jackson State University) from 1950 to 1967 and had a cumulative 342–88 record. At Jackson College, he was also chair of the Department of Health and Physical Education from 1960 to 1967.

In the early 1950s, Wilson enrolled at Indiana University Bloomington, where he completed a master's degree in physical education and Ph.D. in health science and administration.

He retired in 1997. The NSU administrative building was named in his honor. Dr.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Harrison B. Wilson” is president of Norfolk state University (1925-2019). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Harrison, Wilson and President, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1925, 2019, 1975, 1997—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1925-04-21. For this dossier, Harrison, Wilson and President is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “president of Norfolk state University (1925-2019)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16090134. VIAF identifies the subject as 62155707103422411766. The Library of Congress control number is n2019021436. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 2019, 1975 and 1997.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Harrison B. Wilson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Harrison B. Wilson primary sources, Harrison B. Wilson archive and Harrison research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Harrison B. Wilson”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Harrison B. Wilson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.