The Last

Negroes

at Harvard

The Class of 1963 and the 18 Young Men Who Changed Harvard Forever

Meet the 18: Kent Wilson

Kent Wilson
Born: Springfield, IL, 1942
Prepared at: Springfield High School, Springfield, IL

It was still a touchy matter. You would go to a mixer and if you asked a white girl to dance, there were very few Black girls. So, you would ask a white girl to dance. She would dance with you, but it was the straight arm, please don't get too close.

Kent grew up in Springfield, Illinois, as part of a small minority Black population. He was raised by his mother and her family and went to the public schools in Springfield. At Harvard, Kent was part of the renowned singing group, the Krokodiloes. After graduating, Kent spent at a year traveling through Eastern Europe on a student exchange program and then two years in Ecuador with the Peace Corps, where he coached the national track team. He went back to business school and then to a career in a business that took him to Saudi Arabia and to Baden, Austria, where he married and raised a family.