A Pioneer Is Gone

OBITUARY
Milton Wilson—Texas’s first African American CPA—died in October. Licensed in 1952, he also was among the nation’s first 100 African American CPAs. During the civil rights era, Wilson was one of the first seven African Americans to earn a doctoral degree in accounting.

According to A White-Collar Profession: African American Certified Public Accountants since 1921 by Theresa A. Hammond (University of North Carolina Press, 2002), Wilson, as dean, led Texas Southern University’s School of Business in 1967 to become the first historically black college or university to earn accreditation from the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). In 1970 Wilson became dean of Howard University’s School of Business, which in 1980 he also led to AACSB accreditation. Wilson was the only dean to accomplish this at two African American colleges.