Original biography written by Serena Torres. Additions written by Em Longan in 2023.
Preston Rosenthal Wilcox was born on December 27, 1923 in Youngstown, Ohio, to John Wilcox and Ida Mae Rousseau Wilcox. An avid basketball player, Wilcox played for Rayen High School, Morehouse College, and the New York Gothams. He left Morehouse after a year and joined the United States Army in 1942. After his discharge in 1946, Wilcox moved to Brooklyn, New York, where his mother had relocated. He enrolled in City College and completed a Bachelor of Science in Biology in 1949, and later earned a Masters of Social Work from Columbia University in 1956.
Wilcox married Katherine Knight in 1951. They had three children together: Gwynne Alicia, David Preston, and Susan Elise. Wilcox and Knight later divorced, and in 1974, Wilcox had a daughter, Liana Amani, with Marylyn Yangson. Also in 1974, Wilcox was severely injured in an automobile accident, which affected him for the rest of his life.
Known as "the father of school decentralization" in New York City, and "the leading theoretician of the community control movement," Wilcox was at the forefront of the campaigns at Intermediate School 201 in Harlem and later in the Ocean-Brownsville school district, for parent participation in curriculum development, and in the hiring of school supervisors and teachers. Between 1963 and 1973, Wilcox authored approximately 200 articles, position papers, and essays on public eduction and community empowerment. His work was published in professional journals and as chapters in books. Wilcox also taught courses in social work theory and community organization at Columbia University's School of Social Work between 1963 and 1968, at Atlanta University, Medgar Evers College, and other institutions of higher learning in the 1970s.
In 1968, Wilcox founded the National Association of African American Educators (NAAAE). In the same year, he founded AFRAM Associates, a public service agency that provided technical assistance to community groups in education, economic development, and consumer rights. Between 1970 and 1975, AFRAM operated a parent-implemented program in education, funded by the Follow Through Program Division of Compensatory Education of the United States Office of Education, at eight AFRAM-affiliated sites in Arkansas, Massachusetts, Illinois, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia. AFRAM also operated a farm experiment, AFRAM Farm, in upstate New York, as a campsite and recreational center for urban-bound families and groups, and as a conference and rural educational research and study center. In later years, AFRAM evolved into a one-person alternative clearinghouse compiling and disseminating information relevant to the Black community. An admirer of Malcolm X, Wilcox kept an informal network of Malcolm X followers and former associates: the Malcolm X Lovers Network.
Preston Wilcox died in his East Harlem home on August 12, 2006.