In what is arguably Wilson's magnum opus, The Truly Disadvantaged, published in 1987, Wilson turned his sharp eye on "the culture of poverty," a term he does not like. Wilson described the problems of the innercity--crime, welfare dependency, drugs--but in the context of even harsher problems like joblessness, racism and oppression.

One of Wilson's closest colleagues, Kennedy School Professor of Public Policy Christopher Jencks, says, "The Truly Disadvantaged synthesized a whole range of different ideas into a really coherent story about why the inner-city had become such a terrible place to live."

More important, this book reopened discussion about the black family without sociologists having to fear being considered racist.

"Wilson single-handedly relegitimated the study of racially charged issues about black policy," Skocpol says, "issues that many social scientists had shied away from addressing."

In Wilson's 1978 book, The Declining Significance of Race, he took on the shifting significance of class and race in poor blacks' lives.

In the book, Wilson argues that because of the growing black middle class and the civil rights movement, the problem of class produces more pressing issues for the black poor than does racial discrimination.

Wilson took great lengths in the book to show the prevalence of racism in America but argued that the main problem facing poor blacks in more economic than racial.

Still, many of Wilson's readers were appalled by what they preceived as his abandonment, starting even with the book's title, of his own race.

An opinion piece in The New York Times called Wilson's work mistaken. And the Association of Black Sociologists field a protest when the American Sociological Association awarded Wilson the Sydney A. Spivack Award for his book.

The Charismatic Professor

In contrast to the academic sparks that fly from his work, Wilson, who is also teaching in the Afro-Am department this year, is "quietly charismatic," according to Gates.

"His demeanor reflects the quality that accrues after years of study of a serious problem," Gates says.

Wilson's colleagues call him "reserved" but also contend that underneath his tweed jackets with leather patches and flannel slacks he has "a twinkly in his eye."

One of Skocpol's favorite stories about Wilson, from the days when they worked together at the University of Chicago, exemplifies Wilson's reserve--and sense of humor.

Every year the sociology graduate students at Chicago put on a program called the "Spring Follies" that includes skits about faculty members. One year in particular, when Wilson's urban poverty research received millions of dollars of grants from several foundations, his research assistants decided to do a skit about him.