She is an intellectual and labor historian whose current research examines the intersections between black labor movements, black social scientists, and black women’s history during the Jim Crow era. Her book, The Segregated Scholars: Black Social Scientists and the Creation of Black Labor Studies, 1890–1950 (2006) details the world and works of fifteen pioneering scholar-activists over three generations. Her current studies of the lawyer and economist Sadie T. M. Alexander investigate the impact of racism and sexism on black professional women in the early twentieth century as well as media representations of black working women. Wilson serves on the Los Angeles Commission on the Status of Women as well as on the state board of the California African American Museum.