To be a man, Johnnie Wilson, Jr

by Johnnie Wilson

“Johnnie Wilson’s oral history, lovingly assembled by Susan Rothenberg, provides windows into large segments of American life seldom so carefully recaptured: rural black America, baseball, the waterfront and, above all, family life in the early twentieth century. Wilson was an ‘ordinary’ decent, fascinating citizen whose story I found simply extraordinary.” Fay Vincent, former commissioner, Major League Baseball