Susan Rothenberg is an oral historian and scholar living in San Francisco.

Susan Gluck Rothenberg is an oral historian living in San Francisco. She has used her training as a psychiatric social worker with a variety of populations: troubled families; abused and neglected children; young families learning parenting skills; and older adults. Recently, she has found a new niche in helping elders record their life experiences and editing those remembrances into a coherent tale, leaving their families and friends with far more than just a chronology of their lives. To Be A Man: Johnnie Wilson, Jr. is her first book. Her work has previously been published in The Oral History Review.

Susan was born in New York City and educated at Hunter College and the University of Chicago, where she earned an M.S.W. from the School of Social Service Administration in 1969. She is currently an Affiliated Scholar in the History Department of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.

Susan says of To Be A Man: "Written as he spoke it, Mr. Wilson tells of his early life in Louisiana and his adult years in Galveston and San Francisco in vivid colloquial language that gives the reader the feeling of sitting across the kitchen table listening to Mr. Wilson talk. His story-telling provides an illuminating and accessible historical account of the lives of blacks in the South and their migration north during World War II. Details about routine living skills add important details to his story, as does the importance of Negro baseball. Life was not always simple or pleasant for Mr. Wilson, but hard lessons he learned at an early age molded him into a man able to overcome obstacles, placed in his path by time, place and racism, without losing his innate decency.

"Johnnie's story is an inspiration to all of us who are looking for basic goodness in today´s self-centered world. To Be A Man: Johnnie Wilson Jr. grew from a chance encounter with Mr. Wilson´s grandson, Lorrel Anderson, who drove for a car service that took me to the airport. Lorrel and I got into a conversation about family and soon, with great love and pride, he was telling me about his 93 year-old grandfather. As a result of that car ride, I began recording Mr. Wilson´s story for his family. The more he told me, the more I felt that his story spoke beyond to more people than just his family."