Betty Reid Soskin, a pioneering historian and the oldest lively U.S. park ranger till her retirement in 2022, died Sunday at her dwelling in Richmond. She was 104.
Soskin served greater than 15 years as a ranger on the Rosie the Riveter/World Struggle II House Entrance Nationwide Historic Park in Richmond, the place she led excursions and helped form the park’s narrative by centering the experiences of Black ladies throughout World Struggle II.
“Being a primary source in the sharing of that history — my history — and helping give shape to a new national park has been exciting and fulfilling,” Soskin stated in a Nationwide Park Service assertion after her retirement. “It brought meaning to my final years.”
Members of the family confirmed her loss of life in a Fb publish, saying Soskin was surrounded by family members. Her son, Robert Reid, stated she died in hospice care after being hospitalized for an intestinal blockage and selecting to not endure surgical procedure.
“Her cause of death was living,” Reid stated, recalling his mom joking on the hospital. “She lived it up and there was nothing left in the end. She was ready to go … she was her to the very end.”
Betty Reid Soskin, the 94-year-old ranger who was brutally attacked inside her dwelling two weeks in the past, is greeted by colleagues as she arrives for a information convention asserting her return to work on the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Homefront Nationwide Historic Park customer heart in Richmond, Calif., on Tuesday, July 12, 2016. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Space Information Group)
Whereas many individuals got here to know Soskin by means of her work with the Nationwide Park Service, Reid emphasised the breadth of her life earlier than she turned a ranger at age 85. She was a enterprise proprietor, a singer-songwriter and an anti-war and civil rights activist, and was an in depth pal of Malvina Reynolds, the Berkeley songwriter greatest recognized for “Little Boxes.”
Soskin was born Betty Charbonnet on Sept. 22, 1921, in Detroit to a Louisiana Creole household. She lived in New Orleans earlier than transferring to Oakland at age 6, years earlier than the massive migration of African People to the Bay Space throughout World Struggle II.
Through the battle, Soskin labored as a file clerk for a segregated shipyard employees union auxiliary. She was later employed by the U.S. Air Drive in 1942 however give up after studying she had been employed as a result of supervisors mistakenly believed she was white, in keeping with a Nationwide Park Service biography.
After the battle, Soskin and her first husband, Mel Reid, purchased property and constructed their dwelling in an all-white suburb of Walnut Creek, turning into the primary Black household within the space within the Fifties. They confronted loss of life threats and hostility from neighbors.
In 1945, the couple based Reid’s Information, a longtime Berkeley establishment devoted to the distribution of African American music. Within the Eighties and Nineties, Soskin took over the enterprise and expanded its choices to incorporate church provides because the music trade developed.
Park ranger Betty Reid-Soskin, 94, takes half within the metropolis’s annual naturalization ceremony at Craneway Pavilion in Richmond, Calif., on Thursday, March 24, 2016. Reid-Soskin additionally spoke on the occasion. Deputy Director of the Nationwide Park Service Denise Ryan, a number of Rosie the Riveters and others participated within the ceremony as 51 individuals from 22 nations turned U.S. residents. (Jane Tyska/Bay Space Information Group)
Soskin was additionally deeply concerned within the civil rights motion. In keeping with her son, she turned lively within the Mount Diablo Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the place an emphasis on progressive politics and social motion made her really feel welcomed.
Within the Sixties, she wrote and carried out unique protest songs addressing racism, battle and social justice. Within the Nineteen Seventies, she raised cash from white donors within the Diablo Valley to help the Black Panther Celebration; some members of the prolonged Reid household had been lively within the group.
Her musical legacy is enshrined within the 2024 musical “Sign My Name to Freedom,” which shares its title together with her 2018 memoir. Robert Reid stated the identify comes from a track his mom wrote honoring ladies who traveled to Mississippi to assist Black residents register to vote.
“Even though my mother’s gone, she’ll still be around,” he stated, referring to the documentary movie “Sign My Name to Freedom,” which he hopes will likely be launched quickly.
Later in life, Soskin labored as a discipline consultant for former state Meeting members Dion Aroner and Loni Hancock and was lively in planning Richmond’s Rosie the Riveter park. Her talks about race and social change regularly bought out.
She acquired quite a few honors for her work. In 1995, she was named California Lady of the Yr. In 2015, she acquired a presidential coin from President Barack Obama after serving to gentle the Nationwide Christmas Tree on the White Home.
Betty Reid Soskin seems over supplies with Tom Leatherman, Common Superintendent of the Rosie the Riveter/WWII House Entrance Nationwide Historic Park, proper, and Congressman Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11) previous to a ceremony recognizing Soskin’s lifetime of achievements in Richmond, Calif., on Friday, Oct. 7, 2016. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Space Information Group)
In June 2016, Soskin was woke up in her Richmond dwelling by a robber who dragged her from her bed room and beat her. She was 94 on the time. Soskin recovered and returned to work simply weeks later. The stolen presidential coin was later changed.
“I don’t want to face the public as a victim. I’m a survivor,” she stated on the time. “People need to know I’m all right, and you can send that message.”
Glamour journal named Soskin a Lady of the Yr in 2018, and he or she was later honored with an entry within the Congressional Report.
Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez known as Soskin “an amazing woman” with “moxie” who introduced historical past to life by means of storytelling.
“She is the embodiment of resilience,” Martinez stated. “She is the embodiment of self-awareness and understanding the meaning of social justice. She’s gonna be missed. … She also was a good example of compassion and forgiveness, and I think that’s what gave her strength.”
In 2019, Soskin suffered a stroke however recovered and returned to work on the Rosie the Riveter museum 5 months later. When she returned in January 2020, she instructed employees and well-wishers that she feared she won’t recuperate.
“But it’s amazing,” she stated after arriving again on the park.
Nationwide Park Ranger Betty Reid Soskin will get a hug from fellow ranger Armand Johnson on the the Rosie the Riveter/World Struggle II House Entrance Nationwide Historic Park in Richmond, Calif., on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2020. Soskin, 98, the nation’s oldest ranger, returned to work part-time on Wednesday after struggling a stroke 5 months in the past. (Jane Tyska/Bay Space Information Group)
Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia recalled assembly Soskin earlier than she was employed on the Rosie the Riveter museum, when he requested how she felt in regards to the park given its historical past of discrimination.
Soskin instructed him that these tales — each the uplifting and the painful — wanted to be instructed, however she was uncertain whether or not they truly can be. Gioia stated the dialog stayed with him as a result of Soskin, who questioned whether or not the park would totally confront that historical past, in the end turned one of many individuals entrusted to inform it.
“She had this hesitation, but she went on to be part of history to tell these stories,” Gioia stated.
Soskin divorced Mel Reid in 1972 and married Dr. William Soskin in 1978. She met her second husband whereas working as an administrator on the College of California. Each of her husbands and her father died within the late Eighties.
Soskin is survived by her son, Robert Thomas Reid of Oakland; her daughters, Diara Melitte Kitty Reid and Dorian Leon Reid of Richmond; 5 grandchildren; one great-grandchild; and three nieces.
Her life can also be the topic of the documentary “No Time to Waste: The Urgent Mission of Betty Reid Soskin,” which celebrates her work to revive what the movie describes as “critical missing chapters of America’s story.”
The household inspired these wishing to honor Soskin’s legacy to donate to Betty Reid Soskin Center College or help completion of the documentary, “Sign My Name to Freedom.”
EL SOBRANTE, CA – SEPTEMBER 22: Betty Reid Soskin visits with company and relations throughout a ceremony to have a good time her a hundredth birthday and the naming of the Betty Reid Soskin Center College in honor of the nation’s oldest residing Nationwide Park Ranger on Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021, in El Sobrante, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
