Betty Reid Soskin, who became a national figure as the oldest-serving National Park Service ranger and used her platform to illuminate the African American experience during the Second World War, has died at the age of 104.
Her family and the park service confirmed her passing via social media, stating she was surrounded by loved ones at her California home on Sunday. Her cause of death was not disclosed.
The park service paid tribute, saying, "She was a powerful voice for sharing her personal experiences, highlighting untold stories, and honoring the contributions of women from diverse backgrounds who worked on the World War II Home Front. Thank you for your service, Ranger Betty."
A long-time community activist, Soskin was 85 when she was hired as an interpretive ranger at the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California.
This site, located at a former shipyard, commemorates American civilians, including the women who contributed to war-related industries on the home front. Soskin played a crucial role in the park's development, working as a state legislative aide to ensure the often-overlooked contributions of Black men and women were included in its narrative.
Her advocacy highlighted events such as the July 1944 explosion at Port Chicago, where 202 Black sailors, assigned to a segregated unit loading munitions, were killed.
The subsequent refusal of 50 survivors to continue working under unsafe conditions led to their court-martial and mutiny convictions, exposing systemic racial inequality within the Navy. Soskin, who worked as a clerk for an all-Black boilermaker’s union in Richmond, championed the stories of the "non Rosies" – those who were denied the opportunity to build battleships due to their skin color.
"Rosie the Riveter represents the white woman’s experience on the homefront during the war, but as a woman of color, I was never recognized for my work," she wrote in an October 2020 essay for Newsweek. "I had never understood that I had been involved in the building of the ships. Because at the time, I was 20 years old. I didn’t realize what my role was until I began to go back and recount it for others. It was rather amazing."
Her weekly lectures at the park drew significant audiences and garnered national attention, including an invitation to introduce then-President Barack Obama at the 2015 Christmas tree lighting ceremony. In 2008, Glamour Magazine named her one of its women of the year.
Social media tributes poured in following her death, with many describing her as an "amazing woman" and a "jewel of the park system."
Born in 1921, Soskin led a remarkably varied life, described by her family as a mother, musician, author, political activist, wife, record store owner, songwriter, painter, grandmother, great-grandmother, and prolific blogger. Her family posted that she had led "a fully packed life and was ready to leave."
Her 2018 autobiography, "Sign My Name to Freedom: A Memoir of a Pioneering Life," explored her nine decades of living through extraordinary historical moments. These included opening Reid’s Records, an influential Black-owned record store in Berkeley with her first husband, Mel Reid, and becoming the first Black family to live in suburban Walnut Creek. Despite a cross being burned on their lawn, her family refused to move.
She noted that the same community later elected her as a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention, remarking: "That is how fast social change occurred."
Soskin retired on March 31, 2022. "I became a ranger when most people retire so I had no idea what it required of me, but it opened up a lot of opportunities that would have been closed to me otherwise," she wrote in her essay. While a public memorial has yet to be announced, her family has suggested donations to the Betty Reid Soskin Middle School in El Sobrante, California, which was renamed in her honour.
She had visited the school in September for her birthday, greeted by cheering children. Soskin is survived by two of her four children, Bob and Dorian Reid.
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