Betty Reid Soskin, a historic figure who was the National Park Service’s oldest ranger when she retired several years ago, has died at the age of 104.
Soskin’s death was confirmed in a Facebook post on December 21 by her family. For more than a decade, Soskin had been sharing her story as a park ranger at Rosie the Riveter’s World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, in an effort to fill in missing chapters in the American narrative that only people like her could know. They did not reveal the cause of her death.
Born in Detroit in 1921, Soskin was the great-granddaughter of a former Louisiana slave, according to “No Time to Waste: An Urgent Message from Betty Reed Soskin,” a documentary about Soskin’s life produced in conjunction with the Rosie the Riveter Trust.
Six years later, Soskin’s Cajun Creole family moved to California, where she grew up in Richmond and worked as a filing clerk in a segregated shipyard union hall supporting the U.S. effort in World War II. Decades of discrimination have honed her character and determination.
As a child of what she calls the “service worker generation” (i.e., waiters, laborers, Pullman porters, and domestic servants), Soskin is well aware of racism and its effects. She said her time as a union clerk represented a step forward, the modern equivalent of being the first person to go to college.
“I didn’t make beds in hotels and babysit white people’s children,” she says in “No Time to Waste.”
According to the National Park Trust, Soskin was one of the first black record store owners in the United States. She played with the Black Panthers in California’s East Bay Valley, eventually writing a memoir, making spoken-word recordings, and writing songs that reflected her emotional highs and lows — the latter as a way to stay sane, she said.
Betty Reid Soskin, the oldest full-time National Park Service ranger in the United States, poses for a photo at her home in Richmond, California, on September 21, 2021, the day before her 100th birthday. Soskin works at Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park, leading tours and answering questions about how black women like herself supported America’s war effort despite the challenges of racism. During the war, Soskin worked as a file clerk at Boilermakers Union Hall A-36 in Richmond, a segregated union hall.
She says it’s not always easy to stay hopeful, but inspired by the crowds who took to America’s streets during Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020, she succeeded.
“There are other people doing the same thing,” she told USA Today in July 2020. “One of us is going to make it one day. The people on the street are multiracial now, and that’s different. That means the issue is no longer about me as a black man. It’s about everyone now.”
In 2015, Soskin was invited to attend the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the Oval at the White House, where he introduced President Barack Obama. Meeting the Obamas was “the highlight of my life,” she said.
In 2007, now in her 80s, Soskin became a national park ranger, educating visitors about the contributions black women made to World War II despite facing discrimination.
“I feel like my life is fulfilling,” she said. “I don’t have any regrets. I feel like I have nothing unfinished. I feel like I’ve had my life and I’ve lived every minute of it.”
Contributed by: “USA Today” and “Autumn Schoolman”
This article originally appeared in USA TODAY: Betty Reed Soskin: America’s oldest park ranger dies at 104