Betty Reid Soskin, 1921- Present
Betty Reid Soskin, 1921- Present
At age 98, Betty Reid Soskin is currently an active National Park ranger, stationed at the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front Park in Richmond, CA. From her memoir Sign My Name To Freedom, Soskin shares her experiences as living in Black Creole New Orleans, growing up in East Oakland, working as a songwriter and performer, as a black business leader in Berkeley, as a public advocate in the city of Richmond, and her personal struggles against racial discrimination and other injustices in the years throughout. After graduating from high school in 1942, a young Black woman had two options: work in the fields or become a maid. Soskin got a job at the shipyards as a file clerk, in a segregated union hall. Sixty years after the war, the NPS began planning the Rosie the Riveter historical site and invited Rosies. “I was the only person of color in the room, and the only person who could look at the sites and instantly recognize them as places of racism and segregation.” Soskin became a full-time ranger at the age of 85, famous for her presentations of the era, and is celebrated in a documentary called “No Time to Waste.”
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Betty Reid Soskin, 1921- Present
At age 98, Betty Reid Soskin is currently an active National Park ranger, stationed at the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front Park in Richmond, CA. From her memoir Sign My Name To Freedom, Soskin shares her experiences as living in Black Creole New Orleans, growing up in East Oakland, working as a songwriter and performer, as a black business leader in Berkeley, as a public advocate in the city of Richmond, and her personal struggles against racial discrimination and other injustices in the years throughout. After graduating from high school in 1942, a young Black woman had two options: work in the fields or become a maid. Soskin got a job at the shipyards as a file clerk, in a segregated union hall. Sixty years after the war, the NPS began planning the Rosie the Riveter historical site and invited Rosies. “I was the only person of color in the room, and the only person who could look at the sites and instantly recognize them as places of racism and segregation.” Soskin became a full-time ranger at the age of 85, famous for her presentations of the era, and is celebrated in a documentary called “No Time to Waste.”