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JHan

(10,173 posts)
Sun Feb 17, 2019, 06:35 PM Feb 2019

The 97-Year-Old Park Ranger Who Doesn't Have Time for Foolishness



https://www.glamour.com/story/women-of-the-year-2018-betty-reid-soskin

As the oldest career National Park Service ranger, Betty Soskin is unabashed about revealing all of America's history—and her optimism about our future.

“What gets remembered is determined by who is in the room doing the remembering,” Betty Reid Soskin likes to say. So she’s made it her singular purpose to always be in the room.

Today that room is the auditorium at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, where—at 97—she’s the oldest person now serving as a permanent National Park Service ranger. She packs the theater three times a week with talks about the Rosies and the typically white narrative about the women who served the war effort, but interweaves her experience as a young black woman in segregated America.

There are a few things you should know about my friend Betty. Barely five feet three inches tall, she is sylphlike and strong. When she walks, she leans slightly forward, as if facing a headwind, and strides with speed and purpose. Betty never planned to be a ranger. She got the job at the young age of 85, after working as a field representative for her California assemblywoman, Dion Aroner. Aroner asked her to sit in on planning meetings for what would become the park, and Betty quickly saw that, if she didn’t speak up, the park would portray a whitewashed version of history. “There was no conspiracy to leave my history out,” she says. “There was simply no one in that room with any reason to know it.” So she sparked additions to the formal narratives: the 120,000 people of Japanese descent placed in internment camps by the government; the 320 sailors and workers, 202 of them black men, who died in the explosions at nearby Port Chicago. “So many stories,” Betty muses, “all but forgotten.”

Working at an all-black union hall during World War II and then briefly in an all-white branch of the Air Force (they didn’t realize she was black when they hired her), Betty saw stories like these firsthand, becoming, as she puts it, “a primary source” from the time. Tom Leatherman, the park’s superintendent, says Betty motivated organizers to bring more people to the table: “Because of Betty, we made sure we had African American scholars review our films and exhibits, but we also made sure we were looking out for other, often forgotten stories—Japanese American, Latino American, American Indian, and LGBTQ narratives—that were equally important.”

This year Betty also began sharing her own story. In February she published a memoir, Sign My Name to Freedom, which traces her roots back to her great-grandmother Leontine Breaux Allen, who was born into slavery in Louisiana in 1846 and lived until she was 102. Her families’ lives, Betty says, “stretch from Dred Scott to Black Lives Matter.” Her long view of history—brutally honest and fiercely optimistic—is what draws people to her speeches, both at the park and at her numerous engagements. But what keeps listeners enthralled is hearing a woman who speaks extemporaneously and inclusively about America in its fullness. She also offers a blueprint on how not to despair about our times. “Democracy has been experiencing these periods of chaos since 1776. They come and go,” she says. “And it’s in those periods that democracy is redefined.” When everything seems to be crumbling, we can remold and reset, she believes: “History has been written by people who got it wrong, but the people who are always trying to get it right have prevailed. If that were not true, I would still be a slave like my great-grandmother.”

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The 97-Year-Old Park Ranger Who Doesn't Have Time for Foolishness (Original Post) JHan Feb 2019 OP
She is beautiful. sheshe2 Feb 2019 #1
inside and outside... Raster Feb 2019 #3
K&R Kurt V. Feb 2019 #2
OMG, she looks fantastic. Laffy Kat Feb 2019 #4
I'm such a slacker! brer cat Feb 2019 #5
To you Ms Soskin GeoWilliam750 Feb 2019 #6
She gives me hope. Dem2theMax Feb 2019 #7
She has more patriotism in her little toe than BigmanPigman Feb 2019 #8
What an inspiration!! Ferrets are Cool Feb 2019 #9
awesome. pansypoo53219 Feb 2019 #10
Thank you for sharing this! We are going to make a reservation to see one of her talks. deurbano Feb 2019 #11
She's nothing less than a miracle! akraven Feb 2019 #12
Beautiful! Thanks, JHan! ♡ nt littlemissmartypants Feb 2019 #13
OMG... I love this so much! NurseJackie Feb 2019 #14

sheshe2

(88,100 posts)
1. She is beautiful.
Sun Feb 17, 2019, 06:42 PM
Feb 2019
“History has been written by people who got it wrong, but the people who are always trying to get it right have prevailed. If that were not true, I would still be a slave like my great-grandmother.”


Thank you for introducing me to Betty Reid Soskin, JHan.

BigmanPigman

(52,353 posts)
8. She has more patriotism in her little toe than
Sun Feb 17, 2019, 08:55 PM
Feb 2019

the entire GOP/treasonous party has combined. She is a REAL American!

deurbano

(2,960 posts)
11. Thank you for sharing this! We are going to make a reservation to see one of her talks.
Sun Feb 17, 2019, 10:38 PM
Feb 2019

Not surprisingly, they are pretty popular! http://www.rosietheriveter.org/visit-discover/tours-schedules

I was just Googling her, and what an amazing woman! And SO sharp at 97... or ANY age!
Not sure how I missed hearing about her, since I live in the Bay Area, and she hasn't exactly been in hiding....

Here's a video:



Here's her blog:
http://cbreaux.blogspot.com/2019/

And I'm happy to see this article is by Farai Chideya! She met my daughter at a march for affirmative action at Berkeley and included her in her book, The Color of the Future.



akraven

(1,975 posts)
12. She's nothing less than a miracle!
Mon Feb 18, 2019, 01:25 AM
Feb 2019

I had read about her before and OMG - the courage it must have taken her!

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