Remembering Betty Reid Soskin, the iconic National Park Service ranger
Retired at age 100
Surrounded by loved ones, Betty Reid Soskin’s final moments reflected the way she lived her life: full, intentional, and deeply meaningful. In a statement released Sunday morning, her family said she had “led a fully packed life and was ready to leave.”
And what a life it was.
Long before donning a ranger uniform, Soskin helped shape the future of Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond. She worked closely with the city and the NPS to develop its management plan, ensuring that the stories of African Americans and other people of color, so often left out of WWII narratives, were finally told.
Her journey with the Park Service didn’t even begin until she was 84.
Through a grant funded by PG&E, Soskin helped uncover untold stories of Black Americans on the WWII home front, a project that led to her temporary, and later permanent, role with the NPS. Her powerful interpretive programs transformed how visitors understood America’s past, shining a long-overdue spotlight on voices history had ignored.
