Wonder Woman of the Week: Betty Reid Soskin

My brother and I both have a plan for if we live to be 80 years old. We’re going on all bacon cheese burger diets because neither one of us thinks we’ll be active enough to do anything useful. This week’s spotlight puts our future selves to shame. The 92 year-old Betty Reid Soskin is the oldest full-time US Park Ranger and she’s the Wonder Woman of the Week.

During World War II, Betty Reid Soskin worked as a file clerk in the Boilermakers Auxiliary 36. During Jim Crow, black women were segregated even in the military and Soskin herself worked in an all-black union. Her chances for a career were limited to agriculture or domestic service. [1] Her work in Richmond, CA entailed building warships at a factory that produced one ship per day for almost the entirety of the war. One might say she was a real-life Rosie the Riveter- but not Soskin. She recognized that inspiration did not extend to black girls. While white women were liberated by the war effort, black women gained no significant civil rights. [2]

After the war, “boom towns” built up around cities for middle class GI’s returning from war, but these neighborhoods banned minorities. Betty Reid Soskin jumped at the chance to join African American Civil Rights Movements primarily to help black veterans and fellow workers returning from World War II receive affordable and humane housing. She moved out of Richmond and worked towards improving life for African Americans in the state. During the post-war years, Betty Reid Soskin and her husband received death threats from white supremacists. That however did not stop this Wonder Woman from campaigning, protesting, and songwriting for the Civil Rights Movement. [2]

Towards the end of the century, Soskin returned to Richmond to develop a new National Park. While Soskin was working as a State Assembly field representative, the National Park Service was forming an urban park devoted to the World War II home front. In 200, Soskin was invited to sit in on the meeting for how to form such a park and was the only person of color at the meeting. The whole room wanted to listen to her talk about her life and share her story of the war. In 2003, she left her job to become a full-time consultant and in 2007, Soskin became a Park Ranger. [1]

In 2009, Betty Reid Soskin was invited to Barak Obama’s Presidential Inauguration and witnessed the first African-American President take his oath of office. In her pocket was an old photo of her great-grandmother- a slave freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. Sokin explain after the Inaugeration she learned to move past her anger and worked instead to share the stories of all members of the war effort and post-war civil rights. [2]

Today, Betty Reid Soskin leads tour groups at the park, speaks to youth after film showings, and shares her and many other women’s’ stories from the war. Soskin may not have identified with Rosie the Riveter, but she shares even her story at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historic Park. At age 92, Betty Reid Soskin is the oldest living National Park Ranger, and the oldest living Wonder Woman of the Week.

"Women's History Month: An Interview with 93-Year-Old National Park Service Ranger Betty Reid Soskin." Women's History Month: An Interview with 93-Year-Old National Park Service Ranger Betty Reid Soskin. Accessed April 22, 2015. http://www.doi.gov/employees/news/womens-history-month-an-interview-with-93-year-old-national-park-service-ranger-betty-reid-soskin.cfm.

Soskin, Betty Reid. "Oldest National Park Ranger Shares 'What Gets Remembered'" Online interview by author. May 15, 2014. http://www.npr.org/2014/05/15/312707926/oldest-national-park-ranger-shares-what-gets-remembered