Betty Reid Soskin, nation's oldest park ranger and civil rights pioneer, dies at 104

Betty Reid Soskin, who became the nation's oldest active National Park Service ranger and spent more than a decade sharing often-overlooked stories of African American contributions during World War II, died peacefully at her home Sunday morning, according to her family. She was 104.

Her family announced her death on social media, saying she "was attended by family" and "led a fully packed life and was ready to leave."

Born Betty Charbonnet in 1921 in Detroit, Soskin arrived in Oakland at age 6 after the catastrophic 1927 Mississippi River flood devastated her family's New Orleans home, according to the National Park Service. She grew up in a Cajun-Creole family descended from enslaved people, her great-grandmother Leontine Breaux Allen having been born into slavery in 1846.

During World War II, Soskin worked as a file clerk in a segregated boilermakers union hall in Richmond, according to park records.

"The history as I had lived it was nowhere in sight," she said in a recorded park presentation about early narratives that celebrated wartime unity while omitting racial segregation.

Soskin didn't join the National Park Service until age 85, initially as a consultant helping develop the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park, according to the park. As the only person of color at early planning meetings, she recognized the park's proposed sites as monuments to racial segregation, housing developments, child care centers, and villages where Black workers were excluded.

Soskin became a permanent ranger in 2007, leading programs at the park's visitor center and ensuring the public understood the complete story of the home front.

Soskin gained national attention in 2013 during the federal government shutdown, when her status as the oldest park ranger drew widespread media coverage, according to the Park Service.

She published her memoir, "Sign My Name to Freedom," in 2018 and received numerous honors, including the California State Legislature's Woman of the Year award in 1995 and the World War II Museum's Silver Medallion in 2016, according to the Park Service.

In recent years, filmmaker Bryan Gibel documented her rediscovery of dozens of original songs she had hidden away for more than 50 years, according to the documentary's fundraising materials. The songs chronicled her family's experiences as among the first African Americans to integrate an all-white San Francisco suburb.

"Betty's final wish is to see this film and her unreleased music out in the world before she dies," Gibel said in the campaign materials as the documentary "Sign My Name to Freedom" entered its final editing phase.

Soskin retired from the Park Service in March 2022 at age 100.

Her family is requesting donations to Betty Reid Soskin Middle School and to complete the documentary film in lieu of flowers. A public memorial will be announced at a later date.

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