Betty Reid Soskin lived long enough to see the nation begin to correct its own record, and she spent her final decades making sure that correction did not come too late.
Soskin, the oldest ranger in the history of the National Park Service and a relentless guardian of Black memory, died Sunday at her home in Richmond, California. She was 104.
“To be a part of helping to mark the place where that dramatic trajectory of my own life, combined with others of my generation, will influence the future by the footprints we’ve left behind has been incredible,” Soskin said in a 2022 press release when she retired from the National Park Service as the oldest park ranger.
Her family said she died peacefully, surrounded by those who loved her, after a life she believed was complete. Few lives so fully spanned the American century or confronted it so directly.
Born Betty Charbonnet, she was raised in a Cajun-Creole Black family that settled in Oakland after the Great Flood of 1927 destroyed large parts of New Orleans. Her family joined thousands of Black railroad workers who found the West Coast while working the sleeping cars and dining lines of Southern Pacific and Santa Fe trains, choosing distance from Southern violence in exchange for uncertain freedom out West.
She came of age in a Bay Area that barely resembles the one that exists today. Soskin remembered ferries crossing San Francisco Bay before the bridges, Oakland International Airport as little more than two hangars, and the shockwaves from historic moments such as Amelia Earhart’s disappearance and the Port Chicago ammunition explosion that killed hundreds of Black sailors in 1944.
World War II placed her inside the contradictions of American democracy. She worked as a file clerk in the segregated Boilermakers union hall A-36, watching Black labor power the war effort while being locked out of opportunity. That experience shaped her lifelong refusal to accept polished versions of history that erased inconvenient truths.
In 1945, she and her husband Mel Reid opened Reid’s Records in Berkeley, one of the nation’s first Black-owned music stores. It became a cultural institution, a gathering place, and a witness to changing sounds and movements. The store remained open for more than seven decades, closing in 2019, long after Soskin had become a living archive of the community it served.
Her work carried her into public service, including roles with a Berkeley city council member and as a field representative for California Assemblywoman Dion Aroner and State Sen. Loni Hancock. Politics, for Soskin, was never abstract. It was about access, voice, and whose stories were allowed to matter.
That question followed her into what would become her most visible chapter. In her 80s, Soskin joined planning discussions for the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond. Through a grant-funded project, she began documenting the overlooked contributions of Black Americans on the wartime home front. The work led to a temporary Park Service position when she was 84 and later to permanent status.
At the visitor center, Soskin spoke without varnish. She told visitors what textbooks did not. She placed Black women, Black workers, and Black resistance at the center of the World War II story. She did not soften the exclusions. She did not apologize for the truth.
“Being a primary source in the sharing of that history – my history – and giving shape to a new national park has been exciting and fulfilling,” Soskin said. “It has proven to bring meaning to my final years.”
In 2013, during the federal government shutdown, the country discovered her. Media outlets from around the world sought out the centenarian ranger who refused to retire quietly. Soskin avoided spectacle and politics, insisting the work was about history and responsibility.
National recognition followed. In 2015, she introduced President Barack Obama during the White House Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Honors accumulated over the years, including being named Woman of the Year by the California State Legislature, recognition from the National Women’s History Project, the Silver Medallion from the National World War II Museum, and the Sierra Club’s Trailblazer Award. She attended the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture as an honored guest.
A stroke in 2019 slowed her body but not her clarity. She returned to work before retiring in 2022. Her voice continued through her book “Sign My Name to Freedom,” drawn from her blog, and through the documentary “No Time To Waste,” which captured her insistence that history be told while witnesses still live.
On her 100th birthday, the National Park Service issued a special Passport to Your National Parks cancellation stamp in her honor, a quiet acknowledgment that she had permanently marked the institution she once entered as an outsider.
Soskin leaves behind more than accolades. She leaves a challenge. Remember fully. Tell the truth. Refuse erasure.
Her family said those wishing to honor her life may support the Betty Reid Soskin Middle School and efforts to complete her film project connected to “Sign My Name to Freedom.”
“Betty has made a profound impact on the National Park Service and the way we carry out our mission,” said former NPS Director Chuck Sams when Soskin retired. “I am grateful for her lifelong dedication to sharing her story and wish her all the best in retirement. Her efforts remind us that we must seek out and give space for all perspectives so that we can tell a more full and inclusive history of our nation.”