{"id":63221,"date":"2022-02-22T23:17:52","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T23:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=63221"},"modified":"2022-02-22T23:17:53","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T23:17:53","slug":"betty-reid-soskin-shares-forgotten-histories-as-a-national-park-ranger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=63221","title":{"rendered":"Betty Reid Soskin shares forgotten histories as a national park ranger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Betty Reid Soskin shares forgotten histories as a national park ranger<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>
\n2021-06-02<\/p>\n

Brittany Bracy<\/strong>
\nLas Positas College, Livermore, California<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Yalonda M. James \/ The Chronicle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The nation’s oldest ranger is hopeful for tomorrow: \u2018I get a feeling that change is going to come\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

At age 85, Betty Reid Soskin<\/a> started a new career. She took a job as a park ranger at Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park<\/a> in Richmond<\/a>, sharing her story and the story of Black women\u2019s and men\u2019s efforts during World War II<\/a> with visitors who are often familiar with the white \u201cWe Can Do It!<\/a>\u201d propaganda figure \u2014 and little else.<\/p>\n

Soskin grew up in Oakland<\/a> in the 1920s and \u201930s, and well before she became the country\u2019s oldest park ranger, she found ways to contribute to her community. She has been a record store owner, a fundraiser for the Black Panthers<\/a> and a political aide during her \u201cordinary extraordinary\u201d life.<\/p>\n

Now 99, Soskin has used her platform with the National Park Service<\/a> to educate the public about crucial moments in history and highlight the sacrifices of those whose names are often left out of the retellings. As she approaches her 100th birthday this year, Soskin\u2019s wisdom and courage continues to have a positive impact on California<\/a> residents and institutions.<\/p>\n

This interview is part of Lift Every Voice, a series that connects young Black journalists with Black elders in our communities to celebrate and learn from their life experiences. The San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> has joined Hearst newspapers, magazines and television stations<\/a> to publish dozens of profiles as part of the project…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The nation’s oldest ranger is hopeful for tomorrow: \u2018I get a feeling that change is going to come\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13743,8,20,25],"tags":[28051,24354,33121,455,8918,8406,2820,24358],"class_list":["post-63221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-interviews","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-betty-charbonnet","tag-betty-reid-soskin","tag-brittany-bracy","tag-california","tag-national-park-service","tag-richmond","tag-san-francisco-chronicle","tag-the-san-francisco-chronicle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63222,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63221\/revisions\/63222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}