{"id":63714,"date":"2022-04-21T21:39:11","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T21:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=63714"},"modified":"2022-04-21T21:42:59","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T21:42:59","slug":"betty-reid-soskin-the-extraordinary-life-of-the-nations-oldest-park-ranger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=63714","title":{"rendered":"Betty Reid Soskin: The extraordinary life of the nation\u2019s oldest park ranger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Betty Reid Soskin: The extraordinary life of the nation\u2019s oldest park ranger<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Berkeleyside<\/a>
\nBerkeley, California
\n2022-04-01<\/p>\n

Daphne White<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Betty Soskin<\/a> in her living room. Photo: Daphne White<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In this 2018 interview with Soskin who retired Thursday at the age of 100, the nation\u2019s oldest park ranger said she considers herself \u201can absolutely ordinary extraordinary person.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: This story was originally published in February 2018. We\u2019re resharing it because Betty Reid Soskin<\/a>, the nation\u2019s oldest active park ranger, retired Thursday<\/a> at the age of 100.<\/em><\/p>\n

Betty Reid Soskin<\/a>, 96, considers herself \u201can absolutely ordinary extraordinary person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soskin has dated Jackie Robinson<\/a>, co-founded Reid\u2019s Records in Berkeley<\/a> with her first husband, served as a \u201cbag lady\u201d (delivering cash) for the Black Panthers<\/a>, and hobnobbed with the leaders of the human potential movement as a faculty wife with her second husband.<\/p>\n

She also served in a Jim Crow<\/a> segregated union hall<\/a> in Richmond<\/a> during World War II<\/a>, experienced redlining<\/a> in Berkeley when she tried to build her first house, moved to a racially-hostile Walnut Creek<\/a> in the 1950s, and accidentally catapulted to fame in her 80s, as she brought her lived experience as a non-Rosie to the Rosie the Riveter\/World War II Home Front National Historical Park<\/a>…<\/p>\n

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

In this 2018 interview with Soskin who retired Thursday at the age of 100, the nation\u2019s oldest park ranger said she considers herself \u201can absolutely ordinary extraordinary person.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,459,8,20,25],"tags":[33443,33442,24354,24355,455,33441,8918],"class_list":["post-63714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-history","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-berkeley","tag-berkeleyside","tag-betty-reid-soskin","tag-betty-soskin","tag-california","tag-daphne-white","tag-national-park-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63714","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=63714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63715,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63714\/revisions\/63715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}