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Sign My Name to Freedom: A Memoir of a Pioneering Life
In Betty Reid Soskin’s 96 years of living, she has been a witness to a grand sweep of American history. When she was born in 1921, the lynching of African-Americans was a national disgrace, minstrel shows were the most popular American form of entertainment, women were looked at suspiciously by many for exercising their right to vote, and most African-Americans in the Deep South could not vote at all.
From her great-grandmother, who had been enslaved until she was in her mid-20s, Betty heard stories of slavery and the difficult times for Black Folk that immediately followed. In her lifetime, Betty has seen the nation begin to break down its race and gender biases, watched it nearly split apart in the upheavals of the civil rights and Black Power eras, and, finally, lived long enough to witness both the election of an African-American president and the re-emergence of a militant, racist far right.
But far more than being merely a witness, Betty Reid Soskin has been an active participant with so many other Americans in shaping the country as we know it now. The child of Louisiana Creole parents who refused to bow down to Southern discrimination, she was raised in the Black Bay Area community before the great westward migration of World War II. After working in the civilian homefront effort in the war years, she and her husband, Mel Reid, helped break down racial boundaries by moving into a white community east of the Oakland hills. There she raised four children—one openly gay, one developmentally disabled—while working to end the prejudices against the family that existed among many of her neighbors.
With Mel, she opened up one of the first Bay Area record stores in Berkeley both owned by African-Americans and dedicated to the distribution of African-American music. Her community organizing activities eventually led her to work as a state legislative aid, helping to plan the innovative Rosie the Riveter National Park in Richmond, California, then to a "second" career at the Rosie Park as the oldest park ranger in the history of the National Park Service. In between, she used her talents as a singer and songwriter to interpret and chronicle the great social upheavals that marked the 1960s.
In 2003, Betty displayed a new talent, writing, when she created the popular blog CBreaux Speaks. Now followed by thousands, her blog is a collection of Betty’s sometimes fierce, sometimes gently persuasive, but always brightly honest story that weaves both the wisdom of the ages and the fresh enthusiasm of an always youthful mind into her long journey through an American and African-American life, as well as America’s long struggle to both understand and cleanse its soul.
Blending together selections from many of Betty’s hundreds of blog entries with interviews, letters, and speeches collected throughout her long life, Sign My Name to Freedom invites readers into an American life through the words and thoughts of a national treasure who has never stopped looking at herself, the nation, or the world with fresh eyes.
From her great-grandmother, who had been enslaved until she was in her mid-20s, Betty heard stories of slavery and the difficult times for Black Folk that immediately followed. In her lifetime, Betty has seen the nation begin to break down its race and gender biases, watched it nearly split apart in the upheavals of the civil rights and Black Power eras, and, finally, lived long enough to witness both the election of an African-American president and the re-emergence of a militant, racist far right.
But far more than being merely a witness, Betty Reid Soskin has been an active participant with so many other Americans in shaping the country as we know it now. The child of Louisiana Creole parents who refused to bow down to Southern discrimination, she was raised in the Black Bay Area community before the great westward migration of World War II. After working in the civilian homefront effort in the war years, she and her husband, Mel Reid, helped break down racial boundaries by moving into a white community east of the Oakland hills. There she raised four children—one openly gay, one developmentally disabled—while working to end the prejudices against the family that existed among many of her neighbors.
With Mel, she opened up one of the first Bay Area record stores in Berkeley both owned by African-Americans and dedicated to the distribution of African-American music. Her community organizing activities eventually led her to work as a state legislative aid, helping to plan the innovative Rosie the Riveter National Park in Richmond, California, then to a "second" career at the Rosie Park as the oldest park ranger in the history of the National Park Service. In between, she used her talents as a singer and songwriter to interpret and chronicle the great social upheavals that marked the 1960s.
In 2003, Betty displayed a new talent, writing, when she created the popular blog CBreaux Speaks. Now followed by thousands, her blog is a collection of Betty’s sometimes fierce, sometimes gently persuasive, but always brightly honest story that weaves both the wisdom of the ages and the fresh enthusiasm of an always youthful mind into her long journey through an American and African-American life, as well as America’s long struggle to both understand and cleanse its soul.
Blending together selections from many of Betty’s hundreds of blog entries with interviews, letters, and speeches collected throughout her long life, Sign My Name to Freedom invites readers into an American life through the words and thoughts of a national treasure who has never stopped looking at herself, the nation, or the world with fresh eyes.
248 pages, Hardcover
First published February 6, 2018
115 people are currently reading
1841 people want to read
About the author
Betty Reid-Soskin
1 book3 followersWife, mother, political activist, co-founder of Reid's Records of Berkeley, singer-songwriter, author, blogger, contributor to the founding of the Rosie the Riveter National Park, and Park Ranger of same.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
November 4, 2021
She is not Rosie. She is not Rosa. She is Betty. She is ordinary and relatable. How she persevered through her struggles, the struggles of women, the struggles of being a black woman, is extraordinary. She has led an extraordinary life and is a model for all of us. She hustled. She reflected. She pushed herself. She stands for and embodies social and environmental justice. She continues to embrace life in the moment while always being a step ahead of her time.
August 13, 2018
Betty Reid Soskin is probably best known for being America's oldest park ranger, and is generally described as a real-life former Rosie the Riveter. But her park ranger work is probably the least interesting thing about Ms. Reid Soskin, and as for the Rosie the Riveter title? Well, Ms. Reid Soskin doesn't claim it for herself, and the reasons why make for very enlightening reading.
Betty Reid Soskin describes herself as Creole, having been born into a racially diverse New Orleans family in 1921. She lived most of her life in the San Francisco Bay Area. The changes she witnessed are fascinating and attest to how fast things changed in the 20th century. In the early 1950s, for example, she had to watch a minstrel show at her son's Walnut Creek elementary school. By the 1970s, she was marching with Black Panthers. Over the decades she's been an activist, a singer-songwriter, a wartime file clerk, a mother of four, a blogger and now, naturally, a park ranger. It's quite a life and Betty Reid Soskin's story is quite a read.
It's not quite a conventional autobiography, having been Frankensteined together from audio interviews and blog entries. Not everything gets covered. But how would you fit a whole 96-year (and counting) life into one book? The gaps and odd segues aren't a major problem. The book offers a very interesting perspective on American history. As Ms. Reid Soskin explains, she realized at some point that when it came to recording wartime stories, "What was being remembered was dependent upon who was doing the remembering." This book goes a long way toward making sure that the 20th century, working-class African-American experience gets remembered.
Betty Reid Soskin describes herself as Creole, having been born into a racially diverse New Orleans family in 1921. She lived most of her life in the San Francisco Bay Area. The changes she witnessed are fascinating and attest to how fast things changed in the 20th century. In the early 1950s, for example, she had to watch a minstrel show at her son's Walnut Creek elementary school. By the 1970s, she was marching with Black Panthers. Over the decades she's been an activist, a singer-songwriter, a wartime file clerk, a mother of four, a blogger and now, naturally, a park ranger. It's quite a life and Betty Reid Soskin's story is quite a read.
It's not quite a conventional autobiography, having been Frankensteined together from audio interviews and blog entries. Not everything gets covered. But how would you fit a whole 96-year (and counting) life into one book? The gaps and odd segues aren't a major problem. The book offers a very interesting perspective on American history. As Ms. Reid Soskin explains, she realized at some point that when it came to recording wartime stories, "What was being remembered was dependent upon who was doing the remembering." This book goes a long way toward making sure that the 20th century, working-class African-American experience gets remembered.
July 22, 2018
Betty Reid-Soskin is a truly remarkable woman! So many events throughout her life! What an extraordinary woman! She lives in Richmond, Ca.
September 21, 2025
Surprisingly engaging. I did not expect to enjoy reading it, but the memoirist's voice is so very lucid, compelling, and somehow joyful. Not to mention honest, about the challenges she faced from without & from within, and how she dealt with them. (spoiler alert: with courage & hard work)
I'm somewhat reminded of one of my old favorites, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years. Both books are inspirational; I can only hope to have a small fraction of the positive impact all three women had. This feels a bit grittier, iirc, and is more political, but is also still very personal.
(By inspirational I do not mean that these are specifically Christian books. I'm an atheist.)
"In time the calluses began to grow on my psyche...."
"I'm certain now that what was then seen as [my] mental breakdown was an appropriate response to an impossible set of life circumstances. The mind finds ways to protect itself from what it cannot process."
"No one else realized that the story of Rosie the Riveter is a white woman's story. I and the other women of color were not to be represented by this park as it was proposed... It had always taken two salaries to support black families .... There is no way to explain the continuing presence of the 40% African American population in the city of Richmond's current residence without including their role in World War II."
"Kaiser and his workforce of sharecroppers did their part by building 747 ships in three years and eight months... and by outproducing the enemy... Kaiser and his workers helped to turn the tide of the war and bring World War Two to an end in 1945."
But the African Americans never got certification for their training and their barracks were torn down after the war. Effectively they were stranded. If you want to know more racism and World War II in San Francisco, look up the Port Chicago explosion.
The author attended Barack Obama's first inauguration. She noted that racism is somewhat less of an issue than earlier in her lifetime and: "We're going to have to find some new ways to discriminate if we're determined to keep alive the embers of the inequality that has cursed this nation for so long."
(I argue that she's right. It's the 'illegal immigrants' that are currently being most harshly villainized. Bigots gotta hate.)
I highly recommend this book to teens as well as to adults, and not just African-Americans, or readers of history or memoirs. Fascinating and enlightening both. So much more of interest than what I've noted.
I'm somewhat reminded of one of my old favorites, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years. Both books are inspirational; I can only hope to have a small fraction of the positive impact all three women had. This feels a bit grittier, iirc, and is more political, but is also still very personal.
(By inspirational I do not mean that these are specifically Christian books. I'm an atheist.)
"In time the calluses began to grow on my psyche...."
"I'm certain now that what was then seen as [my] mental breakdown was an appropriate response to an impossible set of life circumstances. The mind finds ways to protect itself from what it cannot process."
"No one else realized that the story of Rosie the Riveter is a white woman's story. I and the other women of color were not to be represented by this park as it was proposed... It had always taken two salaries to support black families .... There is no way to explain the continuing presence of the 40% African American population in the city of Richmond's current residence without including their role in World War II."
"Kaiser and his workforce of sharecroppers did their part by building 747 ships in three years and eight months... and by outproducing the enemy... Kaiser and his workers helped to turn the tide of the war and bring World War Two to an end in 1945."
But the African Americans never got certification for their training and their barracks were torn down after the war. Effectively they were stranded. If you want to know more racism and World War II in San Francisco, look up the Port Chicago explosion.
The author attended Barack Obama's first inauguration. She noted that racism is somewhat less of an issue than earlier in her lifetime and: "We're going to have to find some new ways to discriminate if we're determined to keep alive the embers of the inequality that has cursed this nation for so long."
(I argue that she's right. It's the 'illegal immigrants' that are currently being most harshly villainized. Bigots gotta hate.)
I highly recommend this book to teens as well as to adults, and not just African-Americans, or readers of history or memoirs. Fascinating and enlightening both. So much more of interest than what I've noted.
July 8, 2018
Powerful memoir!
April 27, 2023
Highly recommend the audiobook to hear Betty tell her story!
September 25, 2024
Hat mich jetzt nicht so vom Hocker gerissen. Es wirkt nicht gut lektoriert, viele Stellen werden wörtlich wiederholt.
Außerdem ist Betty eher immer hineingerutscht als sich aktiv dafür zu entscheiden. Zumindest wirkt es hier so.
Außerdem ist Betty eher immer hineingerutscht als sich aktiv dafür zu entscheiden. Zumindest wirkt es hier so.
January 12, 2019
Very inspirational story of this woman's life over the past 90+ years. It was very interesting to hear about the history of her own family, of Oakland and the Bay Area during WWI and more. The one downside is her writing is transcribed from interviews, it does take some time to get used to.
January 13, 2021
Great book that details one Black woman's experience through turbulent times in American history.
July 13, 2021
What an amazing woman!
June 4, 2023
Wonderful memoir of an extraordinary person!
November 19, 2024
Betty is hilarious, brave and a gifted writer. I appreciated reading her story in her own words (this book is a compilation of blog entries). Now, I want someone to write her story with more details and contextual information.
April 2, 2024
“Sign My Name to Freedom: A Memoir of a Pioneering Life” is a nonfiction memoir focusing on the life of Betty Reid Soskin, a woman born in 1921 who shares her lived black experience as a light skinned black woman in America from the 1920s to becoming a park ranger for the National Park Service and becoming an international celebrity in her nineties after sharing her feelings on the shutdown of the government in 2013.
The book consists of an editor’s note, prologue, nine chapters, epilogue, index, acknowledgements information about the author, information about the editor, and photography credits.
In the editor’s note, memoir editor J. Douglas Allen-Taylor begins by sharing his personal connection with Soskin as being a family member related by marriage. Although Soskin has never aspired to fame, she has obtained national and international fame by achieving so much in an advanced age. This book is compiled of her words from two long interviews she did with the Regional Oral History Office (now the Oral History Center) of the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley while the remainder of the book consists of excerpts from Soskin’s blog “CBreaux Speaks.”
In the prologue, Soskin shares that two film are being made about her, a thirty-minute film for the National Park Service and ninety-minute documentary on her past life experience as a singer/songwriter. In addition to the two films, a book is being published which is based on her blog posts. With all combination of films and a book being made featuring her, Soskin is in shock over becoming a “star” at the age of ninety-five years old.
In chapter one, “Creole/Black Cajun New Orleans,” Sorkin shares stories of her birth in Michigan before moving to New Orleans when she was three years old. Soskin provides the reader with background into how the Creole community was established in New Orleans along with sharing family stories of racism and discrimination against women, as well as the separation of population into Creoles and Americans. Family wise, although Soskin has a younger and older sister, their relationships were not strong since they were born four years apart.
In chapter two, “Growing Up in Pre-War Bay Area,” Sorkin describes the circumstances that lead to her family moving from New Orleans to California after a severe storm ended their family business. Despite being financially poor and living a small home with her mother, grandmother, sisters, and other family members, she is rich in life experiences. This chapter highlights racism faced by Soskin’s father of having light skin which meant he wasn’t black enough to work for the railroads and he wasn’t white enough work in prestigious jobs. In this chapter, Soskin writes of meeting the man who later became her first husband Melvin (aka Mel) Reid when she was thirteen.
In chapter three, “Marriage and the War Years,” Soskin shares memories of her brief experience as a domestic/maid and the realization of her limited life choice as a woman of color being: (1) working in agriculture, (2) being a domestic servant, or (3) marrying well. Soskin gets married at twenty years old and luckily, Mel was able to save enough money to buy a duplex for them to call home. Shortly after getting married, Soskin feels she failed in her role of wife by not giving Mel a baby immediately. After three years of Soskin has not getting pregnant, she decides she must be sterile and chooses to go to work for the federal government as a file clerk. Soskin had her first indirect encounter with racism after being accused of passing as a white woman to obtain her government job. After Soskin confronts her boss regarding her race and is told that she would not be promoted or put in charge of white people, she leaves her federal government job. Similarly, although Mel enlisted in the Navy, he is sent home when he refuses to be trained to be a cook. Following Betty‘s and Mel’s experiences with racism at work, they eventually decided to go into business for themselves. Following years of no children, Betty and Mel decide to adopt a baby boy named Rick and she and Mel open a record store. After Mel’s uncle Paul joins the business, booms and Betty returns to work to support Mel and stopping when Rick was seven and Betty was pregnant with her second child David. When Betty notices Rick’s growing femininity, she seeks advice from her pediatrician but is told it was nothing to worry about but by his twenty-first birthday, she gradually accepts his life as a gay man. Soskin eventually has a total four children and shares the pain of giving birth to a premature baby girl who due to a loss of brain cells after birth lead to her being permanently handicapped.
In chapter four, “Into the Lion’s Den,” Sorkin being unable for her and Mel to purchase land due to racial restrictions. After having a white friend purchase the land they wanted, Betty and Mel receive threatening notes, but they are eventually accepted by white neighbors in secret. As time moves on Soskin is shocked and saddened when humiliated with her in public at a restaurant with her children considering she didn’t think she would experience outright racism in California. As the children get older, Betty is able to get all four of her kids through elementary and junior high school but not high school.
In chapter five, “Breaking Down, Breaking Up,” Sorkin shares how a mental breakdown leads to her becoming a singer and composer. With hindsight, In an effort to travel without leaving home, Soskin writes songs and creates art. Although Soskin is fulfilled by motherhood, her is not fulfilled as a wife since Mel’s often gone at work and has a second career as a professional athlete leading to him having affairs with other women. After Soskin gets divorced from her Mel, she quickly marries Dr. Bill Soskin, a professor from the University of California.
In chapter six, “The Movement Years,” Sorkin describes her life living in the suburbs and finding community through her membership of the Unitarian church. During this time in her life, Soskin embraces her blackness and becomes politically active in her community and surrounding areas.
In chapter seven, “An Emancipated Woman,” Sorkin shares finding her own voice for the first time in her life after the passing of her father and first husband. After marrying her second husband, Soskin stops writing music shortly after playing him a completed song of hers only to be discouraged when told she needs professional training. Soskin and her second husband eventually divorce due to his commitment to the Buddhist faith and plans to live at a monastery in total isolation for three years. Despite planning to renegotiate their relationship after his three-year stay, Bill dies four years later. Betty experiences further loss in the death of her oldest son Rick and a year later, Rick’s partner Gordon.
In chapter eight, “Richmond and Rosie and Betty the Ranger,” Sorkin describes her first experience with the National Park Service and the Rosie the Riveter Visitor Education Center was at a presentation given at the local library in Richmond early in the process of establishing the park on a work assignment. When Soskin is recruited by the park service to serve as an example of an African Americans happily working during World War II, she feels insulted by the exclusion of mistreatment of African Americans and blatant segregation during and after World War II. Soskin is surprised when she is hired by the National Park Service as a park ranger despite not having an academic background. After four years of working at the National Park Service, Soskin begins to write a blog in September 2003 to be read by her family and for future generations of her family. Eventually, Soskin feels empowered in her position as a park ranger since she can be inspiration to black children to possibly consider a future career in the National Park Service.
In chapter nine, “Shining Bright at Twilight: Lessons of a Life Long Lived,” Sorkin provides the reader with the feeling of two separate identities based on who she was married to. As Mel’s wife, she was the wife of a well-known African American businessman who had been a stay-at-home suburban mother but also political activist with significant “street cred” under her belt and a growing reputation as a poet/singer. As Bill’s wife, Soskin was the faculty wife of a brilliant professor who was doing groundbreaking research for the University of California. After the death of Mel and Bill, Betty feels lost and longs to return to using her maiden name Charbonnet, especially since there is not one left to carry on the family name. Soskin shares her past practice if not fully saying the “Pledge of Allegiance” due to it not aligning with her values of belonging in the United States but fully says the pledge at the 2009 Inauguration of President Barack Obama. Soskin feels an undeniable kinship with President Barak Obama as a biracial woman once she heard him talking about his lives black experience as the son of a Nigerian man and a white American woman.
In the epilogue, Soskin shares how her became a global celebrity in the fall of 2013 after commenting on her feelings about the government shutdown. As she becomes a nationally recognized public figure, she is her chosen as the person to introduce President Barack Obama at the National Tree Lighting Ceremony in Washington, D.C., in December 2015 and received an honorary doctorate at Oakland’s California College of the Arts in 2016. Soskin is shocked to learn that she has worldwide readers of her blog and views her blog as a way to explain life to herself in a nonlinear manner.
As I finished reading this book, I view Sorkin as a role model and perfect example of resilience and admire her ability to repeatedly reinvent herself. What is especially impressive is that although this memoir was written when Sorkin was ninety-six years old, she is currently one hundred- and two-year-old with dreams of seeing a documentary on her life as a singer/songwriter, being a civil rights pioneer in California, and a park ranger later in life come to fruition. Although the memoir is informative and inspiring, I found the flow of the book to be scattered and non-linear at times with lead to difficult reading at times.
The book consists of an editor’s note, prologue, nine chapters, epilogue, index, acknowledgements information about the author, information about the editor, and photography credits.
In the editor’s note, memoir editor J. Douglas Allen-Taylor begins by sharing his personal connection with Soskin as being a family member related by marriage. Although Soskin has never aspired to fame, she has obtained national and international fame by achieving so much in an advanced age. This book is compiled of her words from two long interviews she did with the Regional Oral History Office (now the Oral History Center) of the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley while the remainder of the book consists of excerpts from Soskin’s blog “CBreaux Speaks.”
In the prologue, Soskin shares that two film are being made about her, a thirty-minute film for the National Park Service and ninety-minute documentary on her past life experience as a singer/songwriter. In addition to the two films, a book is being published which is based on her blog posts. With all combination of films and a book being made featuring her, Soskin is in shock over becoming a “star” at the age of ninety-five years old.
In chapter one, “Creole/Black Cajun New Orleans,” Sorkin shares stories of her birth in Michigan before moving to New Orleans when she was three years old. Soskin provides the reader with background into how the Creole community was established in New Orleans along with sharing family stories of racism and discrimination against women, as well as the separation of population into Creoles and Americans. Family wise, although Soskin has a younger and older sister, their relationships were not strong since they were born four years apart.
In chapter two, “Growing Up in Pre-War Bay Area,” Sorkin describes the circumstances that lead to her family moving from New Orleans to California after a severe storm ended their family business. Despite being financially poor and living a small home with her mother, grandmother, sisters, and other family members, she is rich in life experiences. This chapter highlights racism faced by Soskin’s father of having light skin which meant he wasn’t black enough to work for the railroads and he wasn’t white enough work in prestigious jobs. In this chapter, Soskin writes of meeting the man who later became her first husband Melvin (aka Mel) Reid when she was thirteen.
In chapter three, “Marriage and the War Years,” Soskin shares memories of her brief experience as a domestic/maid and the realization of her limited life choice as a woman of color being: (1) working in agriculture, (2) being a domestic servant, or (3) marrying well. Soskin gets married at twenty years old and luckily, Mel was able to save enough money to buy a duplex for them to call home. Shortly after getting married, Soskin feels she failed in her role of wife by not giving Mel a baby immediately. After three years of Soskin has not getting pregnant, she decides she must be sterile and chooses to go to work for the federal government as a file clerk. Soskin had her first indirect encounter with racism after being accused of passing as a white woman to obtain her government job. After Soskin confronts her boss regarding her race and is told that she would not be promoted or put in charge of white people, she leaves her federal government job. Similarly, although Mel enlisted in the Navy, he is sent home when he refuses to be trained to be a cook. Following Betty‘s and Mel’s experiences with racism at work, they eventually decided to go into business for themselves. Following years of no children, Betty and Mel decide to adopt a baby boy named Rick and she and Mel open a record store. After Mel’s uncle Paul joins the business, booms and Betty returns to work to support Mel and stopping when Rick was seven and Betty was pregnant with her second child David. When Betty notices Rick’s growing femininity, she seeks advice from her pediatrician but is told it was nothing to worry about but by his twenty-first birthday, she gradually accepts his life as a gay man. Soskin eventually has a total four children and shares the pain of giving birth to a premature baby girl who due to a loss of brain cells after birth lead to her being permanently handicapped.
In chapter four, “Into the Lion’s Den,” Sorkin being unable for her and Mel to purchase land due to racial restrictions. After having a white friend purchase the land they wanted, Betty and Mel receive threatening notes, but they are eventually accepted by white neighbors in secret. As time moves on Soskin is shocked and saddened when humiliated with her in public at a restaurant with her children considering she didn’t think she would experience outright racism in California. As the children get older, Betty is able to get all four of her kids through elementary and junior high school but not high school.
In chapter five, “Breaking Down, Breaking Up,” Sorkin shares how a mental breakdown leads to her becoming a singer and composer. With hindsight, In an effort to travel without leaving home, Soskin writes songs and creates art. Although Soskin is fulfilled by motherhood, her is not fulfilled as a wife since Mel’s often gone at work and has a second career as a professional athlete leading to him having affairs with other women. After Soskin gets divorced from her Mel, she quickly marries Dr. Bill Soskin, a professor from the University of California.
In chapter six, “The Movement Years,” Sorkin describes her life living in the suburbs and finding community through her membership of the Unitarian church. During this time in her life, Soskin embraces her blackness and becomes politically active in her community and surrounding areas.
In chapter seven, “An Emancipated Woman,” Sorkin shares finding her own voice for the first time in her life after the passing of her father and first husband. After marrying her second husband, Soskin stops writing music shortly after playing him a completed song of hers only to be discouraged when told she needs professional training. Soskin and her second husband eventually divorce due to his commitment to the Buddhist faith and plans to live at a monastery in total isolation for three years. Despite planning to renegotiate their relationship after his three-year stay, Bill dies four years later. Betty experiences further loss in the death of her oldest son Rick and a year later, Rick’s partner Gordon.
In chapter eight, “Richmond and Rosie and Betty the Ranger,” Sorkin describes her first experience with the National Park Service and the Rosie the Riveter Visitor Education Center was at a presentation given at the local library in Richmond early in the process of establishing the park on a work assignment. When Soskin is recruited by the park service to serve as an example of an African Americans happily working during World War II, she feels insulted by the exclusion of mistreatment of African Americans and blatant segregation during and after World War II. Soskin is surprised when she is hired by the National Park Service as a park ranger despite not having an academic background. After four years of working at the National Park Service, Soskin begins to write a blog in September 2003 to be read by her family and for future generations of her family. Eventually, Soskin feels empowered in her position as a park ranger since she can be inspiration to black children to possibly consider a future career in the National Park Service.
In chapter nine, “Shining Bright at Twilight: Lessons of a Life Long Lived,” Sorkin provides the reader with the feeling of two separate identities based on who she was married to. As Mel’s wife, she was the wife of a well-known African American businessman who had been a stay-at-home suburban mother but also political activist with significant “street cred” under her belt and a growing reputation as a poet/singer. As Bill’s wife, Soskin was the faculty wife of a brilliant professor who was doing groundbreaking research for the University of California. After the death of Mel and Bill, Betty feels lost and longs to return to using her maiden name Charbonnet, especially since there is not one left to carry on the family name. Soskin shares her past practice if not fully saying the “Pledge of Allegiance” due to it not aligning with her values of belonging in the United States but fully says the pledge at the 2009 Inauguration of President Barack Obama. Soskin feels an undeniable kinship with President Barak Obama as a biracial woman once she heard him talking about his lives black experience as the son of a Nigerian man and a white American woman.
In the epilogue, Soskin shares how her became a global celebrity in the fall of 2013 after commenting on her feelings about the government shutdown. As she becomes a nationally recognized public figure, she is her chosen as the person to introduce President Barack Obama at the National Tree Lighting Ceremony in Washington, D.C., in December 2015 and received an honorary doctorate at Oakland’s California College of the Arts in 2016. Soskin is shocked to learn that she has worldwide readers of her blog and views her blog as a way to explain life to herself in a nonlinear manner.
As I finished reading this book, I view Sorkin as a role model and perfect example of resilience and admire her ability to repeatedly reinvent herself. What is especially impressive is that although this memoir was written when Sorkin was ninety-six years old, she is currently one hundred- and two-year-old with dreams of seeing a documentary on her life as a singer/songwriter, being a civil rights pioneer in California, and a park ranger later in life come to fruition. Although the memoir is informative and inspiring, I found the flow of the book to be scattered and non-linear at times with lead to difficult reading at times.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 17, 2024
What an inspiring person, who has never stopped striving for what she believed was right. A true fighter against inequality in all walks of life.
September 4, 2024
I can’t stop talking about this book. Only reason I took off a star is some of the timeline was confusing as this book was mostly compiled from her blogs. The life lessons woven into this book are ones I’ll remember forever.
February 27, 2018
I was fortunate enough to attend a book signing run by Betty’s extended family at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle in Oakland and hear about this amazing woman. Betty is now 96 years old and, in her own words, has lived several lives. She talks about her early life in New Orleans and her love for her Maman who was born a slave.
Her next life was in California, living as the only black family in the suburbs while raising 4 children and running a music store in south. Berkeley. She discovered her voice while fighting prejudice in Walnut. Creek.
Then she segued to the white world as the wife of a Cal professor while trying to save the black music store. As she worked to improve her south Berkeley neighborhood, she got involved with politics and was employed as a state legislative aide. This led to her work on rehabilitating the Richmond waterfront and the creation of the Rosie the Riveter museum.
Betty is very adamant that the Rosies were all white women. During the war, she worked as a file clerk in a segregated unit making sure all black employees were labeled temporary.
Now that she is in her 90’s, she is working as the most famous ranger in the country, telling the WWII story from the minority’s side. She is a real institution and her book is a gem.
Her next life was in California, living as the only black family in the suburbs while raising 4 children and running a music store in south. Berkeley. She discovered her voice while fighting prejudice in Walnut. Creek.
Then she segued to the white world as the wife of a Cal professor while trying to save the black music store. As she worked to improve her south Berkeley neighborhood, she got involved with politics and was employed as a state legislative aide. This led to her work on rehabilitating the Richmond waterfront and the creation of the Rosie the Riveter museum.
Betty is very adamant that the Rosies were all white women. During the war, she worked as a file clerk in a segregated unit making sure all black employees were labeled temporary.
Now that she is in her 90’s, she is working as the most famous ranger in the country, telling the WWII story from the minority’s side. She is a real institution and her book is a gem.
April 18, 2022
I highly recommend you read this book from beginning to end— editor’s notes, prologue, epilogue… everything. There are a few places people mentioned in other reviews where it seems oddly edited, but if you read all the different explanations of how this book was put together and how she wrote her blogs, you’ll come to understand why those parts are the way they are—- and I can say with 100% honesty that if you are really letting her story sink in, there is way more magic in this amazing testimony than things to complain about. The editing errors are blips in a literal century.
Thank you Ms. Betty, for sharing your story. For bringing your whole self, and letting us catch a glimpse of looking at the world (and your life) through your eyes. You are the true embodiment of “not all heroes wear capes”. I am so grateful to you for sharing your stories. We are lucky to bear witness to your journey, and how an “ordinary” person can live an extraordinary life. I could say more but I will save it for my book club. 😅
Thank you Ms. Betty, for sharing your story. For bringing your whole self, and letting us catch a glimpse of looking at the world (and your life) through your eyes. You are the true embodiment of “not all heroes wear capes”. I am so grateful to you for sharing your stories. We are lucky to bear witness to your journey, and how an “ordinary” person can live an extraordinary life. I could say more but I will save it for my book club. 😅
April 7, 2018
I'm biased toward this book, partly as I've taken my grandchildren to hear Betty talk at the Rosie the Riveter museum and also because her daughter Dorrie is one of my students where I'm a volunteer ceramic teacher at NIAD on Richmond, but besides that, this is a very honest, humble and intelligent memoir from an extraordinary woman.
May 16, 2023
Betty Charbonnet was born in 1921 in Detroit, Michigan, but was raised in St James Parish in Louisiana. Her parents were of Black, White, French, Spanish and Cajun ancestry. She grew up in the Jim Crow south. In 1927, New Orleans was devastated by floods and so the family chose to move to San Francisco because the Allen Family (one of Betty's grandmothers) had extended family in that area.
So Betty grew up in Richmond, San Francisco, but later moved to Walnut Creek, a mostly Black neighborhood located east of Oakland and Berkeley. Betty lived through the Great Depression, World War 2, the Korean war, the flower power and Hippie era in the 1960s, the Vietnam war, the Nixon era and everything after Reagan was elected to the White house.
One of Betty's sister died on the same day that JFK was assassinated so she didn't really get a chance to mourn the loss of her sister, because the whole country was in mourning for Kennedy.
In the 1980s the idea of a museum and park devoted to Rosie the riveter, aka to all the women who worked in the male jobs while their man were away fighting in WW2, was instigated and Betty eventually found herself hired as a ranger for that Park and the visitor centre. A Job she held until 2021 when she officially retired on her 100th birthday.
But she has been a political force for womens rights, Black rights and the rights of all people of colour, for pretty much all of her life. How did this begin?
Betty was 12 years old when she had an epiphany. One day in school, while she was saying the pledge of Allegiance, as all good Americans do in school, she finally understood that the phrase "with Liberty and Justice for all" was actually NOT true.
Her People, African Americans, had very little liberty and freedom, and they seldom received any justice either.
So Betty stopped speaking the last lines of the pledge of allegiance out loud from the age of 12. She was protesting in her own small way. She would not say those words out loud for over 70 years. and when she did, it was on the stage in front of the Capitol when Barack Obama was sworn in as the first Black President in January 2009.
On a personal level, Betty has been married twice, divorced once and widowed once. She has not remarried. Betty raised 4 children. 3 sons and 1 daughter. Sadly the oldest son was gay in a time when being gay was illegal. (This was the 1940s and 1950s). This young man died before his 30th birthday.
Betty's daughter was left mentally disabled after a difficult birth. The child was named Dorian, and she ended up having to be sent to a home for the mentally disabled.
This was a very interesting book. Basically about American history but from the Black Female Point of View. There are also a number of footnotes that go into details about some events in African American history that Betty mentions but does not go into detail about. There is also an index and a long list of sources.
I gave it four stars, because while it is interesting, it is a little dry and heavy in places. It took me close to 2 weeks to read this book.
So Betty grew up in Richmond, San Francisco, but later moved to Walnut Creek, a mostly Black neighborhood located east of Oakland and Berkeley. Betty lived through the Great Depression, World War 2, the Korean war, the flower power and Hippie era in the 1960s, the Vietnam war, the Nixon era and everything after Reagan was elected to the White house.
One of Betty's sister died on the same day that JFK was assassinated so she didn't really get a chance to mourn the loss of her sister, because the whole country was in mourning for Kennedy.
In the 1980s the idea of a museum and park devoted to Rosie the riveter, aka to all the women who worked in the male jobs while their man were away fighting in WW2, was instigated and Betty eventually found herself hired as a ranger for that Park and the visitor centre. A Job she held until 2021 when she officially retired on her 100th birthday.
But she has been a political force for womens rights, Black rights and the rights of all people of colour, for pretty much all of her life. How did this begin?
Betty was 12 years old when she had an epiphany. One day in school, while she was saying the pledge of Allegiance, as all good Americans do in school, she finally understood that the phrase "with Liberty and Justice for all" was actually NOT true.
Her People, African Americans, had very little liberty and freedom, and they seldom received any justice either.
So Betty stopped speaking the last lines of the pledge of allegiance out loud from the age of 12. She was protesting in her own small way. She would not say those words out loud for over 70 years. and when she did, it was on the stage in front of the Capitol when Barack Obama was sworn in as the first Black President in January 2009.
On a personal level, Betty has been married twice, divorced once and widowed once. She has not remarried. Betty raised 4 children. 3 sons and 1 daughter. Sadly the oldest son was gay in a time when being gay was illegal. (This was the 1940s and 1950s). This young man died before his 30th birthday.
Betty's daughter was left mentally disabled after a difficult birth. The child was named Dorian, and she ended up having to be sent to a home for the mentally disabled.
This was a very interesting book. Basically about American history but from the Black Female Point of View. There are also a number of footnotes that go into details about some events in African American history that Betty mentions but does not go into detail about. There is also an index and a long list of sources.
I gave it four stars, because while it is interesting, it is a little dry and heavy in places. It took me close to 2 weeks to read this book.
January 5, 2021
This is a fitting book to be my first read of 2021. I don’t normally read memoirs or biographies but, when I briefly heard about Betty’s story, I wanted to know more about this woman.
Reading this books felt truly like having a conversation with Betty. I found her voice to be quite warm and lyric; she weaves her family’s history into the shaping of her own life, the lives of her children, and the legacy she will leave behind. This is a novel about identity which is something that I believe we can all relate to - we are all trying to figure out who we are and Betty has had over nine decades to do just that.
As a non-POC, I couldn’t relate to her journey to blackness; that is not my space. But I could learn from her experience as a black woman to recognize the racial disparity that built our country and she experienced, acknowledge how far our country has come, and trust her judgement in where we need to continue in terms of our trajectory.
As a woman, however, I connected with so many of the emotions that she put forward. A woman’s identity is never really her own - it is our relationship to men, our looks, our social standing, our relationship to motherhood. And this isn’t just societal, but an individual thought as well. I so often find myself thinking of who I am in relation to my relationships without accounting for who I am as an individual. Though Betty was married and had children at a young age and I’m single in my early 30s, I still related to this journey of identity.
I also value her candor and humility - never afraid to speak up when necessary and the ability to keep her ego in check. Though she may not feel worthy of the accolades and praises that people have sang for her throughout her life because she is somewhat ordinary, I think that is what really makes her and this memoir extraordinary.
Reading this books felt truly like having a conversation with Betty. I found her voice to be quite warm and lyric; she weaves her family’s history into the shaping of her own life, the lives of her children, and the legacy she will leave behind. This is a novel about identity which is something that I believe we can all relate to - we are all trying to figure out who we are and Betty has had over nine decades to do just that.
As a non-POC, I couldn’t relate to her journey to blackness; that is not my space. But I could learn from her experience as a black woman to recognize the racial disparity that built our country and she experienced, acknowledge how far our country has come, and trust her judgement in where we need to continue in terms of our trajectory.
As a woman, however, I connected with so many of the emotions that she put forward. A woman’s identity is never really her own - it is our relationship to men, our looks, our social standing, our relationship to motherhood. And this isn’t just societal, but an individual thought as well. I so often find myself thinking of who I am in relation to my relationships without accounting for who I am as an individual. Though Betty was married and had children at a young age and I’m single in my early 30s, I still related to this journey of identity.
I also value her candor and humility - never afraid to speak up when necessary and the ability to keep her ego in check. Though she may not feel worthy of the accolades and praises that people have sang for her throughout her life because she is somewhat ordinary, I think that is what really makes her and this memoir extraordinary.
May 17, 2020
Betty Soskin is best known for being a US Park Ranger at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California. She is the oldest working ranger (She will turn 99 in June, 2020) in the US Park system. --- but before her current job, she was a homemaker, mother, civil rights pioneer, business owner, singer & song writer and was married twice. Betty has had a unique view of the history of the 20th century. Her grandmother was born a slave and she was selected to introduce President and Mrs. Obama at the national Christmas tree lighting ceremony in 2015. Oh, she never was a “Rosie the Riveter” but worked as a clerk in a union office during WWII. While much of this book is in Soskin’s own words, some of it was put together from the Blogs Betty wrote. ---Betty came from Creole / Black Cajun roots in New Orleans where her family had lived until the flood of 2017 forced the family to move to California. Although she did participate in civil rights activities, she was never a leader. It wasn’t until she was in her 80s that she realized that if she didn’t tell the story of what happened to black and poor people, no one would. Their “shacks and shantys” were not good enough for historical preservation. Their stories were being lost because no one spoke for them. …. Betty decided she had to be the one. And she has. --------Although the book is rambling at times, it is well-worth reading. Go-Betty Go!!!
February 26, 2024
5/5: Betty rocks, man
I'm biased. Very, very, very biased, because I've worked with Betty before and she's one of the best interpretive rangers the NPS has ever had. Are there a few issues with this book? Yes, mostly with the editing, which can get amateurish and repetitive. Do I care? Not really, because again, Betty rocks.
The best way to go through this book is to pretend as if she's presenting it to you ranger/lecture style. Parts at the beginning, about her childhood, and in the middle, about the start of her activism and understanding of racist Bay Area suburbia, are incredibly vivid. In this way, her writing is comparable to something like Mark Twain's early efforts at autobiography, where she just puts you in the moment next to child/teenage/young adult her.
Halfway through the book there's this quote: "I'd been political...without intending to be political." You can tell she's not some professional activist, or "grifter," based on her frankness and candor and being able to admit the failures of her activism. Freely admit them, even! That takes bravery right there, along with the ability to say "I'm not sure" which occurs multiple times in this book too. Betty was shoved into activism by rough, racist circumstance, and her strength is admirable there. There's a CS Lewis chapter somewhere about people like her: not succumbing to ideology in youth and not succumbing to apathy in old age.
I'm biased. Very, very, very biased, because I've worked with Betty before and she's one of the best interpretive rangers the NPS has ever had. Are there a few issues with this book? Yes, mostly with the editing, which can get amateurish and repetitive. Do I care? Not really, because again, Betty rocks.
The best way to go through this book is to pretend as if she's presenting it to you ranger/lecture style. Parts at the beginning, about her childhood, and in the middle, about the start of her activism and understanding of racist Bay Area suburbia, are incredibly vivid. In this way, her writing is comparable to something like Mark Twain's early efforts at autobiography, where she just puts you in the moment next to child/teenage/young adult her.
Halfway through the book there's this quote: "I'd been political...without intending to be political." You can tell she's not some professional activist, or "grifter," based on her frankness and candor and being able to admit the failures of her activism. Freely admit them, even! That takes bravery right there, along with the ability to say "I'm not sure" which occurs multiple times in this book too. Betty was shoved into activism by rough, racist circumstance, and her strength is admirable there. There's a CS Lewis chapter somewhere about people like her: not succumbing to ideology in youth and not succumbing to apathy in old age.
Read
August 13, 2020I had trouble putting this marvelous memoir down. A friend recommended it to me because Betty Reid Soskin and her family were the first Blacks to build a home in Walnut Creek, CA, the town where I grew up. In fact, her home was very near my first neighborhood. I remember riding my bike past their home, noting their swimming pool and remembering that they were an unusual family. They did not have it easy in W.C., to say the least.Betty had a marvelous spirit and a fascinating life. Born in Louisiana to Creole parents, she was raised in Oakland and owned record stores in Berkeley and other parts of the Bay Area. She has a fantastic memory and is an astute historian and observer of humanity, inhumanity, and politics at the neighborhood level. Betty met challenges with strength and honesty and was much admired in her later years as the oldest park ranger in the history of the National Park Service, having helped to plan the rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front NationalHistorical Park in Richmond, CA.
January 12, 2021
What an important contribution to our history collections. We often only hear White stories. This one is distinctly not that. I beautiful perspective of some turbulent times in our nation's history. I'm listening to Betty's words while I'm in Berkeley, so it's easy to imagine the time/place/setting...and wonderful to be here when so many attitudes have shifted over the years. It's a beautiful thing that Betty has experienced some of the growth/change in societal attitudes, as well.
I love her words when she says (paraphrasing) that she can't change the world, but she can change a little something here and there in the neighborhoods where she lives/works. It's by the little and simple things that great ones come about.
Betty didn't see enough of herstory in the history books, so she started out blogging and recording her life for her posterity. Her efforts will affect many and hopefully inspire more herstories to be written.
I love her words when she says (paraphrasing) that she can't change the world, but she can change a little something here and there in the neighborhoods where she lives/works. It's by the little and simple things that great ones come about.
Betty didn't see enough of herstory in the history books, so she started out blogging and recording her life for her posterity. Her efforts will affect many and hopefully inspire more herstories to be written.
October 31, 2018
A fascinating autobiography of an extraordinary woman, simply told as she lived it. The story speaks for itself, without embellishing. A life doing what she had to do, coming to full realization of who she was and what she stood for later, as she faced the events and times she was in. It personalizes and makes real the general history we know of race relations, the place of women, social dynamics, …
The strength of this book lies in the straight-forward honesty with which she tells her story. It brings life into the history - a history which is too little known or understood by those who were not directly part of it.
The strength of this book lies in the straight-forward honesty with which she tells her story. It brings life into the history - a history which is too little known or understood by those who were not directly part of it.
November 16, 2024
I think I picked this book up in the gift shop at the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Park in Richmond. I believe they play a video there featuring this author. I must have been impressed enough with the video to buy the book.
It is a very interesting story of a remarkable life. Before she retired in 2022 (after the book was published), she was the oldest National Park Ranger in the US. She stems from a very large, proud Creole family in Louisiana. She describes how, with a background of black, white, French, maybe some Spanish, ancestors, she came to identify as Black. She moved to the San Francisco Bay Area while still in school, so she didn't have direct experience with the Jim Crow South. Nevertheless, she is extremely astute and picks up on injustices from a very young age.
She also was never really a "Rosie," and describes at length her discomfort with being identified as such. During the war, she worked as a file clerk for a Black labor union, filing cards identifying businesses who weren't going to be given contracts after the war. This injustice deeply influenced her becoming an "activist." While she firmly stood up for her rights and the rights of regular people, her writing is constantly humble.
It is a very interesting story of a remarkable life. Before she retired in 2022 (after the book was published), she was the oldest National Park Ranger in the US. She stems from a very large, proud Creole family in Louisiana. She describes how, with a background of black, white, French, maybe some Spanish, ancestors, she came to identify as Black. She moved to the San Francisco Bay Area while still in school, so she didn't have direct experience with the Jim Crow South. Nevertheless, she is extremely astute and picks up on injustices from a very young age.
She also was never really a "Rosie," and describes at length her discomfort with being identified as such. During the war, she worked as a file clerk for a Black labor union, filing cards identifying businesses who weren't going to be given contracts after the war. This injustice deeply influenced her becoming an "activist." While she firmly stood up for her rights and the rights of regular people, her writing is constantly humble.
September 21, 2018
No doubt an amazing person I had the fortune to see on stage recently in an interview - at 97 years old! So I was very interested to read her book, an accumulation of her blogs and stories over the many years of her life. It gave this Brit an insightful view of American history spanning so many years which only someone with Betty's background, intelligence, determination and longevity could produce. Not an easy read but persevere! It's worth it!
January 5, 2023
The author, Betty Reid Soskin, is famous for still bring a National Park Service ranger at the age of 101. I was curious to learn more about her, and she's had quite a life!
This book has photos of her and also her family members. She was quite beautiful from the photos and retained her youthful looks for many years.
I've scanned this and enjoyed all the photos and plan to read more if time and the library checkout allow.
This book has photos of her and also her family members. She was quite beautiful from the photos and retained her youthful looks for many years.
I've scanned this and enjoyed all the photos and plan to read more if time and the library checkout allow.
May 29, 2018
Such a fascinating read. BRS has lived through and witnessed so much history, and worked hard at a wide variety of endeavors, including activist, singer/songwriter, wife/mother, small business owner, blogger, and park ranger. She is a true role model for how to live a long life instead of, as she puts it, an "extended death."
December 21, 2018
What a remarkable woman and life story. Betty was a housewife turned activist and so much more. Her impact on the Bay Area and beyond is still felt and, at almost 100, she doesn’t appear to be slowing down. I learned so much about the east bay too and am inspired to visit the Rosie the Riveter park and more. Thank you Betty for all your service.
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