Honoring Betty Reid Soskin: Illuminating Diverse Narratives at Camp
Mural artwork by Shirley Ly, Nicole Lauhon and Amanda Leeman.
“What gets remembered is a function of who’s in the room doing the remembering.”
- Betty Reid Soskin
Last fall, Camp initiated the process of renaming some of the cabins to better represent the spectrum of identities within our community. We began by inviting name submissions from our staff and eventually narrowed down the options through rounds of voting. Eventually, two names were selected by our staff, and the first cabin to be rebranded is now named after Betty Reid Soskin!
You might know Betty Reid Soskin as the oldest National Park Ranger (she received this title when she turned 100 in 2022 and has since retired), as California’s Woman of the Year in 1995, or as the recipient of a Presidential Coin in 2015. Betty Reid Soskin is renowned as a social justice activist, musician, mother, park ranger, and has earned countless other accolades. As a Black woman who lived through the Jim Crow era and was an active voice during the Civil Rights Movement, Soskin has been a fierce advocate for ensuring that all stories are told and recognized.
In the early stages of the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park, Soskin was invited to sit on the planning committee. She had worked as a file clerk in a segregated unit in the 1940s and had firsthand experience of the collective wartime efforts. However, during the creation of this national historical park, Soskin noticed that the proposed components were “white-washed” and excluded different narratives, an observation that she passed along to the committee. Today, the national historical park shares a variety of stories, including the inequality of rights between workers of color and white workers, to the incarceration of Japanese Americans, and many more. Without Soskin, these stories would not be shared today.
Beyond her advocacy, Soskin was a music aficionado. She and her first husband sold records out of their garage in the East Bay and eventually opened their record store, Reid’s Records, specifically to sell records that white record stores would not sell. Music became an avenue for Soskin to express herself during turbulent times in her life. Currently, there is a documentary in production to showcase Soskin’s life as a singer/songwriter. You can learn more and donate to help support the documentary here: https://www.signmynametofreedom.com/.
Soskin now works to capture unspoken stories of historically marginalized groups, including writing her blog. In one post she shares, “We tend to look back and measure social change in terms of values, but seldom do we look back on our lives contextually. It's only when we do so that a true picture of just who we are can be found. And it's only when we look back at those times that we can gain some sense of just how far we've come.”
These stories inspired our staff in the creation of the Soskin mural that decorates the inside of her namesake cabin. Staff members Nicole Lauhon, Shirley Ly, and Amanda Leeman spearheaded the project, drawing inspiration from her work within the National Park system, her passion for music, and her advocacy for BIPOC individuals.
Overall, we hope that by illuminating Betty Reid Soskin’s story, campers and guests who stay in the cabin are inspired to learn more about her and follow in her footsteps to elevate diverse narratives. There are many ways to learn more about Soskin’s life (references for the article listed below) and we also encourage folks to read her memoir, Sign My Name into Freedom: A Memoir of Pioneering Life.
References used:
https://www.nps.gov/rori/learn/historyculture/betty-reid-soskin.htm
https://theriveter.co/voice/betty-reid-siskin-original-rosie-the-riveter/
https://www.glamour.com/story/women-of-the-year-2018-betty-reid-soskin
Images provided by Shirley Ly, Nicole Lauhon, Andrew Boyd-Goodrich and Erin Moses-Wierman.