Betty Reid Soskin, 'trailblazing' oldest national park ranger, dies at 104

"Betty Reid Soskin, who rose to national prominence as the National Park Service's oldest ranger and shared her experiences of racial segregation working on the World War II home front, has died. She was 104. Soskin passed away Sunday morning at her home in Richmond, Calif. surrounded by family. "She led a fully packed life and was ready to leave," her family wrote in a social media post."

"Soskin grew up in a Cajun-Creole African American family that settled in Oakland after a historic flood devastated their home in New Orleans in 1927, according to her Park Service biography. She was 6 when she arrived in East Oakland. Her parents joined her maternal grandfather, who had resettled in the Bay Area city at the end of World War I."

Betty Reid Soskin was a National Park Service ranger and activist who highlighted Black women's experiences on the World War II home front. She joined the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park at age 85 and used her role to elevate stories of women from diverse backgrounds and to confront narratives that ignored segregation. She retired in 2022 at age 100 and died at 104 in Richmond, California, surrounded by family. She was born into a Cajun-Creole African American family that moved from New Orleans to Oakland after the 1927 flood. Her great-grandmother was born into slavery and later freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.

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