Betty Reid Soskin

Betty was born in 1921 in Detroit and spent her early years in Louisiana. Her family moved to Oakland California after a huge flood of New Orleans in 1927. She has spoken at events about her life and history all across the US, and has been awarded the ACLU, California state legislature, and by former president Barack Obama. One of the most instrumental things she did as a park ranger was consult during the creation of a urban national park. Betty gave the planners some context as to which areas in Richmond that would be included in the park were sites of racial segregation and struggle for African Americans, a detail she remembers by saying "What gets remembered is determined by who is in the room doing the remembering. There was no grand conspiracy to leave my history out. There simply was nobody in that room who had any reason to know that". If you get the chance, listen to her speak or read her blog.

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