Betty Reid Soskin, Civil Rights Songwriter and Park Ranger, Dies at 104
Betty Reid Soskin, the oldest serving ranger in National Park Service history and a leading interpreter of the World War II home front, has died. Soskin died Dec. 21, 2025, at her home in Richmond, California. She was 104.
Born Sept. 22, 1921, Soskin later devoted her career to ensuring that the experiences of African Americans and women were included in the nation’s historical record.
Soskin was born Betty Charbonnet in Detroit. “I was actually born in Detroit, Michigan,” she said. “My parents didn’t remain there, and I don’t remember much about that except that I was born there.”
Her parents, Dorson Louis Charbonnet and Lottie Breaux Allen, later moved the family to New Orleans. After a devastating hurricane and flood in 1927 destroyed their home and business, the family relocated to Oakland, California, where she later graduated from Castlemont High School.
Her family history shaped her outlook. Her father was Creole, her mother Cajun, and a great-grandmother had been born into slavery in 1846. During World War II, Soskin worked as a file clerk for the Boilermakers Union A-36, an all-Black auxiliary union supporting shipyard workers. The job placed her in the center of the wartime economy while exposing the racial segregation.
In 1945, she and her husband, Mel Reid, founded Reid’s Records in Berkeley, a Black-owned business specializing in gospel music. The store became a community fixture. In the 1950s, the family moved to Walnut Creek so their children could attend better schools, a decision that brought racist harassment and death threats after they built a home in the predominantly white suburb.
Soskin later became active in the Unitarian Universalist Church and the civil rights movement as a songwriter. In a 2024 interview with Brief But Spectacular, she reflected on the many roles she had lived. “I have been so many women so many times that it’s hard to remember who they are,” she said. “I’ve been a daughter, a mother, a businesswoman, a federal worker. I’ve actually been so many things.”
She described writing songs as a way to speak truths she could not otherwise voice. “I could sing things that I couldn’t say,” she said. “They would have been completely outrageous had I said them. But when I sang them, they’re acceptable.”
After divorcing Reid, she married William Soskin, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She later served as a field representative for California legislators Dion Aroner and Loni Hancock and helped plan what became Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park.
She joined the National Park Service as a ranger in 2007 at age 85. “I was 50 before I had a meaningful job,” she said. “I was 85 before I became a park ranger. I retired at 100.”
In reflecting on her life, Soskin said. “The important thing is never what has gone wrong,” she said. “What has gone by is gone. I don’t know what comes next, but I do know that I’m ready for it.”
Soskin retired in 2022 after suffering a stroke in 2019.