Reid-Soskin - Sign My Name to Freedom: A Memoir of a Pioneering Life

Copyright 2018 by Betty Reid Soskin

Published in the United States by: SmileyBooks, 2776 Loker Ave. West, Carlsbad, CA 92010 www.smileybooks.com

Distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au Published and distributed in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast Books: www.raincoast.com Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Cover design: thebookdesigners.com

Interior design: Bryn Starr Best

Indexer: Laura Ogar

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private useother than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviewswithout prior written permission of the publisher.

The views and opinions set forth in this book are those of the author, and do not express the views of the National Park Service, the federal government, the publisher, Hay House, Inc., or any of its affiliates

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Soskin, Betty Reid, 1921- author. | Allen-Taylor, J. Douglas, editor.

Title: Sign my name to freedom : a memoir of a pioneering life / Betty Reid Soskin; edited by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor.

Other titles: Memoir of a pioneering life

Description: Carlsbad, California : Hay House, Inc., [2018] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017040961 | ISBN 9781401954215 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Soskin, Betty Reid, 1921- | African American women--California--East Bay--Biography. | Women political activists--California--East Bay--Biography. | East Bay (Calif.)--Politics and government--20th century. | African Americans--California--East Bay--Social conditions--20th century. | College teachers spouses--California--Berkeley--Biography. | Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park (Agency : U.S.)--Officials and employees--Biography. | Creoles--United States--Biography. | San Francisco Bay Area--Social life and customs--20th century. | East Bay (Calif.)--Biography.

Classification: LCC F868.S156 S67 2018 | DDC 979.4/6053092 [B] --dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017040961

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4019-5421-5

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1st edition, February 2018

Printed in the United States of America

IN ANY BOOK ABOUT a life that is reaching toward its 10th decade, far more is going to be left out than can possibly be put in. One regret I have is that there was not room enough to put in more about my four wonderful children.

Because my eldest, Rick, passed away at such an early age, his life is covered in this book from childhood to the short span of his adulthood. But for Bob, David, and Dorian, only their childhood years appear.

David has been dutiful, responsible, and filled with purpose throughout his life. Bob is more of a poet, and much more like me, while David is his father personified. As for Dorian, since she was very young, Ive been deeply aware of my responsibility to prepare her throughout life for living without me in it. Although she is confident and reasonably talented, the world is simply not designed for her.

Sign My Name to Freedom is dedicated to the four of themRick, Bob, David, and Dorianthe loves and the pride of my life, with the promise that I will take the time to say more about all of them when I write my next book.

WHAT IS THE SECRET OF Betty Reid Soskins great appeal to so many people both in the country of her birth and around the world? Its a question she and I have been talking over for many years, long before the idea was formed to collect her many writings into a single book about her life.

I have known Betty for, literally, my entire life. She is one of my fathers cousins who married into my mothers family, so our lives are intertwined on two sides of our families. It was my delight and privilege to witness her rise to national and international fame and prominence over the last decade or so, and to hold many conversations with her discussing how and why this came to be.

One thing that should be known about Betty is that she never aspired to fame, and has never seen the fame she has attained as the culmination of her lifes work. She is constantly both amazed and bewildered by the attention that is paid to her, and, certainly in the beginning days of that fame, dearly worried that she could never live up to the expectations people appeared to lay upon her. I can remember several late-night telephone calls with her in those days when, almost in tears, she wondered what she could possibly say in a speech to be given to some organization or other the next morning. And then the morning would come, and she would stand before those upturned, expectant faces and just be Betty, and she gradually realized that this was exactly what they had come for. I am not at all certain that even to this day she is fully convinced that what she has had to offer is enough.

Because the world did not come to know and appreciate Betty until she was in her 90s, there is a temptation to use her ageand her remarkable retention of a youthful and active mind so late in lifeas the main source of her celebrity, but thats only a small part of it.

The elders of our communities are our historians. A historian leads you to the window of the past, presses your nose against the pane, and allows you to see everything that passes by the frame. A good historian walks out the door into the past, walks around, and returns to tell you all he or she has seen so you can understand what the past was like. A great historianand Betty Reid Soskin is indeed a great historiantakes you by the hand and walks you through the door of the past and allows you to walk around back there, often as far as your own mind can wander, so you can understand what it would have been like to live in those years. She puts you in the past and helps you relive it on your own.

That is one reason this small, slight, unpretentious woman with a voice that rarely rises above a tone of quiet explanation has been able to captivate thousands in talks and lectures around the country.

But another pillar of Betty Reid Soskins appeal is her unrelenting courage in facing every challenge life places in front of her, whether it is coping with a lifetime of American anti-black racism, raising one developmentally disabled and one gay child, enduring a divorce and a mental breakdown, or beating off a home burglar at the age of 94.

It is that stubborn courage that Betty possesses that is captured in the title of this book, Sign My Name to Freedom. The words are the title of a song that Betty, typically, wrote not about herself, but about a woman who had signed up during the civil rights era for the freedom struggle in the Deep South.

There are two ways that we can sign our names to such a freedom struggle: deliberately or by circumstance. Neither should be considered more courageous than the other. Each requires a different type of courage.