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Inflection Point: Why Rosie the Riveter is "Not my icon” - Betty Reid Soskin, National Park Service

Photo courtesy of the Nation Parks/modified from original
Betty Reid Soskin at the Rosie the Riveter/WW II Homefront National Historic Park

For the past decade 96-year-old Betty Reid Soskin has served as the nation’s oldest Park Ranger 

where she gives talks at the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park. But the triumphant story of the now ubiquitous feminist icon, Rosie the Riveter, is not Betty’s story. While Rosie was breaking barriers for twentieth century white women in the workforce, Black women like Betty and her slave ancestors had been serving as laborers “outside the home” for centuries. In our live talk at INFORUM at the Commonwealth Club, Betty offers a clear-eyed perspective on the untold stories of the American narrative and the ever-rising spiral our country is making toward equality.

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