Sign My Name to Everything:
The Multi-Hyphenate Spirit of Betty Reid Soskin
How to listen to the stories of those who lived many lives — and continue to share their songs.
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Thank you to everyone who attended the live interview and discussion on May 22, 2025! The recording of this conversation has been published as an At Home, On Air podcast episode.
Thank You to Our Featured Guests:
Alyana Reid | Co-Producer of Sign My Name to Freedom, Social Media Manager, Granddaughter of Betty Reid Soskin
Bryan Gibel | Director of Sign My Name to Freedom, Filmmaker
Thank You to Our Podcast Hosts:
Susanne Stadler & Taylor Martin | At Home With Growing Older
Episode Description:
At 103 years old, Betty Charbonnet Reid Soskin’s remarkable life spans the defining American fault lines of the 20th and 21st centuries. From breaking racial barriers as the first African American family settling in Walnut Creek to becoming the oldest National Park Service Ranger at 85 at the Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park in Richmond, California, her stories illuminate crucial experiences that might otherwise be lost to time.
Listen to this conversation with Betty’s granddaughter Alyana Reid and filmmaker Bryan Gibel as they discuss what they learned from listening to Betty’s stories for their nearly-completed documentary, “Sign My Name to Freedom,” which uncovers Betty’s early career as a musician. Through this film and her memoir of the same name, Betty has revived compositions hidden for decades, demonstrating the value of continuing to explore and revive long-held passions in later life, not just for one’s own benefit but also for the benefit of younger generations to help them shape their journeys.
Betty didn’t just sign her name to freedom — she signed it to every part of herself that deserved to be known, offering us all a powerful example of how sharing our complete stories across generations creates a more empathetic world.
Key Points of Discussion:
- “She Always Had the Song” — The origins of a hidden artist
- Betty’s art as a storyteller
- Slowing down as an opportunity
- Becoming more enthusiastic listeners
- Claiming all of you in later life
Additional Details:
This episode is a part of our mini-series, Changemaker Interviews, where we highlight the impact of changemakers on the quality of our lives. These individuals have challenged and changed systems, introduced new ways of thinking and told previously untold stories.
Bios:
Betty Charbonnet Reid Soskin is an author, composer and singer, social and political activist, entrepreneur, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, historian, blogger, public speaker, and National Park Service Ranger. Born into a Cajun/Creole African-American family in 1921, she spent her early years in New Orleans in the era of lynchings and Jim Crow segregation. Her family later settled in Oakland, California, following the historic floods that devastated the City of New Orleans in 1927. As a file clerk in an all-Black segregated union hall during World War II, she was witness to the flood-tide of Black and white workers who poured into the Bay area wartime shipyards, a mass migration that changed the face and social fabric of California and helped usher in the civil rights era.
Along with her first husband, Mel Reid, Betty helped integrate the East Bay suburbs by moving their family into a previously white neighborhood (Walnut Creek). Betty and Mel also founded one of the first Black-owned record shop businesses in California. In 1995 Betty was named a “Woman of the Year” by the California State Legislature. In 2005 she was named one of the nation’s ten outstanding women, “Builders of communities and dreams” by the National Women’s History Project in ceremonies in both Griffith Park in Los Angeles, and in Washington, D.C. She released her memoir, Sign My Name to Freedom, in February 2018.
Alyana Leon Reid Soskin graduated from UC Irvine with a BA in Film/Cinema/Video Studies in 2019, where she developed her passion and skills for storytelling and visual media. Since then, she has held various roles related to social media and film production. Alyana is the granddaughter of Betty Reid Soskin, a co-producer on the documentary about Betty’s life in music and Social Media Manager and Post Production Assistant with Focal Point Films.
Bryan Gibel is an independent filmmaker living in Oakland, California. He founded Focal Point Films in 2015 and began working as a freelance cinematographer and editor for commercial and non-fiction productions. In November 2022, Gibel and New York-based distributor Field of Vision released Sickness in the System, a hybrid documentary short he shot and directed about the COVID outbreak in San Quentin prison in 2020. The film premiered at the prestigious IFC Film Center in New York. His half-hour dance film, Love, A State of Grace, premiered at the San Francisco Dance Film Festival in October 2023 and played at Festival Videodanza de Puerto Rico and the San Francisco Aerial Arts Film Festival in 2024. He started working on a feature-length documentary about Soskin’s involvement with music, also titled Sign My Name to Freedom, in 2016.
Takeaway Resources:
About People & Topics Mentioned:
- Bryan Gibel & Alyana Reid
- Betty Reid Soskin
- Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historic Park
- The Great Migration
- Reid’s Records
To Listen, Read or Watch:
- Ebony the Night, a song by Betty (song & dance begin at 2:05)
- Betty’s documentary, Sign My Name to Freedom
- Betty’s book, A Memoir of a Pioneering Life: Sign My Name to Freedom
- Betty’s blog, CBreaux Speaks (2003-2019)
- Play about Betty, Sign My Name to Freedom (2024)
Thank YOU!
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The original, live conversation was recorded on:
Thursday, May 22, 2025 at 5:30 PM PDT.