Catching up in my journal ... this one slid by but needs documenting ... .

Author/historian Daniel Howe and photographer Simon Griffiths visited our park a few weeks ago to conduct an interview to be included in a book featuring profiles of National Park rangers across the country.  To be included in such a work is a great tribute when you consider that my history with the parks is relatively short compared to others.

I learned that they'd flown out from their homes in the Carolinas to spend a day each with Ranger Shelton Johnson of Yosemite National Park and me.  Of course, Shelton is the iconic park ranger who was featured in the Ken Burns huge PBS special on our national parks.  To be considered in the same league -- much less the same book -- as Shelton is beyond my wildest fantasies.

Filmmaker Carl Bidleman and his photographer, Stefan, were also on hand to cover that interview for inclusion in their 30-minute film in production for other purposes.  That film will feature my recent life as a park ranger and should be released in late fall.

Makes one wonder, doesn't it?

One lifetime in which any one of the great adventures of these past few years should occur, is unimaginable, yet ... .

Saturday, May 13,  2017, will go down in my personal narrative as comparable to the Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, or, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, or the sharing of the tree lighting ceremony with the First Family -- with that frayed-around-the-edges little picture of my great grandmother, Leontine Breaux Allen, clutched in that little maroon velvet pouch in my left hand as I introduced the president to the nation; the memory of the warmth of the hand of President Barack Obama as he slipped that coin engraved with the presidential seal into my palm ... all of it was embodied in that moment when the beautiful cowl was draped over my graying head and slipped into place by the gentle hands of President Elizabeth Hillman.

There were two teams of filmmakers somewhere out there in the audience of 4000, filmmakers who by now have become indistinguishable from my friends and were no longer to be feared or even noticed as they go about their work of documenting this extraordinary ordinary life of Betty Reid Soskin.  They've now been with me in the shadows for over a year, and by Saturday had become almost invisible despite the paraphernalia necessary to their mission, simply because there was so much in the way; family and friends scattered throughout the VIP section, over 200 graduates capped and gowned eagerly and daringly standing on the threshold of "Life". I'd caught a glimpse of my two sons and granddaughter, nieces, cousins, friends from my Unitarian world who are no longer a part of my daily life, but who helped to get me over many of the rough patches to today.  Friend and mentor Farai Chideya who had flown out from New York a few hours ago just for this ceremony, and would be back on the afternoon flight for her return trip!  My National Park Service family was well represented.

The young Muslim woman who gave the opening address, and who was wearing the traditional scarf covering her head but with 3 inch strapped heels, and California denim Levis peeking out from under her somber black robe!  Fiery political activist Lateefah Simon who gave the commencement address to an adoring audience -- and you knew somehow that -- given just a few more years on the earth, that I was watching the next rising star in the State legislature.

From the moment of arrival, I'd been shepherded from place to place by gracious Mills faculty, board members, all manner of hosts and hostesses, so that there was never a moment in which to connect with friends and family, which was one of the unexpected disadvantages.  I'm now receiving loving messages from many who were witnesses to my great moment, but were unable to ever connect during the event.

Also unanticipated was the strength and power of the "virtual" community that has now become the source of energy and courage that I'm consciously drawing from each time life hands me one of these larger than life experiences.  Some in that "family" have been with me for the past 25 years, from the world we created on Seniornet, an online community emanating from San Francisco many years ago.  Quill, Janina, Jayne, oh so many, whom I've never laid eyes on, but who have been the  wind beneath my wings for a very long time.

So much is owed to so many ... .

In those rare moments between thrills sitting on the platform as the graduates paraded past receiving  their diplomas, I was so aware that -- rather than "We shall overcome" playing in the back of my mind in the rich contralto of Mahalia Jackson, it was something quite unexpected.  This was my Brigadoon moment, and my black metaphors were hopelessly overwhelmed by a long life in the rich diversity of the greater Bay Area.  It wasn't the voice of the noble Dr. Martin Luther King whispering in my ear, but a tiny brown leprechaun resplendent in green garb sitting on my left shoulder channeling Al Jarreau riffin' on Look to the Rainbow!  

Oh, and this song, "Look at me", was written over 40 years ago.  Only the last line was changed to fit the occasion.  My music, including  Look at me, is becoming the sound track to one of the documentaries now being filmed.  There is talk of an album to be released along with the films.

Which  brings us to yesterday, the day after this memorable celebratory ceremony, but while I'm still in my paper hat ...

Photo by Mike Pompa

Look at me!

Look at me and you'll see how I'm flyin'!

Can't you see this is me, no more cryin'

Feel like I'm Series time and this is my inning

Maybe this is a game

but this time I'm winning!

People say she's like a girl from the moon

she's a dead one

Now I'm like a balloon

and a red one!

Twelve feel high still growin'

and all my dreams aglowin'

Look at me, look at me, look at me

Look at me, Look at me and you'll see

I'm finally a Mills woman!

Saturday brought another of the occasional interviewers to the Visitor Educator Center ...

... but this one was a bit out of the ordinary in that his name was Brian Yochim, and he was from St. Louis; an academic.  He wanted to interview me for a textbook he's writing for psychiatrists and psychologists.  The Psychology of Aging is his subject, and I suppose those of us at the upper end of the Pyramid of Life are increasingly of interest since there are so many more of us now than ever before in history.  How these years are spent by those of us fortunate enough to reach this final decade with our cognitive functioning intact are quite the phenomenon.

I've suspected for a long time that much of the interest in my work tends to lie in the fact that I'm such a late bloomer.  Though I cannot say that I didn't work -- I'd been a stay-at-home mom for the first half only but after having helped to start our little family business in Berkeley until motherhood took over my life.  Didn't have my first significant formal job until I was almost fifty, and have been working ever since.  That the National Park Service hired me as a permanent park ranger at 85 continues to bring smiles to the faces of the elders who stop in, especially when I playfully suggest that they keep their resumes updated, "you never know when the call will come!"

In this interview which was not from the usual perspective -- but from a very different line of inquiry, I became more aware of the fact that I'm now living day-to-day out of context.  My world is peopled by the young.  That probably effects the way I look at life, because there is far more future and hope in those under fifty than above the half-century mark.  I'm guessing that life would look much different were I living in a retirement community among peers.

Found myself wondering how much our attitudes about growing old are "caught" from the setting in which we find ourselves?  Wondering how much power lies in external definitions of the nature of aging?  Is the dementia so prevalent among those over 80 due to contagion?  Is the fact that -- as I am realistically dealing with end of life issues -- I'm still moored to the present through the environment that is provided by my work -- is that what's making the difference?  Has the ghettoizing of the elderly been destructive to our well-being?

Had my annual physical mid-week and was curious as to why the physician wasn't guided by the state of my well-being rather than what I'm projected to be at 95.  No longer are certain tests done routinely.  No longer checking for cholesterol levels, for instance.  There are tests that get dropped off the schedule after a certain age.  No mammograms.  No PAP smears.  (Have I outlived my PAP, maybe?).  Just a great young doctor going into raptures of delight at how great is my continuing state of excellent health, no meds except for a 12 mg tablet to control blood pressure, no chronic illnesses; no arthritis, no diabetes, no, no, no ... .  He says, "My God, you're like a 60 year-old!"  So why is he not treating me like a 60 year-old?  Why is he suddenly taking my blood pressure in a standing position "because that's what we do after 75," instead of sitting down as my fine state of health should demand?  But that's what the doctor's manual says, as he showed me on his computer when I looked quizzical.

I live in Hilltop Village, about a 35 year-old low to moderate income housing development where there are children, young parents, middle-aged couples and singles, dogs and cats galore, and at least one parrot.  My work involves day-to-day contact with young rangers with varied life experiences and attitudes plus a few of those nearing retirement age having put in their 20 years.  All are firmly invested in NOW, and are deeply engaged in meaningful work.

Really, by the end of the interview I found myself with more questions than answers ... .

I wonder if Mr. Yochim went home scratching his head and wondering, too?

Surprises abound!

Opened my federal IPad yesterday -- when the world was looking impossibly dark and unpredictable -- and there it was; a message from President Elizabeth Hillman of Mills College announcing that I'd been selected to receive an honorary doctorate at their May 13th commencement!  Can you imagine?  But of course you cannot.  No one could possibly understand how much this means.

I grew up at a time when college was only for the privileged.  Young women whose parents could afford to, sent them to higher education in order to enable them to marry well, though some were sincerely seeking higher learning in prescribed fields, getting an "Mrs." was worth far more than earning a Ph.D.,.

As a child of the depression era -- college was unthinkable, but being a part of the crowd heading into life-changing careers was important.  Like most parents, mine saw to it that the young men I was dating were those who were on the ladder to great things.  That I would aspire to be a student was not encouraged in the least, and was generally thought to be a waste of time for girls.  Graduating from high school was, at that time, quite enough.  I'd fulfilled my parent's hopes by the age of 18.  That I would be married and a mother (in that order, hopefully), by the time I was 21 would surely not fulfill my own ambitions, but being educated beyond high school was simply not a part of the equation.

Yes, that's me -- top row.

I grew up in East Oakland at a time when there was little opportunity to even ride past Mills College unless the bus on which I was riding was within range of that campus.  At such times I would ride by and wistfully wonder what magical things went on behind those lush ivied walls.  I could barely see beyond those magnificent fortress-like gates just off MacArthur boulevard  that led into who knows what Secret Gardens ... .  Maybe the likes of Abigail Adams and Dolly Madison, the Bronte sisters, Amelia Earhart, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Willa Cather, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Georgia O'Keefe, Jane Addams, Clara Barton,  Alice Paul, Susan B. Anthony and Cady Stanton, Rachel Carson, Helen Keller, Madame Marie Curie, Louisa Mae Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe et al, were waiting behind those walls.

There was that turn in the road that would bring the scruffy flatlands into view as we descended from the foothills to our home on lower 83rd Avenue -- where such names might be rarely heard, but who were already familiar names to this inquiring young mind.  But, of course, I grew up as a second generation Californian studying from an exclusive curriculum designed for a white and homogeneous America.

It would be decades still before the wisdom, voices, and likes of Phyllis Wheatley, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Zola Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Nikki Giovanni, Teri McMillan, Isabel Wilkerson, Sonya Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brooks, Bell Hooks, Audre Lorde, Olivia Butler, Bessie Coleman, Dr. Mae Jemison, Ida B. Wells, Fanny Lou Hamer and our own Rep. Barbara Lee, could be imagined behind those walls of a by now more inclusive institution of higher learning. I only learned of Dr. Katherine Johnson, the brilliant physicist/mathematician of NASA fame, on Netflix a few nights ago!  Or that I would be a middle-aged 46 year-old woman when, in 1967, the Lovings would be imprisoned for loving one another enough to marry in the state of Virginia, a State where such unions were then prohibited by law.

No longer am I invisible or unrepresented.

I am worthy.

Education was generic then, and did not yet reflect the changing racial and cultural demographic of the City of Oakland that we've since grown into, though at that time (pre-Proposition 13) our state system of public instruction was the envy of the country and the world.  That I've experienced a long lifetime of an ever-evolving curiosity and always an avid reader probably harkens back to that early training under the guidance of a succession of strong white teachers who cared enough to nurture the spark evident in my questions despite the flawed social system imposed by the times.  Fortunately, to their credit, I was never forced to perform under the crushing burden of low expectations, though there are the lingering effects of cultural deprivation and expropriation still to be overcome.

I would be a young adult before Ruth Acty would become the first African American woman to be hired to teach in the public schools of California.

It was much later in life when -- in the early months as a new and untested member of staff of our park -- Martha Lee, our superintendent, received an invitation for someone to participate on a panel sponsored by the National Women's History Project's annual national conference to be held on the Mills campus, and no one else was available to send.

The assignment would present my very first opportunity to be behind those beautiful ivy-covered walls and storied historic buildings -- and I could hardly wait.  That was in spring of 2006, and as the result of my participation on that panel, I was named as one of ten of the Women, Builders of Communities and Dreams, honored nationally in ceremonies both at Griffiths Park in Los Angeles, and in Washington, D.C. at the historic John Hay Hotel -- just across from the expansive grounds of the White House.  This would be my introduction to the nation's capitol, and life was never the same thereafter.

Mills College and I now have a shared history, and that this beautiful campus should now become the site of this ultimate honor caps the dream that was so far beyond imagination of that little girl of color riding so wistfully by on the MacArthur Avenue bus line so long ago, dreaming the impossible dream ... .

Those little girls of color are still riding past ... past those seemingly forbidding gates that, symbolically, stand for the unseen forces against which so much energy must still be expended.  To some those gates may still be perceived as protecting those within from those without.  There is still little awareness of the depths of unexplored potential, or, that the barriers of old have lost much of their power to exclude the curious, or limit the reach of those who aspire to greatness.  Over time, Mills College has contributed much to the lessening of the obstacles to fulfillment for so many.  In all of our names, I thank you.

... and, it is true that all things are possible, even if one has to wait a very long lifetime for the fantasy to become breathingly, livingly, and lovingly real!

In our little theater in a moment of reflection post-talk (Getty image)

Interview with Richard Dion from The Soul of California, Podcast from Germany ... .

... went well, I think, though I have no way of knowing, actually.  I have no idea what audience it will be aired for, or -- since it was in English and not German -- whether the intended audience is in Europe or the United States.  The Internet had made the world so small that one can originate programming from almost anywhere -- including outer space.  The direct connections have been obscured irreversibly.

It occurred to me that -- when I'm giving my talks in our little theater with its limited seating capacity (48) the intimacy is so clear -- that it's possible to deal with sensitive subjects easily, and that fact colors my presentations, and keeps my truths fresh for me.  As long as I can see faces that are hearing my words for the first time, those words continue to be alive for me.  Were that not true I think my talks would not be possible without gradually going predictable and boring.

My talks tend to vary over time, with differences in stresses and accents because my audiences continue to bring newness and freshness with them each time they enter into my small circle of listeners.  New questions give rise to new or changing memories; the dynamism goes on.

It is hard for me to establish those conditions with a radio audience.  If I allow myself to stray from the singular voice of the person on the other end of the telephone line -- it tends to become diffuse and I lose focus.  On the other hand, if I simply stay with that voice (an audience of one) maybe  something gets lost ... .

I'm so dependent upon the ambiance provided by my setting that it's hard for me to judge whether my effectiveness comes through when the access to those faces, eyes, questions, are not possible -- as in radio interviews -- that these are a waste of time and yield little but noise.

Maybe that uncertainty is the reason that I tend to never listen to those programs after the fact.  Maybe I'm afraid that I've not lived up to expectations -- the reason my opinions are sought by
"the World," and that I must not trust this publicity-manufactured celebrity at all.

I truly don't know.

Singing at UU Convention, Cleveland - circa 1968

Under the heading that reads Invincible, there has always been, "of course" ... .

... but then that was at a time when the days, weeks, and months were not yet measured, and all things still possible.  In this final decade the traffic is horrendous as items such as End of Life Issues are bumping up against a still vibrant and active everyday life of park rangering, giving interviews for podcasts and publications in faraway places.  This week it's a 43-minute piece to be aired in Germany by host Richard Dion who is on my schedule by phone on Thursday afternoon at 12:30 (PDT).  Also am the subject of one half-hour film based on my life as a ranger and another 90-minute documentary on our family leading up to those 85 years that came before.  The longer film is planned for a PBS airing in February of 2018; or at least that's the goal of our young filmmaker.

There is some irony in the fact that I lived in obscurity for such a long time before the world discovered that I was here doing all the ordinary minuscule acts of normalcy that everyone does just to keep the world's sanity in check, and weighing in on those things where my small life touched with the lives of others in meaningful ways.  I've never known that all those scattered moments of passion, joy, sadness, and rage acted upon, represented history, and that I was creating the nation's narrative along with the rest of humanity whose lives coincided with mine.

Two filmmakers, Bryan Gibel and Carl Bidleman, and their teams have been at work on documenting that history for over a year now, and in the process have created work samples to support their grant funding applications that have exposed segments of my life long forgotten while hidden away in storage boxes and moved from place to place as life demanded, never anticipating ever surfacing into my re-created life as Betty the Ranger.

There was, for instance, a box holding 30 large reels of audio tapes, contents unknown.  The hardware on which to play them had long since disappeared. The entire collection is in the process of being digitized and archived.  That means that 50 years of my life will soon be ready to be scrutinized at a time when it brings me in direct confrontation with a far younger self.  It's mind-boggling!

The long-hidden artist Betty has sprung back into existence and with an unexpected older Betty now in charge.

For a few days now I've been watching a few minutes of a fragment of young Betty singing 3 original songs while being videotaped by a team of at least 3 cameras.  It's a work of art -- and I'm watching that performance in the third person -- free of ego -- and able to see and hear the undeniably great talent of that youthful self.  There is no audience; no sound beyond my own voice, obviously performing for cameras in a professional studio somewhere -- but there is no memory of the experience.  Only of the dress that I'm wearing, and the strong memory of feeling pretty in it.  I have no idea who created this piece, or why it was done, or for what purpose? I wonder why the smiles when watching and listening, and the conscious checking and wiping my face of expression each time I play the tape, even though I'm alone and unseen ... .

What an experience ... .  Strange!  I'd 50 years ago slammed the door on any possibility of emerging into the world as an entertainer, only to have this younger Betty rise up now ready to re-enter the world in this final decade.  Of course this is happening when any possibility of being swept up in that world has been eliminated by age.  Maybe it's safe now.  It almost feels too unlikely to be true, yet it is, and I'm no longer running away.  It's no longer necessary. It's the final blending of all of the women I've ever been through my music, and this time it feels right.

The documentary will feature an unknown number of original songs written and performed in the 60s and 70s, and that collection of music will form the sound track for the film.  There is a proposal for an album to be released with the film.

Aboard the USS Hornet where I would, decades later, give the International Women's Day keynote address as a ranger

The music carries an accurate record of those historic decades, documenting all of the drama that we were living through as We the People changed the nation -- the  Civil Rights struggles of the late 50s through the 60s; Mississippi Freedom Summer 1964, the Vietnam War Peace Movement, the birth of "Black is Beautiful," and the beginnings of the feminist movement; all still relevant and still largely unresolved.  In listening to those songs I'm so aware that they could well have been written yesterday or last week.  The content is relevant to today's headlines.  The sad truth is that so much remains unaddressed.  The songs are 40-50 years old, but remain as fresh and as poignant as tomorrow morning.

Hay House, NY, will publish my memoir for a February release with their Black History Month listings.  Jesse Douglas Allen-Taylor is editing the book from this blog, so the writing has all been done.

International Women's Day aboard
the USS Hornet in 2006

Young Betty was left in the suburbs when I returned to urban life in the early 70s.  Given the eucalyptus curtain that exists between those places -- separated by the Oakland hills -- as well as by the social policies and strategies that created and maintained the division between the haves and have nots; it was easier to leave than one might imagine.  To some extent it had been like decades of life in a kind of Disneyland with mortgages!

Returning to the east side of those hills was easy once I realized that life in the suburbs was truly and tragically culturally-deprived, though the truth of that is still not realized by most.  It was increasingly obvious that my kids had grown up with a distorted system of values -- that the nation was slowly but surely waking up to that fact, and that the glitz and glamour of the "burbs" needed to be balanced by some of the urban grittiness and harsher realities in order to grow into the grownups they needed to be in a fast-changing country.  We were ready for the change, painful though it proved to be.

Rick, now 21, was living on his own in an apartment in Berkeley.  Bob was hitch-hiking his way across Canada (with my permission) on the return trip from a Unitarian-Universalist annual conference we'd attended together.   We'd moved David to live with our dear friends, Jean and Roger Moss, to complete high school in Berkeley.  Dorian was safely enrolled in St. Vincent's Academy in Santa Barbara, and Mom was now a free woman about to start a new career as an administrative assistant on a research project at the University of California, upon return from the Democratic Convention at Miami as a delegate.  It was a year of major life changes in the lives of each of us; a year that began with that critical and long-delayed divorce decision.

I'd rejected any notion of a career in the entertainment industry due to the primary responsibility to continue to provide a safe place for my 4 children at a time when my marriage was crumbling.  Dorian's intellectual deficits were not going to ever allow her to have a full life, and our eldest son was struggling with gender issues complicated by problems generated by racial prejudices he'd had to endure throughout his young life.  I've always believed that it was Rick who paid the price of his well-meaning young parent's attempts at declaring full freedoms for their children, and that his death from alcoholism that brought on the fatal cirrhosis will haunt me through the rest of my days.

I chose to move back into the city when my boys had weathered adolescence and Dorrie was in the care of those progressive and loving nuns at St. Vincent's where she spent the following 4 years of the critical training that would prepare her for as much independence as would be possible, given her limitations.

For me, it was time to develop new edges to grow from.  Fortunately, there were enough of those to make possible a completely new life.

I've never looked back.

... nor did I ever regret those decisions.

Young Betty has re-entered my life just in time to provide -- through generous advances and royalties from these almost forgotten works -- the potential capacity to sustain Dorian's life without interruption into a future without me.  How's that for love's power to reach back even from the grave?  Her Dad, Mel, died in 1987.

From now on we will co-exist, young Betty and me, and quite comfortably, finally.

How poetic is that?

Another item to cross off on my bucket list ... .

Made it to Hamilton!

Yesterday at promptly eleven in the morning a limo arrived at my door to deliver me to San Francisco's Orpheum theater for the one o'clock matinee.  I could hardly breathe as the  hour grew nearer and nearer.   Hadn't slept a wink all night with anticipation of what this day might bring.

I was expecting an Uber or Lyft to swing around the corner any moment, and was completely overwhelmed when around the corner of our apartment parking lot there was suddenly a luxurious "mile-long" pure white stretch limo with the driver attempting to maneuver the sharp turn required to reach my condo.

As was true in my adolescence, I was not properly waiting in my living room until the driver called to announce his or her arrival, I'd closed the door behind me at least ten minutes before and was waiting outside at the bottom of the stairs in eager anticipation.  Could hear my mother's voice in the background as 16 year-old Betty of long ago waited on the front porch for her date to arrive -- mother would plead with me to "come inside and wait like a lady so you will be able to make an entrance and not look too anxious, please" -- to deaf young ears.  I was always eagerly waiting for my most current boyfriend with every nerve ending exposed and ready for the next adventure.  Some things never change.

As the magnificent limo made its way around the corner, I could see the driver's face and vaguely recognized him as someone, somehow, some place or other with whom I'd crossed paths.   I've by now lived in this area for such a long lifetime, everyone within a radius of about 30 miles is beginning to look vaguely familiar.

As he brought his elegant "chariot" to a full stop and got out to open the rear door to seat me, I spontaneously threw my arms around him and kissed him on the cheek!  He was totally surprised, but good natured about this unexpected greeting and allowed me to feel totally comfortable.  He was the "ten white mice with his great pumpkin chariot", even if I am the only one who knew it.

I have no idea what any startled neighbors thought about all this, but at the moment they were standing in for my mother of long ago, and I didn't give a fig about what they were thinking.  I live in a low-to-moderate income apartment complex where limos are not an everyday sight by anyone's calculation.

I got into the back seat with its bench on one side and a full bar on the other; with the heating and cooling controls just above on the ceiling; with James Moody playing his mellow tenor sax that memorable arrangement of These Foolish Things on KCSM radio --  softly somewhere behind my head, and the driver up there at least a half block ahead, we took off to pick up Amy Orton who -- with her husband, Eddie, were my hosts for the afternoon; then straight for Hamilton in San Francisco.

Do not be put off by the fact that this is the road company and not the original Broadway cast.  The magic of Hamilton is in its complexity; its choreography, music, language, research and writing, in the voices, the imaginative characters, the mind-capturing stage settings which includes descending staircases and turntables, the totality, the brilliance of the ensemble where the balance of all those aspects come together flawlessly! This is theater at its best.

And here we are with the non-existent curtain about to rise; with the pit orchestra now fully tuned up, and here 'tis;

Hamilton!

... and now I'm going to begin to plot my next visit to the Orpheum before this great show picks up its toys and closes in August.  Once seen is only the beginning of a relationship with this ground-breaking experience of theater -- it is Shakespearean, operatic,  triumphant in its celebration of dance, and all as neo-contemporary in verbal expression as is dawn of tomorrow morning!

If End of Life is defined by whether or not one has ceased to have first time experiences, I'm here for the duration ... .

Yesterday I got to see myself depicted as one of the main characters in an original play performed by a company from Southern California.  It is entitled, Dare to Remember, and tells the tragic story of the 1944 Port Chicago Explosion and mutiny trials during World War II.  The play was written by David Shackleford, and was taken from various sources; Dr. Robert Allen's great book called The Port Chicago Mutiny, and (from what I can tell) perhaps some references from my blog.  But that's only a guess when I make an attempt to explain to myself how I got into their story.

About two weeks ago I received a telephone call from the playwright inviting me to attend one of the performances in the city of Pittsburgh, California, and -- since Port Chicago is one of the sites of our 4-park consortium (John Muir in Martinez, Eugene O'Neill in Danville, Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond are the others) it didn't strike me as odd, but something I was mildly curious about.  I agreed to try if time allowed ... .

Then, a week later there was another call from Mr. Shackleford, this time more insistent.  "Can we offer transportation?  We'd love for you to be there."  Then he revealed that I was one of the lead characters in his play and that they'd love the chance to pay homage to me if I could attend.  This cast a new light on everything, and I agreed to attend the Sunday matinee."

That was yesterday:

The program listed me as Betty Reid Soskin in the first scene, Act One.

Suddenly there I was, a 35-ish voluptuous woman standing behind a living room bar with liquor bottles lined up beside her elbow.  She was chatting with two soldiers about (... couldn't tell because they were not miked) but it was clear that she was a "Mother Earth" character doing her best to comfort boys away from home.

At first the transformation was disturbing.  Found myself picking away at the obvious:  In 1944 at the time of the tragedy I was in my early twenties, still "wet behind the ears" and looking forward to having my first drink.  I'd been married just 3 years to Mel -- the assistant recreation direction at San Pablo Park where young servicemen would gather to share time with the locals on weekends.

Given the fact that the USO (United Service Organization) was not yet racially integrated, those of us who were not a part of the great migration to defense plants tried to host those young people in our homes -- just a part of the war effort and as an expression of patriotism.

Saturday afternoons were set aside for lemonade parties in our small living room in Berkeley where our neighbors and friends would join us to extend friendship toward our fighting forces.

It was an innocent activity with punch and cookies, records on the turntable, conversations that consisted of small talk of family and "home", mostly, for those who were homesick with few ways to express it in the macho social climate of a nation at war.

I was yet to become Betty Reid Soskin, a surname that I would acquire many years ahead.  I now know that I have little control over how I'm to be remembered.  If I'd been as defined in this play (a far older woman) I would surely have been long dead by now, yet here I sat watching one of the leads being the "Betty" of years ago.  It wouldn't be until the early Seventies that I would have become Mrs. William F Soskin.

So there I sat in the audience trying to make sense of the transformation I'd gone through in the interpreting of my history.  But there is that thing called poetic license, right?  I had to let reality go and focus purely in the now.

Before the play ended and I'd relaxed into this new reality, I found reasons to celebrate.

Here was a new generation of young artists exploring that dark history, bringing this long forgotten story to life at a time when the nation and the world are experiencing another of those cyclical periods of chaos -- something that I, alone, in that theater, was old enough to fully realize.  Only I, one of the few (probably) still living, who had lived through enough such times before now so that the pattern is recognizable.  The Democracy has survived many such periods, starting in 1776.  These troubled times happen when life has become so tense and confused --  are times when the meaning of Democracy is being re-defined.  Times that give us ordinary people (the We) the opportunity to bring significant and sometimes radical change.  This art form with these players was something to grab onto as we steady ourselves for another round of "... forming that more perfect Union."

Yes, that's me, sitting in front of the woman holding the microphone

I fell asleep hours later bathed in the scent of the dozen beautiful scarlet roses in a vase on the  nightstand beside my bed -- providing the much-needed balm of recovery after viewing the disturbing evening news.  Felt satisfied and  deeply honored -- one more time.   Allowing the fact that today had brought another  of those first time experiences to a woman of 95 years, and I knew just before drifting off that I will return a call from the producer/director, Kathy McCarthy, for a repeat performance reading of the great Eve Ensler's groundbreaking Vagina Monologues, and tell her that I will indeed be there on Sunday afternoon February 26th for the reading with the others at two o'clock for the benefit of Planned Parenthood.

It all goes together, however patchwork and unrelated it may seem ...  .

We will form that more perfect Union, eventually ... come hell or high water!

There's is a memoir in the works, and I'm beginning to become excited ...

It is being edited from this blog combined with my oral history that has been collected by the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.  The publisher is Hay House out of New York.

Apparently, this collection of brief essays that started out rather aimlessly, has yielded several books over time, and I've now been assigned a fine editor, author J. Douglas Allen-Taylor, who is combing through for at least one such, and then pulling it all together for publication in September of this year.  In looking back, there's a lot of living chronicled here since September of 2003.

It had never occurred to me that there was anything here worth publishing.  The original goal of leaving a record of my life for my kids has always been the dominant theme, and these notes to myself -- mostly written stream-of-consciousness with a glass of milk and a few cookies at my elbow as I sit at my MAC at the end of the day in my pj's and well-worn slipper socks with the right foot big toe threatening exposure any moment -- who knew?

I had no idea that my hands had become tools -- that is -- until a member of my audience sent this photo (taken with his iPhone) about a week ago, and at first I cringed with embarrassment at what looks like a display of outrageous histrionics.  The more I lived with it though, the better I liked the image.  I have no idea at what point in my talk this occurred, but it is not posed, nor is it meaningless.  The point I was making naturally demanded emphasis, I guess, and old ladies have earned the right to be outrageous; if that's what it is.

Given what's happened over past months, weeks, and days, on the national level -- I'm going to need all the ego-strength I can muster.

... as are we all.

Not certain of the reasoning involved, but blogging either is no longer serving its original purpose as a way of leaving a record of my life for my children, or, the fact that I've become a public figure over time with a public following is effecting the way I use the medium ... .

Either way, things have changed considerably, and a self-consciousness has crept into the process over time, and I'm aware of viewers in ways that makes my random thoughts on life begin to seem unworthy of the attention they're attracting.  

That is until today.

Something in the news shouted out over the usual noise and I find myself moved to my MAC -- as happens over time -- as a way to work through something that puts me at odds with conventional wisdom; an uncomfortable stance to take:

It is the image on CNN a few moments ago when the boyish image of Dylann Roof, the brutal assassin of those 9 good folks at Mother Immanuel Church in South Carolina, appeared on camera. Such a deceptive appearance with that innocent Buster Brown hairstyle -- as if straight out of the pages of Dick and Jane -- standing before the court, dead-pan,  and without any sign of contrition for the pain he wrought on so many -- a nightmare we've seen repeated so often of late.

There was something nauseatingly familiar about that scene.

When was the last time I'd seen this scenario?  Ah yes!  It was Timothy McVeigh at his sentencing for the Oklahoma federal building bombing with multiple human lives lost.  He, too, expressed no regret for the horrendous act he'd committed, nor show fear of the death penalty.  I'm certain there were admirers, those from his warped world of white supremacy who surely viewed him as macho, brave, facing with courage his fate for his unspeakably violent criminal act. 

I recall at the time that this may have been the greatest argument against the death penalty, when fully understood.  Was this not State-sanctioned suicide?  Would not those who seek vengeance through the Justice system have the State apply greater punishment by demanding life sentences without the possibility of parole?  To have to live the rest of one's life with the painful realization of the cost in innocent lives destroyed in spasms of what can only be classified as madness.  And, of course the madness includes the State's being tricked into killing to teach that it is wrong to kill!

Something here might be closely related to the radical extremist's suicide bombings so common in the Middle Eastern battle zones, and the marauding armies of young men on rampages of genocide on the African continent.  What is this pathology now victimizing the world's young, and why? It is increasingly obvious that it knows no boundaries.  And, are there signs hidden in plain sight but masked by out-of-control political posturings and changing territorial ambitions?  Can it be that the causes lie in the fact that my great-grandmother (woman I knew) was born into a world population of less than two billion -- and that in only four generations, we are living in a world population of seven-and-a-half billion?  And, in a world facing not only the threat of nuclear annihilation, but global warming, climate change, and rising sea levels?

Are we beginning to see the unraveling of the world as we know it?

Is this tragic life drama not being played out yet another time with Dylann Roof who is refusing any kind of defense, but forcing the hand of the State -- manipulating the courts to gain his "right to die?"  

Have we lost the capacity to think analytically by a failing system of public education? 

Can we justify maintaining a legal system that includes the death penalty in such cases while denying the "right to die" to those terminally ill and existing in excruciating endless pain and suffering because of some distorted sense of who-knows-what?  With medical science misusing the Hippocratic Oath in a form of denial similar to those who believe climate change to be a hoax, it is difficult to find rhyme or reason ... .

There remains questions that I will never live long enough to find answers for, and many involve questions around life and death.  Maybe my age and the advancing of the End Times is pushing this, but I was asked in a radio interview last week what my position was on abortion.  Without much thought I heard myself saying that I was against it, and that I am also completely supportive of a woman's right to choose; and that I realized that those positions are diametrically opposed but that this was nonetheless my position.  Am  I one of a few who know that the debate is simply badly framed, and that nuance goes missing?

I find that those who oppose abortion tend to be the same people who foolishly oppose  contraception and birth control of any kind.  It is that position that I see as wildly irrational.  I see no reason for a woman to ever need an abortion, and, if all else fails (which sometimes happens), and though one would surely not wish to ever have to consider such an option -- that decision clearly lies with the woman.  Fortunately I've never had to make that choice, and feel empathy for those for whom it was necessary.  I know no one who is for abortion.

Why has all this become confused today and demand time and space in my consciousness?  

Could this be because as our gracious First Lady recently stated, "... I think we're now learning how it feels to live without hope," and I realized that this is the state that I'm finding myself in over past days.

A temporary state of affairs?  Maybe.  But I'm not looking for any white-hatted tall stranger to gallop on his horse up from over the horizon to save us all, at least not in the immediate future.  

Think I'll just keep to the foreground and get back to taking care of those "...500 feet" around me that I can manage.  Maybe it's time to leave the saving of the world to those better equipped to discover fresh answers to overwhelming problems by virtue of youth and an increasingly deepening collective wisdom.

I can no longer see a way forward; at least over the next few hours ... .

Besides, I think I've got tickets to Hamilton which opens in San Francisco on March 10th.  I know that his world was threatened by unspeakable disasters; of yellow fever, tuberculosis, cholera, war, all limiting life spans, "Acts of God" against which there were few good answers in his century -- yet here we are in a brand new year of 2017, still leading the world, albeit precariously.  Surely the new generation of geniuses now in kindergarten will grow into their brave new world (as did we), and don their white hats and hop into their self-driving SUVs and ride from across the horizon to save us from ourselves ... .

"... As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be world without end; Amen."

Just returned from a weekend in Mendocino ...




... the occasion was for the intimate memorial service for my longtime friend and fellow traveler, Tom Freund.  It was a sorrowful event, but inevitable as it is for all of us mortals.  It was held in his beautiful home on a bluff at the ocean's edge with family and friends gathered to remember ... .

Tom was of the scientific world; a chemist -- and the son of the eminent chemist Jules Freund; Ivy League educated and a naval veteran.   But more than that, he was a gentle and compassionate being who worked passionately for those causes in which he believed fully until it was no longer possible to do so, though his irascibility and gruffness might deceive the uninitiated.  If there was a flaw in any endeavor, tool, instrument, composition, or thesis, Tom would find and bring it to light -- even when you didn't really want to know!

His failing health made it necessary to maintain two homes, one in suburban Walnut Creek where he spent about 25% of his life and where his small family lived, and where his doctors were reachable -- just in case, but also in the scenic splendor of quaint Mendocino where most of his time and community involvement took place.  He was an inveterate political activist and art enthusiast.  He gave generously of both time and financial support to those things in which he believed fervently.

It was this friendship that provided for me a place in life that offered context.  He was my contemporary and had become more and more important to me when our peers began to die off, and my world was increasingly made up of the young.  Each year this friendship seemed to become more important to my sense of balance.  There was never any doubt that he was intensely proud of the work that I was doing in the world, and never questioned my dedication to my chosen role in life.

Romance?  No, there are things that become more important as time wanes.  Companionship moves into prominence, and mutual respect, and a sense that one is appreciated in ways that may have been invisible at an earlier time; ways that transcend gender or sex or even power or a sense of powerlessness.  Those things just don't factor in when time becomes precious and the end times begin to emerge into everyday consciousness.

Sitting in that big chair with the expanse of an 180 degree view of crashing waves against monstrous rocks; with a lighthouse piercing its blinding rays into the blackness of night every 9 seconds -- from just a couple of miles away; with deer frolicking in the greening meadow just below; with 3 months of New Yorkers stashed right beside your big chair waiting for your return ... .

We'd celebrated birthdays together  for years -- mine being on September 22nd, and his on the 28th.  This year -- while I was in Washington -- he passed into eternity on the night of mine.  I knew the end was near, but I'd spoken with him by phone the week before leaving, yet I was not prepared for the news when it came after a day of celebration at the Department of Interior; such irony.  A few days after returning home I attended his burial with his small family and the caretakers who'd been so important in those final days when the way back was no longer in sight.

I will miss him.

I hadn't visited for over a year, though we'd had an occasional dinner together when he was in the Bay Area. This became less and less frequent as his health continued to weaken and as his future became darker.



You can imagine my surprise and delight when -- on Saturday in an idle moment I -- for the first time sat in my big chair to reach for the pile of New Yorkers and -- as I lifted them to sort through for the most recent, found lying underneath a copy of Elaine Ellison and Stan Yogi's book, Wherever there's a fight, a brilliant  history of the ACLU in California.  Though I have a copy given to me when it was published (there's mention of me and my  work with the National Park Service on two pages), I hadn't known that Tom was even aware of it.  I tend not  to mention such things.


I opened it to the dedication page and noticed a handwritten inscription from Elaine Ellinson which read:

          

To Betty --

Thanks to Tom you are getting another copy of this book. Thank you for sharing your story with us and for all your work for social justice. You inspire me!

Elaine Ellinson

It was like a message from beyond ...

... obviously Tom had attended a book signing at his favorite bookstore in Mendocino at some point during the year, and had bought this copy for me; had set it beside the chair that is mine alone when I'm there;  and -- though I'd not visited him for more than a year -- it had been dusted around and carefully replaced in wait for my return -- whenever ... .

That my return was for his memorial was almost too much to bear.

Out to celebrate Bastille Day

Sweet memories of walks on the Headlands covered with spring wildflowers; drives in the little red  Deux chevaux to find wild rhododendron hidden among the redwoods far back from Highway 1; visiting his favorite seaside winery above Fort Bragg; dinners at Noya harbor;  trips to Mendosa's for organic whole milk in glass bottles (because he wanted the very best for me); stopping in at the small shops where the most beautiful of the woodworker's pieces in every imaginable shape could be seen and -- if you weren't caught doing so -- fingered to feel the richness and texture; then to Nancy's -- his jeweler friend just to see what new designs she may have dreamed up to tempt the tourist ... then back to the Timbers -- the name of his oceanside home above the sea just in time for the magnificent sunset or the sight of the fog rolling in silently to enclose us in that wonderland I'd come to so love ... .

The Timbers was constructed some years ago from the redwood logs salvaged from the old bridge at Casper when it was torn down and rebuilt.  Craftsmen built in all of their love of wood long before Tom discovered and purchased it.  He then seamlessly added to the original design and the result is breathtaking! Can you imagine a beautiful redwood structure covered by a copper roof now oxidized to a soft grey/green patina ... ?  I know, it's just as beautiful as mere words would have it sound.

I will miss him dearly, at least until the healing begins -- as it is wont to do over time.  Yet one cannot live in the sadness too long lest it diminish those things we cherished in the living of it.

Rest in peace, dear friend.

How on earth does one respond to the state of the Union?

As are we all, I've been in a state of shock for a week, and grateful for whatever was built into the human anatomy that allows us to retreat into ourselves for whatever time it takes to recover.  That, I suppose, is what we call "shock."  How else can this state of numbness be described?

I'm guessing that I'd secretly kept a corner of my mind in enough doubt to retain the capacity to see the possibility that my country might well slip into a period of regression.  The hints have always been lurking in there somewhere.  We all must have known this, but chose to ignore it.

The fact that the electorate had been persistently dumbed down over past decades by a failing system of public education colored by the introduction of reality television being pumped into every home at the sacrifice of the nation's values and eating away at our cultural base until little is left with which to fight off cynicism and hate of "other-ness" and the empathy needed to support community.

Over coming months we may learn the painful lesson that Democracy cannot be sustained without an educated electorate.

My fear that the cause of the rise of hate -- gradually going dormant in our society but now being given one last chance at dominance -- may have been the growing apathy and disconnections within the democratic process. The 39% turnout in the last general election did not bode well for our ability to sustain our system of  governance, and the 50% participation in 2016 simply may not have been  enough to turn us back to the painfully slow progress being made over recent years

I suppose I'm less concerned with how the incoming administration will effect our fate as a nation as I am of the ascendance of hatred and bigotry into an electorate that has been inching its way toward forming that "... more perfect Union" over recent decades, and now will be slowed in that progress as we try to figure out where the Ship of State hit this reef!

I am fairly convinced that we may be seeing the final frantic defense in the attempt to reinvigorate white supremacy in a fast-changing world.  These may be the last gasps as the nation begins to realize and accept that our strengths are in our diversity, and that the inexorable creep toward that realization and acceptance might well be our final chance at eventual salvation.

Universal mobility and an irresistible system of communication has made of us one world; a world that might well begin to achieve a relatively peaceful existence, but only if we can come to terms with the urgent needs to save Planet Earth.

Just how we will manage to do that when the Evangelicals are now holding the reins of power -- good folks who sincerely erroneously believe that the "... scientific warnings of global warming, rising sea levels, climate change, are a hoax created by China",  -- and that this global concern is irrelevant since they are hoping to hasten the Rapture when Jesus will return to the world to carry them up to Heaven!  How do we deal with the deniers when everything in which they believe has convinced them that scientific evidence is simply humankind's wasted effort in the face of what they know is profoundly real and biblically verified by myth?

How could I have ever guessed that there would come a day when I would view Christianity as a detriment to any hope of sustaining life as we know it?

How can this be?

And how can one dare to utter such blasphemy yet feel the ring of truth in the utterance?

Almost from the day that the  first shipment containing my  ranger uniform arrived ... .

I've felt the pride that must surely be shared throughout the National Park Service -- the pride in the wearing of the "green and grey."  I was a part of that culture now, and from that first day I've felt at least 3 inches taller as I walk out into the community.  It never fades but continues to add spice to my work.

I remember being on an escalator at Macy's floating down in full view of all!  It was such an intoxicating sensation gliding noiselessly from on high onto the floor below and into a family gathered at the bottom with a lovely little young brown-skinned child looking up at me with such a look of wonder in her eyes ... and I was keenly aware that it was I who was the object of that look.

It was then that I realized the power in my image; that of being suddenly able to effortlessly and silently announce a career path into the  lives of every child of color I encountered.  To this day, that miracle repeats in elevators, on public transportation in all its forms, wherever I go and it continues to be heady and exhilarating each time it happens.

This image of "Ella" appeared yesterday through an email from 3 different people, Bonnie Allen, Judith Wilson-Pates, and Alonzo Davis.  It's a photo of Ella's halloween costume that was (according to the message) "an homage to Betty Reid Soskin, park ranger."

This 'lil' munchkin has been on my mind ever since.  There's something important here.  This little girl is probably being introduced to the concept of "respect," something she'll not understand for years, and it has little to do with me, personally, as much as with this flat hat, the brass i.d. bars and shiny badge, the meaning of respect for authority, and it will date back to this feeling that, hopefully, will be born in these early years.  This is what I saw in that little girl's face at the landing of the escalator in Macy's housewares department in those early years of the wearing of the "green and grey."

... but Ella will also know -- as we all must learn -- that one can only learn respect by being respected.  There is no other way to do so.  It may be an over-simplification, but I doubt it.  That simple truth might be useful were it given its proper place in community policing manuals.  This is the principle embedded in Black Lives Matter.

... and after so many years of reality television, this has been lost in the general population.  I truly believe that this abominable cultural development has eroded respect as well as any sense of empathy by its promoting of competition for its own sake, and selfish boorishness repeated ad nauseam throughout our systems of communication and social media --  so pervasively that we've ceased to even notice that we've been devolving now for decades, and that it is dangerously corrosive.

How else could we have ever arrived at a possible Trump presidency?

At Frederick Douglass House in Washington.

Busy and feeling hugely guilty these days ...

Ever since the home intrusion there has been this corner of my dining alcove where an accumulation of large plastic bags are stowed that hold the countless cards of best wishes, gifts from well-wishers from every corner of the nation -- all waiting appropriate thank you notes of acknowledgement ...

For a few evenings after the incident dear friends came with their own well-wishes offering to help to read through them (we did that for several healing evenings), with every intention of continuing until we'd properly expressed gratitude ... but that came to a natural end after I returned to work and to a calendar now crowded with future commitments which I've been dutifully fulfilling ever since.  The publicity created new exposure from parts of the world previously beyond my experience, and this was followed by trips to an amazing several days spent in Telluride, Colorado, participating in the Mountain Films Festival; then a few days later on to the WWII Museum in New Orleans to be honored along with others from that era; followed by ten days in Washington, D.C. for the opening of the new National Museum of African American History and Culture.  All of that was packed into just a few weeks, and in between my presentations in our little theater 3-time/wk have gathered a following that is running at capacity.  Hamilton has nothing on us except a much larger theater; ours only holds 48 seats, but we're sold out at each performance!

with the family of Emmit Till at the opening of the NMAAHC

I cannot begin to tell you how unworthy it makes me feel each time those piles of cards, letters, and thoughtful gifts loom into view each morning as I sit sipping my tea with cereal and toast beside the harvest table that is now crowded with trophies and souvenirs, certificates of awards, proclamations -- all undeserved and reflecting my feelings of guilt at having accepted such honors from my community and the world!  I know that folks need heroes, but why me?  The crown does not sit comfortably on this greying head.

I must try to find the time soon or the weight of the guilt will follow me into my grave... .

You need to know that through all of this there are two sets of filmmakers working on two separate pieces (one that will capture my theater talks -- because the parks know that my shelf life is limited -- plus other aspects of the Rosie park story -- and the other projected to be a 90 minute piece about my family through the years).  In addition, the interview with Tavis Smiley on PBS resulted in a contract for the publishing of my memoir to be released next fall by Hay Publishing out of NY in connection with the release of the longer film.

How one deals with this fame would probably cause havoc in the everyday existence of one far younger than I, yet here I am at 95 trying to deal with it all at a time when I should be concentrating on End of Life issues, right?  The problem is that this is precisely where I find myself; thinking on all those levels and attempting to remain in the present; impossible!

But Life has never felt richer, despite all.

One of the WPA (Works Projects Administration) murals in the Department of Interior Building ... .

These were from the Franklin Delano Roosevelt era, and are truly treasured artifacts of those progressive times.  They turn up throughout the building, and one can take a guided tour to see them all.

This one is by an artist's whose name I've forgotten -- but will retrieve and post -- and pictures the audience at the Marian Anderson's historic concert at the Lincoln Memorial.  If you'll recall, this was due to the Daughters of the American Revolution's refusal to allow her to sing at Constitution Hall.  First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt -- with the help of Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes arranged for the concert to be staged on the steps of the Memorial to thousands of citizens.

The murals are controversial in some cases, reflecting the politics of the times, but were allowed expression without comment or objection.

To have the chance to see them on my 95th birthday was such an honor and a privilege.  That this would occur on the day when I met with 30 Freedom Rangers, 12-14 year-olds who had just returned from a bus trip through the South where they'd visited Civil Rights sites of the National Park Service -- to be followed by a birthday party 'down the hall' with Director Jon Jarvis and the WASO staff; then for a visit to the Ford Theater across town!

It was a day to remember.



Stopped in for a short visit with Rep. Jackie Speier before heading off for another with my representative, Congressman Mark DeSaulnier.  The invitation had arrived prior to our leaving the Bay Area.  It was our first meeting -- before we participate in an all-day conference for seniors held in her district every year.

Rep. Jackie Speier's birthday gift

Rep. DeSaulnier's role has been critical to the effort to gain the support of the president toward a final resolution of this lingering stain on the nation's home front history.  It occurred in those tumultuous times before we became more open to the lessons of democracy.



The Friends of Port Chicago has worked valiantly toward that end for years.  Since this is a member of our 4-Parks -- it seemed only fair that Kelli and I make the attempt to breathe whatever life we could manage to while at the seats of power.



Got to discuss the stalled petition submitted for the exoneration of the Port Chicago "mutineers", and was disappointed that so little has happened to move it forward for the families of those courageous dissenters whose convictions for refusing to return to loading explosives after the disaster of July 17, 1944.  Their brave action brought on the desegregation of the Armed Forces in 1948.

I've never understood the resistance to exonerating those young men.  If only our leaders would see -- if only we could communicate that it is not simply some isolated case of navy men disobeying an order during war time, but is the perpetual -- down through the centuries -- under-valuing of black male lives (that "3/5th of a human being" thing) -- that was the reason that over 3 thousand blacks were lynched over a century between the mid-1800s and the 1900s; the reason that they're disproportionally imprisoned; the reason black men are being destroyed today on the nation's streets in questionable police actions; and the reason those 50 young black males would have their lives dishonored by the refusal to exonerate them in the face of refusing an order under circumstances in which all white officers were given 30 days trauma leave.

If ever we are in need of sending a positive message to young black males who live every day in the fatalistic belief that their lives will end prematurely ... it is now.

This is not a new story.  To the contrary; it is centuries old.  It is tragically etched into our national consciousness, into the nation's DNA, and needs to be recognized and finally rooted out!  The exoneration of the Port Chicago "mutineers" is so much bigger than the story, alone, but could well provide a breakthrough in black and white relations between young black males and the authorities who, theoretically, are sworn and expected to protect them.

This is all of-a-piece of a despicable old normal that needs to be re-classified as an aberration!

How much more clearly could we state that Black Lives Matter?


We're still hoping to accomplish this before the Obama administration leaves office.