Betty Reid Soskin is a park ranger with the National Park Service.
by Audrey Peterman

When Park Ranger Betty Reid Soskin introduced President Obama at the lighting of the National Christmas Tree at the White House in 2015, the image of her enslaved great-grandmother, Leontine, was vivid in her mind.

She was a big part of Betty’s life all the way through her childhood and lived to see her married with children.

In her compact body, Ranger Soskin bore that long train of history dating from 1846 with her great-grandmother’s birth into slavery, and touched it to the Presidency of the United States when she hugged President Obama. The future will unfold with this in the minds of her two grand-daughters who were in the audience, and millions of others who watched.

Ranger Soskin, now 96 years old, is the oldest working park ranger in our peerless park system. She clutched a photograph of her great-grandmother when she met the President. He held her hand and pressed something into her palm, gently closing her fingers over it. She looked down in wonder to find his Seal of the President of the United States.

If you don’t find that moment awesome, check your pulse. When someone with direct roots in slavery can ascend to be embraced and admired by the President of the United States on the most joyous stage in the land, it’s evidence that our democratic ideals, “with liberty and justice for all” are alive and well.

This beautiful example of healing and harmony is in stark contrast to the vitriol, xenophobia and downright churlish meanness dominating our political discourse today. Could the story of the President and Ranger Betty unfold in the America that some of today’s presidential candidates and their supporters espouse? I think not! We’ve made progress, even now striving on many fronts toward greater freedom and equality. We must realize that democracy does not come wrapped up in a tidy little box to be set aside and observed. It has and will always require the commitment and vigilance of informed citizens who continually shape and refine it to more fully reflect our shared values.

So those who would take us back to the dark pit of tribalism and religious bigotry must be confronted with the evidence of how our baser nature served us ill n the past. The National Park System is ground zero for this exploration as it protects our history at the place where it happened. Appropriately the President and the park ranger made history in one of our most prestigious units, President’s Park on the White House Ellipse.

For example, as hellacious as the current conversation about internment is, we’ve tried that before with disastrous results. You can literally see that in the Japanese Internment Camps of Manzanar and Minidoka . In 1988 the US Government sought to compensate for this taint by paying $20,000 and apologizing to each of the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who were removed from their homes and interned during WWII, solely because of their Japanese ancestry. Subsequently the camps were designated by Congress to be protected as parks and a cautionary tale.

The words “fascism” and “Hitler” are becoming a drumbeat in our national conversation, with one candidate drawing direct comparison. Ranger Soskin is among the few Americans today who have direct experience with the hellishness represented by fascism and Hitler. Visit Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park to see and hear her. Let’s go to the battlefields at Gettysburg or the monuments on the Washington Mall commemorating the sacrifices of our servicemen and women in World War II, Korea, Viet Nam and the Gulf Wars that are all part of the National Park System, and we will be reminded what it takes to keep our way of life free, democratic and inclusive.

President Obama left the climate talks in Paris where arguably the future of mankind was being determined, to be part of the 93-year-old tradition of lighting the Christmas Tree. I imagine him filled with the anticipation of a schoolboy at the thought of meeting the real life park ranger who is older than the tradition by a year; who integrated the shipbuilding workforce in Richmond, California when women built the ships that helped win WWII; who helped develop the park that contains the artifacts of her work and today gives tours from memory to visitors from all over the world.

After their embrace the President expressed his appreciation for Betty and her great-grandmother’s service. Then he quipped, “I want tips on how I can look that good at 94.”

The president also praised the Directors of the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation and their teams for their hard work and service to our national parks and great outdoors.

“What sets us Americans apart is that we do not merely declare for liberty. We staunchly stand for it. To be an American is not only to know that you are born free, it is to have the courage to defend your freedom,” says one interpretation of the Declaration of Independence.

Too many Americans seem unaware of the need to defend our freedom. Too many people are telling me, “I just want to get away from the hate,” instead of organizing to confront it. It’s our responsibility to keep the light shining and a democracy in which we continually progress to greater equality and justice. We cannot let the investment of so many before us go down in infamy. Participate in our democracy, please.