Betty Reid Soskin with visitors, outside of the Rosie the Riveter Visitor Education Center in Richmond, California.
Rosie the Riveter represents an
immensely important part of
our history, but Betty knew of
many other stories, beneath the
surface of common knowledge,
that should be included as well.
“The story is so complex, and so
forgotten,” she informed us, citing
the 120,000 Japanese—70,000 of
which were American citizens—
who found themselves in
internment camps; and the Port
Chicago explosion that vaporized
two Kaiser ships losing 320 lives,
an event which is considered
28 MARKETPLACECONTRACOSTA.COM JUNE 2019
to have helped launch the Civil
Rights Movement.
“There were so many stories that
had been all but forgotten,” Betty
lamented. “This national park
allows us to go into that history
and bring it back to life.”
Another of those stories is that of
Henry Kaiser, the man responsible
for the Kaiser Shipyards that
built and launched 747 ships in 3
years and 8 months, thus turning
the course of the war around
and bringing it to an end. “That
contribution, I don’t think, has
really had its full say in the story
of Richmond,” she claimed, not
to mention his impacts on social
reform…
“Kaiser did serve as a social
reformer by virtue of importing
a workforce of 98,000 black
and white southerners for his
shipyards; people who wouldn’t
be sharing drinking fountains,
schools, hospitals, housing—any
kind of public accommodations—