Betty Reid Soskin, nation’s oldest park ranger, turns 100
In Betty Reid Soskin’s extraordinary life, she’s also dated Jackie Robinson, co-founded Reid’s Records in Berkeley and delivered cash for the Black Panthers.
History
Top Stories
Remembering Ellen Havre Weis, Berkeley historian and pop culture museum founder
Ellen Havre Weis, 64, co-authored a book about the “life and spirit of Berkeley” and co-founded the Museum of Modern Mythology, which celebrated American advertising characters such as Mr. Clean, Frito Bandito and Jolly Green Giant.
Berkeley Rose Garden opens in time for Mother’s Day
The historic garden, which fell into disrepair, was restored to glory through various tax measures and the general fund.
Recent stories
Glenn Burke, an ‘extravagantly gifted’ baseball player, paid a price for being gay
Burke, who went to Berkeley High, played for the Oakland A’s and the Dodgers, who offered him $75,000 to marry a woman.
Longtime Berkeley resident celebrates 100th birthday
“100 years is a long time, but it’s been a rewarding 100 for me,” Horace Whitmore told Berkeleyside this week.
‘Discredit, disrupt and destroy’: UC Berkeley Library acquires FBI records of surveillance of Black leaders
FBI records show how the federal agency tried to undermine the Black Panthers, Malcom X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
UC Berkeley’s Kroeber Hall is fourth building in 1 year to be stripped of its name
Alfred Louis Kroeber, the founder of the study of anthropology in the American West, is a powerful symbol that continues to evoke exclusion and erasure for Native Americans.
Jefferson Elementary School could be renamed after the first Black teacher at Berkeley Unified
Ruth Acty taught in Berkeley Unified School District for 50 years, and was a key part of efforts to integrate school staff in the early 1940s.
In brief
Longtime Berkeleyan Mila Mangold celebrates 113th birthday
Mila Mangold, who raised her family on Magnolia Street in the Elmwood, is now reportedly one of the 30 oldest people in the entire world.
After 94 years in Berkeley, Pettingell Book Bindery is shutting down
The downtown Berkeley book bindery, which Klaus-Ullrich Rötzscher has been operating since 1994, will close on Dec. 31.
Berkeley antiwar organizers separate fact from fiction in ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’
The Nexflix movie has provoked reactions both positive and negative in Berkeley where many people involved in the anti-war movement, and the trial at the heart of the film, live.
Berkeley’s first police chief supported eugenics, prompting calls to rename Vollmer Peak
August Vollmer has long been lauded for the innovations he brought to policing. But revelations about some of his beliefs are making people reexamine his legacy.
