Black History Month is a celebration of African American accomplishments and culture held during February. Its observance began in 1970 and became officially recognized by President Ford 6 years later. The Redwood Bark has chosen to highlight four Black individuals from the Bay Area who have made great contributions to our community.

Alicia Garza

Alicia Garza is a Redwood High School graduate of the Class of 1998, as well as an American civil rights activist, writer, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement and principal of the Black Futures Lab.

“[The work Black Lives Matter has done] is for all of us, but it will include making the world more hospitable for black people; one of the things that we can do is to make sure that we keep fighting to be able to tell the truth about who we are, and also stay optimistic about who we can be, and spread that optimism to other people and not be distracted by the fear-mongering that is going on right now, that tells us that acknowledging what we’ve been through, and what we’ve done to each other, is actually the harm.”

Paul Austin

Paul Austin is a Bay Area father and founder of Play Marin, an organization that works to make extracurriculars and athletics

more accessible to underprivileged kids throughout Marin. He made national headlines after his family’s home was valued higher after he replaced his family photos with images of a white family.

“We were upset, we were hurt and we felt disregarded as humans for the amount of work that we’ve put in to try and make this American dream come true,” Austin said. “It’s the historic impact. It was another one of those things that reminded me that I’m still Black in America.”

Read more about Austin’s story here.

Betty Reid Soskin

Betty Reid Soskin was born in 1921 in Detroit but moved to Oakland as a young child. During World War II, she worked as a clerk for the all-Black Boilermakers Union A-36. She then became a field representative for her California State Assemblywomen, which led to her key involvement in creating a memorial park honoring the efforts of women on the home front. These efforts materialized in 2000 with the National Historical Rosie the Riveter Park in Richmond. Soskin recalled advocating for the representation of the impact of African American women on the home front while working in a still-segregated environment.

 “[I] was the only person in the room who had any reason to remember [our contributions]. What gets remembered is a function of who’s in the room doing the remembering,” said Soskin to The New York Times.

Soskin then became a park ranger at age 85 and retired in 2022 at age 100, making her the oldest serving active park ranger. In celebration of her 100th birthday, the Juan Crespi Middle School in El Sobrante was renamed to the Betty Reid Soskin Middle School.

Archie Williams

Archie Williams was born in Oakland in 1915. He ran track in college and eventually transferred to UC Berkeley, where he also studied mechanical engineering. Williams qualified for the 1936 Olympics, winning gold in the 400-meter race.

After an injury ended his running career, Williams’ strong work ethic led him to become a pilot, specifically an aviation meteorological cadet in World War II. Later, he became a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force before retiring in 1964. Williams then began teaching mathematics and computers in 1966 at the formerly named Sir Francis Drake High School where he taught for 21 years, leading the school to rename itself Archie Williams High School in honor of his excellence in 2021.