Sign My Name To Freedom: The Lost Music of Betty Reid Soskin.
A Film Screening followed by a Discussion + Q&A with Film Team.
A feature documentary about iconic National Park Ranger Betty Reid Soskin, her hidden life as a singer/ songwriter and a civil rights pioneer in California, and her journey to re-explore her music sixty years later.
FREE Community Event
For over 50 years, Betty Reid Soskin held a secret. Deep in her closet, she’d hidden a box of reel to reel tapes with dozens of stunning original songs that narrate her personal journey through the 1960s and 1970s. For decades, she’d been too afraid to confront the emotional baggage that went along with her music, so she buried it away.
With no clear sense for what the future would hold, she decided to open the box and dive back into her songs. That stoaked an autobiographical journey to re-explore the personal experiences behind her songs. In her collaboration with the next generation of Bay Area musicians, Betty’s songs converge past and present through their exploration of race, identity, and what means to be american.
The documentary approaches the telling of Betty’s story with intimate verite footage of Betty with her family, at work & exploring her music with musicians from around the Bay Area as well as Betty’s extensive personal archive of photos, home movies & unreleased music. Live music performances shot with multiple cameras and dramatic portrayals filmed with actors depicting Betty’s stories that bring them to life on screen whilst harvesting Betty and her families experiences surviving Jim Crow segregation in California.
In celebration of Eastside’s 25th Anniversary all programming throughout this year will be free of admission! Please consider donating to people powered programming so that EastSide can continue to grow and provide a haven for revolutionary thought and truth telling.