Robinson, William Russell, February 7, 2002,tape 1, side 1

Michael Snow: This is the State and Local Government Archives interview with Representative William Russell Robinson, former political writer for the New Pittsburgh Courier, former Pittsburgh City Council member and current Pennsylvania State representative for the 19th District. It is February 7th, 2002. The interviewer is Michael Snow of the Archives Service Center. And we are sitting in Representative Robinson's district offices in the Hill District neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Could you start by stating your full name, date of birth?

William Russell Robinson: My name is William Russell Robinson. My date of birth is February 5th, 1942. I just passed my 60th birthday.

Snow: Happy birthday.

Robinson: Thank you. God is good. He's been extremely good to me.

Snow: Where were you born?

Robinson: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I'm a native of this city. This region. Been here all my life. Went to high school here. Graduated from Schenley High School. Went to Herron Hill Junior High School. Madison Elementary School. All of which are in the Oakland Hill District community. And--my family essentially is here. My immediate family still is here. My mother is still alive. My sister is alive. I have two children who are here, an ex-wife, no dog or cat, and I have a brother in law, Snow: A brother in law? Robinson: A brother in law.

Snow: And were your parents also from Pittsburgh?

Robinson: No, my dad was from Ohio. His parents were originally from Tennessee. My mother's from West Virginia, and her parents were from Virginia.

Snow: Do you remember about when they were born?

Robinson: My mother was born in 1920. My dad, he died in 1985. And he was 70 years of age then. So I guess that--What puts him at 1915. Snow:--Yes.

Snow: And what were their names?

Robinson: My father's name was Foster George Robinson, but he was known as Teenie. T-E-E-N-I-E. When he was real small, he was real big and fat. So people called him teenie. Snow: Oh, did they? Robinson: Yeah. So a lot of people didn't know his full name. And only when he went into the service did he find out that his name was Foster George Robinson, Jr. He always thought his name was George Foster Robinson, Jr. but he never changed it from what he believed it to be. My mother's name is Annie Lee Kemp. K-E-M-P. That's her maiden name. Kemp is an unusual name. There aren't very many Kemp's around here. Most of the Kemp's that I've met. They trace their family back to Orange County, Virginia. Snow: Really? Robinson: There are certain families that can, particularly African-American families, that can trace their lineage right back to the county, right back to the plantation if--if their family was enslaved.

Snow: Did that give you a sense of a pride, long term heritage?

Robinson: Yeah, particularly on my mother's side. I didn't know that much about my dad's folks other than his brothers and sisters that I've met, some of whom lived here in the Pittsburgh area. But I used to spend time going through my mother's--She had a trunk and going through her pictures and high school album and things of that type. I first was introduced to William Beauregard Dubois by finding out that my mother graduated from Dubois High School in Mount Hope, West Virginia, and the school was named for William Dubois, who was one of the outstanding historians and African-Americans of our time. And I learned a lot about my Uncle Lawrence, who was my mother's brother, who played football and baseball and basketball at Dubois High School, and at one time was recruited by Jesse Owens to come to Ohio State University. Unfortunately, he didn't go. But as fate would have it, I did go to the Ohio State University. I did run track there. I did meet Jesse Owens. And yes, I have his autograph on a picture. Snow: Oh, Wonderful. Robinson: And I told him this story about my uncle.

Snow: Wonderful. What were your parents occupations?

Robinson: My father worked in a coal mine for a while here in the Pittsburgh area, and he spent 34 years as a porter working for Isaly's Dairy Company. He worked out at the main plant on the boulevard, and he worked downtown at Smithfield Street. So he was the guy that went in early in the morning and opened up the store, brought in all the ice cream and groceries and food. So he was at work at 5 or 6:00 o'clock in the morning. But then he was home at 230 in the afternoon. My mother did some domestic work here in Pittsburgh. She worked at the Old Mayflower Hotel, which was downtown not far from where our convention center is now. And she also worked for several private families--cleaning, ironing, etcetera. And then she worked at fireman's department store on Center Avenue. And from there she went to Sears and she worked at the old Sears store in East Liberty for 20 some years and retired from there as a cashier.

Snow: In which neighborhoods did you grow up?

Robinson: I grew up in the Hill District, Snow: Did you? Robinson: different parts of the Hill District. My parents, I lived in the Hill District for many years. My mother lives in the Hill District. My sister lives in the Hill District. I own property in the Hill District and I physically live in Oakland. But it's like right across the street from where the Hill district probably begins. And many people probably consider it the Hill District. So I consider myself a Hill District resident. I consider this my community, the community that I'm most familiar with--So I'm from the Hill.

Snow: And when you were growing up and mostly about when you were going to high school at Schenley, would have been about the time that the reconstruction and redevelopment, I should say, of the Lower Hill was going on. How did you see that affecting the community?

Robinson: Well, having been a young man, very young man, and going into the lower hill area and seeing all the entertainment and all the stores, all the businesses, it was kind of interesting to me to see a bulldozer knocking down buildings and ripping up the community. I wasn't quite sure what was going on other than I knew that a civic arena was being put in there. I didn't see it really relating to me at that time. As I grew older, I had a better understanding that a lot of people were being displaced, a lot of black people were being displaced. A lot of people like myself were having to leave the area. And then once it was done, it was obvious to me that a community had literally been destroyed socially, politically, and economically. And the Hill District community today is still trying to recover, in my opinion, from what happened 50 years ago. There's a video called "Wylie The Avenue Days" that was produced by WQED, produced by, in cooperation with Chris Moore and hosted by him, narrated by him, that speaks about the heyday of the Hill. But one thing you'll find in "Wylie The Avenue Days", "Wylie The Avenue Days" stops before, they tell the story,--of what many of us think was the destruction of the Hill District. So "Wylie The Avenue Days" does not really--substantively address the issue of the devastation of the Hill, and there was some discussion about whether it should or should not, I felt that it should. I try to be a historical purist. And I think that we need to revisit "Wylie The Avenue Days" and maybe we need to do another video called "Wylie The Avenue Days Part two".

Snow: I'd agree.

Robinson: And as you know, my office is on Wylie Avenue. Snow: Yes.

Snow: What was the role of religion in your family?

Robinson: Oh, it was always very important. My mother and I have been members of the same church for, I've been a member of Saint Luke Baptist Church for nearly 50 years. My mother was there before I got there. My dad was a member. My sister is a member. So we always saw religion as a grounding for us. It's set for us the parameters around our lives. It gave us our do's and don'ts. I credit Mrs. Hunt and Mr. Coleman, my two Sunday school teachers, along with my parents, for shaping the kind of man that I am today in terms of my basic beliefs, my basic appreciation, and my fear of God and my understanding of God. Mrs. Hunt and Mr. Coleman impacted upon me tremendously because every Sunday I was in Sunday school, didn't go to church very often, but went to Sunday school when I was a very young man. And even when I was out of the church for almost 20 years, when I went off to college and went out into the world and when I was very, not very attentive to day to day religious practice, I always had my Bible, which my mother gave me. My dad and mother gave to me. I went off to college at Ohio State. Always had those principles, always had those values. I always had my deep, abiding belief in God. And that carried me. Carried me through.

Snow: Wonderful. Were your parents at all involved in politics?

Robinson: No, my mother and father were not involved. I had two uncles that were involved. My father's brother, Charles Robinson, who was a police officer in the city and one of the first black police officers to ride in a squad car. Historically speaking, it doesn't seem like a very important kind of issue. But back in those days, in the 30s and 40s, that was a big deal. If you were a black police officer, to have a full range of opportunities. My uncle was a committee man in the--up in the Saint Clair Village community. He was one of the first people to move in that community and so he took on that responsibility. And he also worked with a gentleman by the name of Mr. Tooks down in Bedford Dwellings, and Mr. Tooks was a committee man down in there, so I had some association with that. My real grounding as far as family politics came from my uncle, Hubert, Hubert C Smith, who married into the family. He married my Aunt Louise, my mother's sister, and he was--had been a member of something called the Allegheny County Colored Democrats. And he actually has a pin from that organization. And that was the group of African-American elected officials and civic leaders who were very active in politics. And that organization was dissolved when Dave Lawrence cobbled together what is now the Democratic Party of Allegheny County. You had all these ethnic clubs and groups, and Dave Lawrence felt that the Democratic Party would be stronger if they were one. And so the Allegheny County Colored Democrats disappeared.

Robinson: There was also something called the Chadwick, I'm sorry, the Greater Pittsburgh Civic League, which was a political and social organization. My uncle was a member of that, too. So we had a lot of conversations about the politics of the time, the people of the time, and two political writers that I read all the time, Ralph Kroger, who worked for the New Pittsburgh Courier, and John Clark, who wrote for the Pittsburgh Courier, and those were two guys that wrote about politics. They wrote about things out in the street, out in the community, and I learned an awful lot about them. This is a town, Pittsburgh is a town, which over the last 20 years we haven't really had--Political writers. I mean, who are the political writers in this town where you can say, this guy writes politics when Shirley Yule [ph] and Frank Matthews went to their final reward? Political writing in Pittsburgh essentially disappeared in the newspapers. And while there are some political commentators other than maybe Bob James, KQV, who covers City Hall extensively, there isn't anybody left. And Bob James is one of the old guys. I remember him when I was on city council and so he's upholding tradition. But even in the black media, you don't find anybody who you can point to and say, this person specializes in politics. And I think that's something that we need. You need somebody writing about it all the time, putting perspective on it, keeping those of us who are in the game on our best behavior.

Snow: Does the Courier even have a Harrisburg reporter anymore? Robinson: No.

Robinson: There's--I write a weekly column in the New Pittsburgh Courier called Bill's Book, and I've been doing that the last 4 or 5 years. There's nobody from the Courier or the Philadelphia Tribune, which is a black owned and operated newspaper. There's nobody from those papers in Harrisburg. The Tribune used to have a reporter who periodically was there. He's no longer there. So I take it upon myself to send information to the Courier. To be very honest, I always like to give them the first opportunity on things that I'm doing. You may say, Well, why is that? Long time ago, I used to sell the New Pittsburgh Courier and I sold it from age ten to age 16. I sold Jet magazine, I sold Ebony magazine. And so I have a great sense of pride in recognizing the Courier. And without the New Pittsburgh Courier, I probably wouldn't be in public office. They have covered me and given me an opportunity to say what I had to say when others didn't. And I always sing the praises of the Courier, New Pittsburgh Courier and loved the paper, know a lot about its history.

Robinson: I had the occasion to help edit a book on Robbert Van. And so I learned a lot about Robert Van, and I learned a lot about the Courier. And this book was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. So I was one of the guys that read through the galley proofs a long, long time ago Snow: Huh. Robinson: and learned a lot in selling that paper. Taught me a lot about independence and business and being black and--being--knowing who I was and saving money and the Courier. I probably have been on the front page of the Courier more than anybody. Than Martin Luther King. Snow: Wow. Robinson: And that's really saying something. And that was brought to me by Roy Doss, who is the local editor. He said, you know, you've been on the front page of this Courier more than anybody, than Martin Luther King. And I thought about it and I said, wow, traveling in good company. And then he said, yeah, you are. And as you can see right here, got my copy of the New Pittsburgh Courier. Comes out every Wednesday and every Saturday. Snow: Wonderful.

Snow: Was that a job? Selling the paper. Something that you had to take on to help support the family, or--. Robinson: No. Snow: was it an initiative?

Robinson: No. At that time, I had asked my mother and father for an allowance and they said, okay, we'll give you a dollar a week. At about ten years of age. 50 years ago, I said a dollar. Said, yeah, And all I had to do was like, you know, the little chores around the house, which I was doing anyway. But I thought they should--should pay me, give me something. Okay. And I said I'd rather have an opportunity to sell the Courier. And so my mother and dad said, If you sell the Courier, then we're not going to give you a dollar a week. I said, That's okay. So I took 50 cent a week, which then was a lot of money, $0.50 a week, so I could sell the Courier and I built up a route. At one point I had 50, almost 50 customers and I had a young man by the name of Isaac. Isaac-- it was Isaac's name--Underwood. Isaac Underwood, who was like a subdistributor. He worked for me. I worked for Mr. Leroy Randall, and he was a distributor. And I was the Air Force Subdistributor and then Isaac was a sub-sub distributor under me. And so I made, I think, penny and a half off each paper. I forget what the couriers cost in--. And Isaac for all the papers he sold, I gave him a half a penny. So I was a little businessman and I did quite well. I made a few bucks that helped me go off to college and I'm glad I had the experience. Like I say, it--was it--was a great paper. The New Pittsburgh Courier is a great paper, and when I had a chance to write as a political writer for the New Pittsburgh Courier, I felt like a circle had been completed.

Robinson: Carl Morse was the editor then and I talked to him. I, I had written a number of letters to the editor and he said, Hey, you write pretty good. Would you like to write for the Courier? And I said, Yeah. He said, But there's no money involved. I said, What? No money? He said, No money. He said, I need somebody to write on politics. And you seem to like that. And so I styled myself as the political writer for the New Pittsburgh Courier, and I did that for, oh, year, year and a half for free. It was the thrill of it all. And I even had some of my articles here in the office. I never forget writing an article called "The Italians Are Coming", and it was about the rise, as I saw it, of several Italian politicians in this community. And one of those Italian politicians was Frank Lucchino, who is now a judge on the Court of Common Pleas. It's interesting, when I went to city council, I went there because Frank Lucchino resigned to run for a magistrates position. And so there was an opening and I bid for that opening, was endorsed by the Democratic Party. And so in a sense I replaced Frank Lucchino, but I saw this rise of these various Italian politicians, some of whom are still in office today. The Costa Brothers is a prime example. I saw Jay Costa Senior moving along, but I also saw the potential for--for Paul and Jay Junior, both of whom serve in the legislature with me. The DeFazio brothers. I saw that coming.

Snow: So you'd wrote, written this article when? Robinson: Yeah.

Robinson: Oh, this was back in the 60s.

Robinson: Called, "The Italians are Coming". Unfortunately, the Courier did not have an archival system in place, and so I kept many of my articles. I have many of these articles that I'm talking about. I keep all kinds of stuff. And I wrote another article that was in a magazine called Talk Magazine, which I have the article here, and it had to do with whether or not African Americans should be integrated into the overall society and what the benefits are of integration. And it was clear in my article that I felt African Americans had a responsibility at that time, we were black, to do as much as they could for themselves. But that came from my mother and my father. My mother and father always told me, Do what you can for yourself, then ask somebody else. But see, my mother was from West Virginia and that came, comes from that old West Virginia Puritan work ethic. Her father worked in a coal mine. He worked and worked and worked. He was a company man. He's you know, he's one of those guys that worked in the mine when the mine was closed or they were on strike. He was always in there working and he was a Republican. I always tease my mother, I'll be it a Republican.[Robinson laughs] But that was her philosophy. That's her philosophy today. Do what you can for yourself, then ask somebody else to help you. Don't go ask somebody to help you fore' you've done your part. And my article spoke to that, that black people had an obligation to do for themselves, that we had great resources, we had great potential. And before we ask whites for anything or wanted to be integrated into society, we had to ask ourselves, What's the cost of integration? What do we give up if we're integrated? And I felt we gave up too much to be integrated.

Snow: When would you have written this article?

Robinson: Oh, This probably was back in the 60s too. It was a reprint. I think I got--I got to Talk Magazine in there now. The article was reprinted and I sort of laughed because I must have had in my archives. And I looked at it and I started laughing.[Robinson laughs] I said, This is not far from where I am today. I mean, my thoughts have matured a lot more, but basically I'm the same person that I was politically 30, 40 years ago. I haven't changed that much.

Snow: And it seems to fit in with some of the self-help philosophy of, well, going back even to Booker T. Washington, but also of of Malcolm X at that time. Robinson: Yes.

Robinson: One of my great heroes, Malcolm X, I used to have a big poster of him when I was married. I had a big poster in the third floor of our Livingston Avenue home, of Malcolm X, very famous poster, with his mouth fixed as though he's telling people to go forward in his hand, finger pointing out. And I've always said I need to get that framed here and in my more subtle years here and put it up somewhere so I don't forget at home. I have a light switch plate of Malcolm X, so when I turn on my lights in the morning, that's the first person I see. Malcolm X. Snow: That's right? Robinson: He's my hero. He was my hero then. He's my hero now. And I'm glad he finally made it to the postage stamp.[Robinson laughs] He's a true American hero now. He's on a postage stamp. Right. Who would ever thought?[Robinson laughs]

Snow: Backing up a bit, I was just wondering how race and ethnic relations were going on in Schenley High School when you were attending?

Robinson: When I graduated, I graduated in a class, was the first predominantly black class in the history of Schenley High School. In 1960, January 1960, there was only 109 people in my graduating class. I graduated about--graduated in the top 25% of my graduating class. I probably was around number 22, something like that. I was always a pretty good student, never at the top of the class, but I was always a good student. I loved school. I liked to read what have you. Back in those days, black and white was pretty well defined. There was no history course at Schenley High School about black people, and we used to tease around about the fact that History Five, which wasn't taught, was the history of black people. That there was something that white people were hiding from us. And that if we ever found out what it was, we wouldn't be so ashamed when people start talking about slavery and picking cotton. There was something that grated on us to think that that's where our history started, that we were cotton pickers. There's nothing wrong with picking cotton. People pick cotton today in various parts of the world, but it was because it was connected to slavery. So that's where we started. What's obvious that the history of people of color goes way, way, way, way, way back, millions and millions of years.

Robinson: But that wasn't taught. And so that's the kind of environment I grew up in. And you had to go look for information. The information has always been there. Books written by J.A. Rogers and other distinguished African-American historians. It was always there, but we weren't led to those books. We weren't able to find them. And I remember when my son was in high school and he was feeling the frustration of being taught history that he felt was incomplete. And when he would challenge his instructors, they'd say, Well, bring me some information. And he came to me very frustrated, and I said, Go back and tell your professor there's a book by J.A. Rogers--And see if he knows about it. And so he went back and professor said, J.A. Rogers, he's not a recognized historian. I said, Now you go back and you tell him the name of the book, but first you find out where it is in the library. I said, But go easy because you don't want to put yourself in a position where you're instructor might hurt you because you're giving him information that challenges his authority or his base of knowledge.

Robinson: But you want to let him know that you know about yourself and you want to let these students know that you know. Well, he went back and the teacher was not accepting of this book or this information. And it really helped, I think, define my son in terms of how he viewed whites and how he viewed the way they dispensed information, their truthfulness, their honesty. He was very upset. And I tried to encourage him to, to, to challenge the system by reading more, by knowing more, by being truthful, by being true to himself, by believing in the Christian God and seeking solutions there, as opposed to simply being frustrated and striking out. I said a lot of ignorant people in the world, some of them have PhDs, some of them teach school, some are politicians. I said, some are pastors. I said, there are people who just don't know. And when people don't know, they're suffering from ignorance. And if you know, you have an obligation to tell them, they don't have an obligation to accept it, you have an obligation to tell them and tell them every time they tell you something that you know is absolutely not true.

Snow: When would this have been?

Robinson: I--see my son is 25 now. He graduated from Schenley High School, I think, in 1966, Snow: 66. Robinson: So it was in that period of three years. He was just generally high school. He's a very good student. He was one of the first students to be in the Baccalaureate program where you got two degrees, international studies, and then just the regular--high school certificate.

Snow: That's a pretty tough program. Robinson: Yeah. Snow: it's really good.

Robinson: And he briefly was on the honor roll when he was in junior high school, he was in the Junior National Honor Society, very bright and intelligent students. And oftentimes in this society, those types of African-American students are the easiest for the society to crush because the society simply lies to them about themselves, about history, about a lot of things. And you got to be pretty strong in spirit to withstand that. And then given the day to day things that you're dealing with. So, you know, there's a saying 'ignorance is bliss' that's in the Christian Bible. And I had to read scripture quite a bit to understand what that meant. It sort of goes back to Adam and Eve. They got in trouble by trying to know too damn much Snow: right. Robinson: now with the rest of us are paying.[laughter]

Snow: When you went to college, what made you decide on Ohio State? Was it the track?

Robinson: Football.

Snow: Football.

Robinson: I love football. Like I love politics. I was enamored with the coaching style of Woody Hayes. I have a picture of him in there on my table in my office today. I have a picture of Woody Hayes in there, a picture of Jesse Jackson. And people say, Why would you have Woody Hayes' picture in there. I say, because he's one of America's outstanding football coaches, a great builder of men, a disciplinarian. And so I saw myself as part of that tradition at Ohio State even before I went there. And I had relatives that had gone to school there. It was only a couple of hundred miles away from home. It had a great academic tradition. And so I was accepted at Ohio State in my junior year. It's the only school I applied to, which wasn't very smart. I applied to one school, I was accepted and graduated in four years. I did not go there on a track scholarship,got a--a scholarship from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation that helped me get through school. Claude Worthington Benedum had been a participant--in the track program at Ohio State, and it was a natural. My coach there, Larry Snyder, knew of my need, financially, and connected me with the Benedum Foundation, and Larry Snyder was the coach of the 1960 US Olympic track and field team. It was in Rome--to set some world records. And so I had had a good experience at Ohio State and--Lettered there in track and field. And so a member of the Varsity O Alumni Association, one of the first things I did when I graduated from Ohio State, is I immediately joined the alumni association. I didn't even have a job, paid $125 to be a lifetime member of the Alumni Association. And I forget what it cost today. It may be up close to $1,000. And I just sort, of I just sort of laugh because that's one thing I did that didn't made sense. So I'm in. I got my little card with my little number on it. I'm in.

Snow: And you were going towards political science all along, or--

Robinson: It was either political science or history. I chose political science. I think my love for government. I saw Dwight Eisenhower speaking at the 1953 Republican convention, and that convinced me that politics was a area where I could best serve. And the only two things I wanted to do, be a politician and or be a lawyer. And I went to law school for a year at Howard University and now here I am making the law. Never became a lawyer, but one year at Howard was doing well, left school, went out to California and worked in a bank. That was a bad decision and came back and found my way back into the political arena and--grateful for the opportunity to serve as my 22nd year of service. I've been in city council, been in a state legislature and hope to serve a few more years.

Snow: And you would have been coming out of Ohio State at about nineteen sixty--. Robinson: four.

Robinson: March 19th, 1964 is when I graduated.

Snow: Did you have to serve in the military?

Robinson: No. I had been in ROTC and down near the the end, I became disenchanted, not so much with ROTC, I think some growing pains. And so I left the ROTC program, which made me vulnerable to the draft. And right after I graduated, I was drafted. But I never forget a Navy doctor down at the old post office building, which sits down, sat down where Oxford Center is now, upon the second floor, examined me and said my left knee, which I had twisted and sprained in college, said, You're not going anywhere. And I didn't twist and sprain my knee running track. I twisted and sprained my knee playing intramural football. Snow: Oh, wow. Robinson: And it really hampered my track career. And so I have a firm appreciation for teams not wanting their players to engage in other sports. It's dangerous, to, those pickup basketball games and softball games. And occasionally you hear of professional athletes who get hurt, right? And they never come back. And to this day, every time my knee aches a little bit, I think about maybe I would have been a little better track athlete if I hadn't twisted my knee, stepped in a little chuck hole and twisted it, and didn't think much of it. But I probably did some, some, some damage.

Snow: Excuse me a moment.