Robinson, William Russell, February 7, 2002,tape 1, side 2

Michael Snow: I was just wondering about your college experience too, to what organizations or how much were you, did you belong and how much were you doing in terms of the civil rights activism that was going on?

William Russell Robinson: I was a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, social organization, Brotherhood, you know, that kind of stuff, and camaraderie, and built some great relationships from that. I was the campus president of the NAACP when--the word came that John Kennedy had been assassinated. And our meeting was on the night of the day that he was assassinated. And there was this trepidation, Should we meet? Shouldn't we meet? I felt we should meet. But our adviser, I forget his name now, one of the sociology professors, said he didn't think that was a good idea, that we ought to pay tribute by not meeting, and we didn't. I also was at Ohio State during the time when George Wallace was making his first bid for the presidency, for serious bid, and had the occasion to be interviewed by the campus newspaper, The Lantern, as to whether or not George Wallace should be allowed to come to campus. My position was this is America. He's an American. He has as much right as I do to hold the beliefs that he holds. This is a college campus. This is a place where free speech should flourish. Let him come and let those who want to protest him, protest,--and I was there and I encouraged other members of the NAACP to attend. Many didn't want to come.

Robinson: The city chapter of the NAACP was vehemently opposed to his appearance. They boycotted the event. I was there. I was in the first or second row, and I had an opportunity to hear first hand his philosophy, his approach, and the place was packed and a lot of people were cheering. And so I got an appreciation for that, that we're not all on the same page, in the same book. And there are a lot of people still in this country today who revere the Confederate flag. And when they say it's a part of Southern history, they are absolutely correct. But it's a part of Southern history that belongs in a museum. I don't hear much about the Confederate flag now that we're looking for Osama bin Laden. Where are all those people whose allegiance was to the American flag and the Confederate flag? You can't have allegiance to two countries, can only be to one. You know, and that's been my position. I'm an American, and so it's in that context that I'm trying to work out my political struggle. I don't have any trepidations about, you know, where I'm from. If you're from Virginia or Tennessee or Florida, you need to go to a library. You need to read some books. The war is over. The real war is over and y'all lost.

Robinson: Let's get back to the fact that we're Americans. And maybe the reason that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were so successful, have been so successful, is that we're really divided. We haven't figured it out yet. Is it freedom and justice for everybody or is it just freedom and justice--for some people? It's probably freedom and justice for some people. And until we figure that out, this whole issue of this Confederate flag is going to keep coming up. It came up recently in a school around here where a young man wore a hat to school with a Confederate flag on it and he gets put out of school. I don't know why they put him out other than he violated the dress code, but there it was again. Snow: hm. Robinson: Yeah. Freedom of expression. Sure he can wear it. Why are these flags revered? And I've written several articles about this. I wrote a letter, an article concerning Bush and-and-and those guys, McCain, John McCain, the distinguished Vietnam veteran supporting the flying of the Confederate flag in South Carolina. Give me a break. And now he's on a tour with J.C. Watts through America, Northeast America, trying to convince Black folks to be Republicans. Hypocrisy at the, at its highest. At its highest, you know, and so I-I that's one of the things that really boils my blood, this whole Confederate flag controversy.

Robinson: Someone's looking for a political fight for me. I'm up for that one. I've done my reading. The Confederate flag. This is the flag under which Nathan Bedford Forrest, Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest, rode and fought, a great cavalryman, but a butcher and a traitor to America. Robert E Lee, A traitor to America. I heard his name mentioned on the House floor yesterday by one of our members who had gone to the US Military Academy, and he listed him as a, you know, a great American, a great general, and he missed him in the same breath as MacArthur and others--now--You know, we all have our opinions. Folks want it both ways. Come on. You know? Yeah, he graduated from the United States Military Academy. Yeah, he's a Benedict Arnold. So did Benedict Arnold. I didn't hear Benedict Arnold's name being mentioned. He graduated from West Point. Now, to some people, this is a small thing, but to me it speaks to the very heart of the participation of African Americans in the political life of America. It is about that flag and what it stands for. And as long as it gets official credence, no Black person is safe in America. Whether you're Bill Cosby or Bill Robinson.

Snow: Well, the flag only became important again in the period you were talking about, about Wallace coming to speak at Ohio State. It had disappeared from the 19 teens to the 1950s Robinson: as a political issue. Snow: Yeah.

Robinson: But it flew. It was embossed on buildings throughout the South. The Ku Klux Klan still exists. They still ride. Nathan Bedford Forrest is the granddaddy of that organization. On the Texas Supreme Court when George Wa-, George Bush was running for president, the United States was embossed. The-the-the Confederate flag, it was only taken down once the controversy got real, real hot. People start running around taking these flags down. But like I said, how come folks are not rallying around the Confederate flag now?

Snow: Thank God they aren't.

Robinson: You're not kidding. Osama bin Laden, like I'm trying to say, some were laughing at us. You know, we put him down for his religious beliefs. We say he's a fanatic. We say he's un-Islamic and all that kind of stuff. We're unAmerican, we're unpatriotic. God bless America? God has blessed America. What are we doing with the blessing? What are we doing politically to make America better? And that's always been my concern. How do we make America better? How do we allow everybody to fully participate? We are one nation. We are one people. We're different, but we are one. And until we get over it, over the Civil War, we're vulnerable.

Snow: Did you have many members of the Ohio State NAACP, or did you yourself go south to do voters registration?

Robinson: No, I never went south. Thought about it, never felt personally secure enough, never felt committed enough to do that. And I think that's why over the last 20 some years that I feel it's my time, it's my turn. I've learned to appreciate.--We've all been prepared to make a contribution and you have to make it-- when the timing is right and many people who went south and did their thing, now might not be in a position to do the thing that I'm doing, to raise these issues and fight these battles over the flag, to fight some of the other issues that I've fought that specifically speak to improving conditions for people of color. And so I think I've been uniquely positioned and prepared to fight the battles that I'm fighting now because it's obvious that going south didn't solve the problem. Snow: Right. Robinson: It's obvious that there's still a few more mountains to climb, and we need some mountain climbers and there's obviously going to be some work left to be done when I'm gone and I plan on leaving something for somebody else to do.

Snow: When did you start teaching at Point Park and Carlow and Pitt and CCAC?

Robinson: See, I taught at Point Park. When I first went to the legislature, I taught a course on government and administration, public administration. Taught at Carlow back in the late 60s: 68, 69, I taught a course there in African American history. Taught at community college over at the prison, Western Penitentiary, taught a course in African history, African-American history. So, that's how I started out teaching these courses, went down to the Atlanta University complex and got a week or so of training because back in those days, there weren't a lot of people here in the north who had deep substantive knowledge of African American history or 'Black history', it was called. And while some of us have read some books, we had not had any deep training in it. And so as a non-trained person, I was teaching, reading, and reiterating, and putting my own little twist on it. But that one little week with--I met--that's how I met Maynard Jackson's mother. She taught at North Carolina Central University. And it was interesting when she said, you know, many of you in the north have discovered Negro history. Said, we've been teaching this for 50, 60 years.

Robinson: Where've you been? This is part of our normal curriculum. And certainly in Black schools. Where you been all this time? It was humbling. And there were other scholars there who pretty much said the same thing, you know, glad you finally woke up. And let's put this all in some kind of context for you. And that was one of the perhaps one of the best educational experiences I've ever had. And it wasn't very costly. Carlow College sent me down. I met a gentleman by the name of Carl Cooper from Duquesne University. Carl Coleman. Carl Coleman from Duquesne University. And we became friends because he was going to teach a course at Duquesne, and I was teaching the course at Carlow. Neither of us continued on to our Ph.D. or to be recognized scholars in the field, but we both had an enlightening experience being on a Black college campus, seeing the living conditions, meeting all these great Black scholars, being at the University Center, Atlanta University Center, a place where W.E.B. Dubois and other great scholars had-had-had-had studied and talking to people that knew them and worked with them. That was awesome. Snow: Yes.

Snow: I mean, there must have been such great energy there at that time.

Robinson: It was a great, great hope and great enthusiasm. There was great acceptance. Great, great acceptance in the academic community. When I say great acceptance, I mean more acceptance than there had been before, for this kind of knowledge to be cobbled together in courses. The knowledge was always there, and there were some white professors who knew this information. Some, they were totally dumbfounded. They were about as dumbfounded about the information as I was. They probably were learning about Hannibal and some of these people for the first time. I remember the first time I shared Jay Rogers with some of my students in-- class at Point Park, they sort of looked at me, or the first time I told him that Jesus was Black, and they looked at me--like, What's he talking about? I said, There's no doubt. I said, If there's any doubt, it's on the part of people who don't know. And one person said to me, Well, what difference does it make? I said, My point exactly. My point exactly. But we should be accurate. We should be truthful. Jesus was a brother. Does that make me feel good? Yeah, but same goodness you'd feel if your father was president of the United States Snow: right. Robinson: Now, what do we do with that?[laughter] I mean, make--what we do with that? Okay, A source of pride. But let's get back to the basics. What's he up to? What's he doing? You know he belongs to you. So you have some responsibility, too. But you know, that-that shouldn't mesmerize people. But--yeah, that was one of the better periods of my life in terms of learning, is to have an opportunity to do a lot.

Robinson: I did a lot of reading on my own, have a lot of books I've read on African American history, Black history, all the kind of stuff. Watched a lot of programs. Listen to a lot of people. There was a gentleman by the name of Kenny Garrison who worked--in the YMCA Street Academy program. Dr. Garrison, now, just retired from Community College of Allegheny County. He was one of the associate deans in The Voice campus, ran the Braddock Center, and he used to teach African American history right down here on Fifth Avenue, across from Fifth Avenue High School in a storefront. And that's when they used to have the storefront academies, and that was one of his specialties. He eventually went on and got a PhD in psychology. But just teaching young men and women about history, Black young men and women about themselves, trying to give them a sense of purpose, trying to give them some self respect and self dignity, probably not realizing the enormity of the problem. It's like digging for gold with a spoon. You know, you need a bulldozer. You need, you know, you need, high tech, million dollar kind of digger to try to dig for this gold thats down there and a lot of those he dug out with that spoon probably, you know, fell off the spoon. I mean, probably what he was teaching them, you know, you get a little bit of it. And how do you put it in context? What do you do with it? I mean, what do you do with it when you figure out that white people have tricked you or misled you? I mean, what are you supposed to do? Mr.

Robinson: Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, used to say that Black people--could not--Be told everything at one time. Because they would go out and kill the first white person they met. There would be too much for him. So he was giving it to them a little bit at a time. And then I thought about, I thought about this really again, in the movie with Jack Nicholson was A Few Good Men. No, no, no. The movie where he has the famous line where he says to Tom, Snow: You can't handle the truth, Robinson: You can't handle the truth. And I thought, I said, Yeah. And then when he told him the truth, like--it's like Tom Cruise sort of said, Whoa! I said, Yeah, I understand what Mr. Muhammad is saying. You force feed African Americans or Black people or Negroes with all this information, all this history, and you just sort of put it out there to them. They might go out and kill the first white person they saw. Someone who was not directly linked, but is--who is now benefiting. You got to put this stuff in context and you got to relate it not to getting even. But you got to relate it to how do we make things better? Because you--you're not going to make things better, going out and killing the first white person, you're going to make things worse doing that because things are out of context.

Snow: How did that influence your writing for The Courier Robinson: Uh. Snow: and you and your radio programs?

Robinson: I-I-I think it influenced me greatly. I always had a great respect for the Nation of Islam, for the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, even though I was a Christian--and I always--respected the local Imam and minister Robert was here in Pittsburgh then when I was growing up and, I forget, he and his wife invited me to their home in Hazelwood because they heard me on a radio program one day. And when I got to their home, they looked at me and said, You sound like a muslim. And I said, I'm a Christian. And broke bread with them, ate some of the best fish I'd ever eaten. I forget his wife's name. And we sat and we talked about politics. We talked about religion, We talked about white people, We talked about Black people. And I was invited to the mosque one time. I went to their mosque--and listened to the presentations, read Muhammad Speaks, which is now the final call. I buy it all the time. Don't read it all the time because I just have so much to read. But I always buy it. Every time I buy it I have a smile on my face because I understand basically what these Muslim brothers and sisters are trying to do, trying to do for themselves. Whether I agree with their--all their philosophy or their religion, to me, is not as important as the fact they're doing for themselves.

Robinson: I'm a Christian. I don't believe anything they can say to me religiously will change that. But they're doing for themselves. They are Black people who are clean, who are decent, who are trying to do for themselves, and to me, they deserve an 'A' for that. And I've read a lot of other propagandists of what they're giving me is propaganda in the final call. It's probably no more propaganda than you get in US News and World Report or The Washington Post. I mean, so it-it really influenced my writing, my perspective. It helped put some of my experiences in context. It prepared me for the battles that I would have later on and some battles that I'm still having today. It hardened me. It made me a sharper edge. It made me a sharp edge like a scalpel. And I think that's been helpful over the long haul. After 60 years, I don't really regret any political position I have taken, even though some of them I've doubted after I did it. And you know, you sort of feel alone and cold and chilly. You say to yourself, should I have done that? And at the end of the day, I've always said, you couldn't live with yourself if you didn't.

Snow: What have you seen as the evolving or the change in the, in the role and power of the ward chairman and the committee people over the course of your writing for the Courier Politics.

Robinson: At the risk of trying to be an analyst while I'm still an elected official, which is probably not a good idea. They're moving towards irrelevancy. Snow: Are they? Robinson: Their role has changed. Much of what they could have done is now being done by social service organizations or churches, non-political organizations, or through merit hiring systems. They still serve a function for those of us in elected office who are in a certain party. They sort of connect us. They connect us with a cause, and our cause is the same as it basically always been. And that is beat Republicans, beat the other guys. I think the main function of political parties is to control the government. That's why Andrew Jackson put together the first political party, the first recognized political party of this country, so he could become president. And so he essentially organized all across the country what we now call the Democratic Party. And he was the first president elected who created a party, who created a structure. And so I say that is the most vital function of the party is to control the government. And you control the government by winning the elective positions and controlling the appointed positions. That's how Democrats controlled Allegheny County for 60 years by controlling those things. And then you find people to put in, put in position who agree with you that Democrats ought to be in control, which Democrats is another issue, but the Democrats ought to be in control.

Robinson: So I don't think that Republican or Democratic ward leaders or committee people have nearly the influence or strength they had before. And I think that's why you have so much problem getting people to run for those positions. Folks don't want to do it. It doesn't pay like it used to. Many of the committee people are older now. They've sort of juiced the system. They've gotten things out of it. Hop Kendrick, Gentleman who was on the buzzer there, who's running for city council now, he's been a Republican committee man and a Democratic committee man. Well, he's 70 years of age. What further use is there for him of the Democratic or Republican Party as someone who's aspiring for public office? Well, it's probably better to be endorsed than not to be endorsed. It's better to have an organized group of people helping you than not to have them. But beyond that, you still have to raise your own money. Very few people are stopped without the endorsement from running. People like myself win without endorsement. I was the first Democrat African American in the history of this county to win without the endorsement of the Democratic Party, and it sort of went unnoticed.

Robinson: It had never been done before. I beat the endorsed Democratic candidate, James Williams, when I reentered the game. When I came back into my second life, I beat him. I got about 31, 32% of the vote in a 3 or 4 person race. And I've been in the legislature for 14 years, but that was the first time that a Black Democrat had won without the endorsement. And I felt I won convincingly to have been out of office a couple of years. And certainly coming from working at the Human Relations Commission city of Pittsburgh, mean it was kind of daunting at the moment. I mean, I don't know what I would have done if I had lost. I know what it's like to lose politically. I don't know what I would've done. I love politics. I don't have a lot of people on the inside. I didn't have a lot of family to springboard me to anything. I knew. I didn't want to continue to work at the Human Relations Commission. I don't know. Maybe I would have gone back to law school. Maybe I would have gone into academia. You know, maybe I'd have been a professor of political science. But God was good, and here I am.

Snow: Why do you think that the endorsement of the committee people and the Ward chairman was more important for African American candidates than for the the Italian or the Jewish candidate or the environmentalists who've gotten onto the city council without it?

Robinson: I think because we have not been able to bring the resources. It's like going to a party, see when you're at a party, you're supposed to be having a good time. Snow: Okay. Robinson: We were at a party having a good time. But what did we bring? You know, did we bring the chips? Did we bring the beer? Did we bring the ice? What did we bring to the party? Historically, we brought our bodies to the party. Numbers, registered numbers of voters in a concentrated area that were dependable, we could be dependent upon. The Republicans used to depend upon us, and then it was the Democrats depend upon us. And in exchange, we got some jobs, we got public housing, we got public welfare. And that was about it. You know, a few jobs in the political system, mainly jobs where we'd be working with Colored people. Public housing. And we got public welfare. That is not the stuff of which political dynasties is made. And so as more and more of these African-Americans wanted to run, who were not a part of that structure, they had to find something to bring. And what did--what could they bring? They couldn't bring these voters who were belong to the Democratic Party. So they start bringing other things. So they start bringing not just their intelligence, they start bringing resources, money, organization, family. You had to start thinking outside the box. You had to look for opportunity. You had to be very agile politically. You had to cobble together relationships with whites who were also outside of the process to run, to run with them, to share--resources.

Robinson: I mean, when Glenn Dolphy, he's an attorney here in the area, ran for judge, his wife, I knew his wife, she had been a student of mine at Carlow College, and she was a teacher in the Pittsburgh public schools. She convinced her husband to campaign with me mainly to send out literature. I don't think he was feeling too comfortable campaigning with me. It was cordial, But--no, I don't think he wanted to do it. And so they took my literature, I took his, and throughout Allegheny County when I was running for Recorder of Deeds in-in 1975 and he was running for judge, neither one of us were successful. But to this day, whenever I see his wife, that bond is there. Student. She ended up being, I think, Teacher of the Year in Pennsylvania a few years ago. I felt good about that. Hey, one of my former students. So the,--you know, bringing something to the table was important. And if you couldn't bring something of your own, then you had to wait for your turn, when it was a turn for a Black guy or gal to get it, where maybe some white politician owed you because you've been loyal and you-you had been helpful. Oftentimes I find that white politicians would rather advance a Black person than a white person. Not so much because--for race reasons, but for practical reasons, to put somebody in place who doesn't have an allegiance already or someone who is not as secure as somebody else, someone you can help, someone you can manipulate, someone you can convince, someone who's loyal to you.

Robinson: So many Black politician has advanced because a white politician felt it was to their advantage to have that person there than someone else, notwithstanding all the race issues involved. I think there's a lot of examples of that across the country. Carl Stokes said that's how he got to be mayor of Cleveland. Henry Oppenheimer was in a legal battle with some other powerful people in Cleveland. And Henry,calls Henry Oppenheimer, called-called Carl Stokes [Embert note: Oppenheimer calls Stokes] to be his lawyer in his battle. Carl Stokes said, Me?, this Carl Stokes, you know who you're calling? NAACP? Carl Stokes. The Carl Stokes thats fighting the system. The Carl Stokes that has a lot of questions about how you guys downtown do business. He said, Yeah. Says [Stokes] why do you want me? He [Oppenheimer] said, Because everybody else I've gone to is already committed. Snow: Wow. Robinson: you're not. I need you committed to me and you're a good lawyer. When he won the case, Oppenheimer came back to him a couple of years later. Carl says you got another case for me? He[Oppenheimer] says, No, I want you to be mayor of Cleveland. He [Stokes] says, What? He [Oppenheimer] says, Yeah. He [Stokes] says, Why? Says [Oppenheimer], Because I think your people are getting ready to burn this town down. And you seem like the only guy that maybe can help us save Cleveland.

Robinson: He lost the first time, but he won the second time. And he essentially won with Black votes. Very few white people voted for Carl Stokes, the first time or the second time. Snow: Right. Robinson: But that's a phenomenon across the country. And many Black mayors, Mike White found this out in Cleveland. No matter how hard they worked, no matter how nice they are, no matter how good they are, no matter how much they smile, essentially white people vote for white people and Black people vote for Black people and white people. And the bigger your constituency base, sharing a belt and sales. The mayor of Minneapolis found the same thing. At the end of the day, she was left with the Gays and Blacks as a constituency base and lost the election. It's a political phenomenon that,--Researchers have studied. One-one of this country's premier students of African American political behavior is Dr. Hanes Walton Jr. Teaches political science at the University of Michigan. He said for 25 years he's been putting together a book on Black Democrats, that no definitive study has ever been done on Black Democrats in the United States of America. And he's done a lot of work linking Black political activity to Black politics. He says there's a linkage. He does a linkage analysis. He says there's a direct connection between what's going on in the Black church and what happens in what we would call Black politics. He's right on target.

Robinson: And I think oftentimes white political analysts and political,--they miss it. They miss that dynamic. They miss the linkage. And so they see the Black elected official or they see the Black who's in the Democratic Party. They don't see the other political activity going on in the community. Sometimes people of color don't see it. They don't see the linkage. They see you're either a Democrat or you're a Republican. You know, I have this--oftentimes when I'm working with white politicians who want my help, I have a hard time convincing them sometimes that I know--that--I know something of value other than how to get you Black votes. And that sometimes you're going to people to get you Black votes who can't get you Black votes because sometimes you don't know what the hell you're supposed to say to Black people anyway because you don't have no Black friends, you have no experience, and the few friends you have, It's not at a political level, so you end up being very awkward, stumbling through it, talking like a jackass, you know, or looking like an elephant. And people just sort of stand there saying, Damn. That conversation was out of the 30s or the 40s. Oh, this guy. Doesn't he know the changing dynamic in the Black community? The 30%--There's been a triple tripling of the Black middle class in the last 30 years. That has a political implication. We're not who we used to be, Snow: right? [laughter]

Snow: Get, better change tapes. I was about to ask another question, but it would probably get halfway through it. [tape ends]