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

Michael Snow: This is tape two of a State and Local Government Archives interview with William Russell Robinson, state representative and former city council member. I was just wondering if you could comment on what soured relations between the African-American community and Pete Flaherty when he was mayor.

William Russell Robinson: Good question. I was around. I observed that. I wrote about it. Nobody's boy. Snow: Right. Robinson: I think that in part, the approach to Pete Flaherty used was pretty much designed by Bruce Campbell, who was Pete's right hand man. Snow: Right. Robinson: And I think Bruce had a perspective of Colored folks that he utilized to map out how Pete should deal with Colored folks. But it was tied to their approach to getting elected, which was essentially, and I got this from Bruce Campbell himself, and I have no reason to disagree with with it because I saw it pan out. They would go into a ward and they were only going in looking for 40 or 50% of the vote. They didn't go into any ward to win. And if you look at Pete Flaherty's record as mayor and go through those wards in city, 50% here, 40% there. So they were trying to do it because they knew if they could cobble that together, they would win. And so I think that impacted on trying to address the Colored concerns. Well, we're only trying to get half of you anyway, but we're only trying to get half the white people, so there's no need to get bogged down. I think also he did not have political connections in the Black community. Substantial connections that would allow him to convince significant numbers of Blacks that they ought to move away from the Democratic Party.

Robinson: There was nothing about Pete himself, as I saw it. There was nothing about his politics that the average Black voter, average Black person, was going to say, Oh, yeah. They were more than likely to say, Oh no, the Irishman. Oh no, I don't know that guy. And the few Black folks that he has working for him, a guy like a Frank Williams. Say, oh no, I don't think so. Now Pete won and those Black people who were at the top who worked with him, he rewarded them. I saw it over and over again. Gerald Fox, Ed English. Frank Williams There were a couple of others. Chuck Cooper was hired by--Pete Flaherty as the first African American director of Parks and Recreation in the history of the city. So there's some historical things he did, but that didn't really translate down to the overall community and then too, there was no substantive organization to transfer this, these concerns, to Pete for him to-to process them. But you could say the same thing today about major white candidates who run, other than their connection with a few Black people who they may know socially and tangentially, they're connection to.

Robinson: The Black community politically is nonexistent unless it's through the parties. And I just said to you, I believe the party structures have eroded. So where do you get these automatic votes? You can't go into a community anymore and say, Mr. Smith knows me and grin, or go to her church and she says he's a good white guy. Don't work. People just look at you and say, okay, some are for you, some are against you, some don't give a damn. But that's the same thing in the white community. So you got candidates running around trying to put it together on their own. That makes it much more difficult when you come to the Colored community because now you've got to deal with out and out racism, bigotry, which is there. You say, oh, hell, how do how do I deal with this? Who do I go to? Yeah, Who do you go to now? To smooth the way? You've got to sort of plowing themselves or find a Colored guy or lady to go in for you. And oftentimes, they very awkwardly do it. It's not so much that they don't know the community. They don't really know politics. I say that to a lot of people in my own community, you don't really know politics.

Snow: So he didn't establish the relations with the ministers and or the. Robinson: Right.

Robinson: Right. Much of his previous relationship would have been with the ward chairmen. He tried to bust up that system. He did bust it up. So he was busting up the traditional system to deliver. Many people saw it as being anti-Black. So you add that to him being Irish, you add that to him being Catholic, you add that to him being distant, you add it to Pete's political style and all that. You end up with a guy that some folks traveled and followed all around the state, Truth Squad telling the truth about him. Some were white, some were Black. Reverend Leroy Patrick was a part of that truth squad. They went all the way over to Philadelphia to say to people, Hey, don't vote for this guy. He's terrible. You know, he's terrible. He's-he's-he's you know, he's not taking care of the city. He's not fixing things up. We can't talk to him. He's nobody's boy. Okay. As for Pete, remember, this is nobody's boy. Snow: Right.

Snow: Did you have trouble or did The Courier have trouble getting into to interview him or talk with him?

Robinson: That I don't know. I was only working part time. I never tried to interview Pete. I watched him from a distance. I guess I wasn't smart enough to try to get an interview. That would have been great to try to get one. I ended up talking to Bruce Campbell, of course, through my, my political interests and things like that. And I had some very interesting conversations with Bruce. I never forget going to his office once seeing this, someone had told me, it was in, this big map of South Africa behind him. And I used to say, what's up with that? And this was back in the days when apartheid was real strong and we started talking about Africa and African history. And there was some connection he had with with South Africa. But we had a lot of very practical conversations about politics. Bruce Campbell And I was like, look. Here's the way it is. Pete ain't anti-Black. Here's how we're doing it. We're doing this. The people were forced or ____[??]. Some other people are talking about Pete's, this, that and the other. Their personal interests might not be served, but Pete's doing this. Democratic Party do that just for Black people. Pete's for this. Black people get this from Democratic Party. To some extent, it was a wash. It was a trade off. Probably, in retrospect, PFLAG [??] was probably as pro Black as the Democratic Party was. I mean.

Snow: Could you point to programs? Robinsion: No. Snow: No.

Robinson: But by the same token, I can't point to any programs for the Democratic Party. I mean, probably someone like Reverend Patrick, those who were vehemently opposed to Pete could probably speak more to it. Snow: Ok. Robinsion: I think there were things they wanted for their community. And I think because Pete was nobody's boy, he probably did not play to what we call today, special interests. Again, he was cobbling this together, 50% here, 40% there, and 30 over there. The disaffected over here keep the Democrats from voting the people in the graveyards. I'm nobody's boy and he wins.

Snow: All I have on Pete or the evidence that seems to me, the paper trail, or my own interviews with him where he's talking about all these appointments and then the Thornburgh papers, which are oppositional research, which of course is talking about anger over what he did to the Model Cities Agency and the Hill.

Robinson: What he did to Freedom House Ambulance Service, which was the only Black ambulance service in the whole United States of America. Pete municipalized that. I thought that was terrible. Snow: Did you? Robinson: Yeah, I thought that spoke allegiance of his lack of vision to create opportunity. It was a good ambulance service that could have been expanded. But I think pressure from the police and fire department caused him to-to dismantle it. To destroy it. It was things like that. Lack of vision, I think hurt Pete in the Black community more than anything else. I don't think he had the vision.

Snow: So what made you run then for city council? Well, that's a bad segway, but it's just moving chronologically topic wise.

Robinson: Nate Smith. Snow: Really? Robinsion: Saw me walking down the street one day near what was then the Carlton Hotel, and he stopped me. He said, Robinson, you're always talking about things. You're always writing about things. Why don't you run for city council? I said, huh. I never thought about it. And that's what really got me started thinking about. I said, he's got a point there. Let me run. But getting back to the Thornburgh papers, Snow: Oh certainly. Robinson: I think Dick Thornburgh was able to statewide make the case that normally he would not have been able to make against a Democrat because of his lack of vision. He could say this issue, this issue, this issue. That certainly wasn't the best interest of Black people. I think Pete believed to me thought that what he was doing was in the best interest of the city. There's this contradiction, is what's in the best interest of city and the best interests of Black people? My answer, even today would be no. Because those two interests aren't really the same, even though I may say we want to be the same. There's so much tension there that I don't think you can say that anymore and-and-and really point to these decisions that are being made. Oh yeah, that's in the best interests of Black people. Some of these decisions are not in the best interests of Black people, but they're done anyway. They're in the best interests of the city. We're here in the city. But what are the best interests of Black people? Okay.

Robinson: Do Pete really know? Did anybody ever tell him? Yeah, maybe people were just reacting to what he did. I certainly. I don't think I ever wrote a letter to him. What I thought was in the best interest of Black people. Snow: Uh huh. Robinson: I do that now, what officials, whether I'm supporting them or not, if they ask or if I get a chance, I tell them what I think is in the best interests of Black people. I told Tom Ridge what I thought was in the best interests of Black people, and he's trying to get me to support him. When he first ran, I said, Here, here's my list. I said, But you already got this list. You probably get this list from any Black person. The usual stuff, man. You know what this stuff is. Now let's talk about me and you. I said, I'm an elected official. I'm already at the state level. You are not. You're a congressman. Three things I know about my constituents. They vote for incumbents, they vote for Democrats, and they vote for Black folks. You're none of those. So I started my conversation with him. We had one conversation. He supposed to get back to me. I think some folks decided, probably had I said to him, I need some money, I probably could have got 10 to $20,000 to be for Tom Ridge the first time around, maybe more. It's not what I wanted to do.

Robinson: I wanted to be straightforward with him like I was, I was straightforward with him from the day he arrived in Harrisburg to the day he left. And I was in some close up conversations with him. And that's just the way I wanted to do it. Same way. Bob Casey. I'm supporting Bob Casey. Tell him straight up. Mike Fisher. Any of them. The way I would've expected him to treat me. Tom Murphy and I don't have a very good relationship politically. I've been knowing him 25 years. I know him not to be completely truthful with me. Put it that way. That's a nice way to put it. Been kind to him. Historically speaking. So that's sort of the basis of some political tension. He knows what it is. I've written to him. He knows what it is. But I think he has a short political memory. And I think he probably shrugged his shoulders and said, forget Bill Robinson. Okay. I'm gonna be around a long time, Tom. I told him that once. I said I'm gonna be here when you're gone. I said that to Ben Woods, and I said that to Bob Stone because they crossed me one time. Their word was no good. And I told them, I said, You guys enjoy what you have because you ain't going to have it long. They said, What do you mean? I said, Watch. And neither one of them survived politically and I'm still here.

Snow: What did they do?

Robinson: They promised me if I supported Bob Stone. I think it was Bob Stone for president of Council that I would then become chairman of--I think it was either planning, housing development or finance. One of the two. Whichever it was, they told me after the vote that they, Ben Woods and Bob sat with me and said they couldn't do it. I said, Why? Said [Ben and Bob] they talked to the Ward chairman, Doc Fielder and Bubby Harrison. I don't know whether they talked to him or not. And I wasn't smart enough to call Doc or Bubby for confirmation. I dealt with the guys that made the promise and I said, Is that your last word? And they said, Yeah. Said [Robinson], okay. I said, Well, you guys enjoy what you have because you ain't going to have it long. They said, What do you mean? I said, Aren't your terms for two years? They said, Yeah. I said, Enjoy it. You're not going to have it long. Ben went to jail and Stone had to leave council. And I ended up testifying in a courtroom against Bob Stone in that CTA scandal. And--Ben and I tangentially talked about that. Not directly. He knows. He knows the relationship. He knows what happened. He knows a couple of other things. And he probably knows that while he was in prison, I wasn't. And now he's back and I'm in office and he isn't. And Bob Stone has gone home to his final reward. That's the past. I don't hold anything against Ben or Bob. It's just part of the political landscape. But it helps sharpen me to deal with Tom Murphy, who was one of the first politicians in this town to help me when I ran for council back in 75 or 78, whenever it was he and his wife, Mona. So I've been knowing him a long time, and I remind him every now and then, I said, I know you been knowing you a long time.

Snow: Did you have the endorsement when you ran for city council?

Robinson: Yes. So I met little Bodak. Little Bodak was chairman of the Ninth Ward. Sam Begler, who was working for Milton Shapp at the time, was one of the political bosses, and he got Sophie Masloff, Bill Robinson, Robert Ray Stone and Bill Coyne in a room told us that he was going to support us, put all his weight behind us. He was a strong supporter of Gene Coon as well. And then we went into another room and literally stood up against a wall and were introduced to various ward chairmen and other people who Begler had influence over. And he said, Here's your candidates for city council. Now, I'd also gotten the support of the Democratic Black Ward chairman Doc Fielder, Bubby Harrison, Zack Winston, and Al Hunt. They were supporting me as well. And--We would--He said, Here's your candidates. During that period of time, a letter had been circulated on me that I was a communist. I had been a member of the Communist Party, and this letter circus surfaced, at least in the Church of Reverend Duane Dawkins. Reverend Dawkins said he didn't have anything to do with it, he didn't know anything about it. Okay. Sam Begler wanted to know, was I a communist? Was there any truth to it? I was busy talking about suing somebody and all that.

Robinson: He said no. He said, I ain't talking about the law. I'm talking about politics. Well, we go into that next room and I introduce you as a guy who's going to run with this team. I want to know, is there any truth to the rumor that you're a communist? Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? He went through this whole thing. His family had come from communist Russia. I'm sure he had a little extra incentive, but I think his point was not go there and get blindsided. Something coming up next week. You tell me now before we go over there. So then Stone got it. Well, Stone was from Serbia. He had his little thing he was doing, too. His dad was a head man over there in Serbia. So he had he and his family felt the boot of Marshal Tito commissar. And I think it's also Stone's best to kick me in the butt, you know, I wasn't his choice. And Sophie didn't say anything. Coyne didn't say anything. And I told him, I said at the time that I supposedly was writing for the daily workers, said I was writing for the New Pittsburgh Courier as a political writer.

Robinson: This supposedly occurred in 1968. I said, I was writing for New Pittsburgh Courier. Is there any--I said there's not a scintilla of truth. Not anything. He says, okay. Take your word. Get over there. And there was bodak. I never forget this white haired man. He's a relatively young guy, but he had this big white hat that he was a PennDOT supervisor. I guess he was on a break, sitting there. And as I met him and then we went to the endorsement a couple of days later. This is probably the last time that all the endorsed candidates ran together, raised money together. That was back in 78'. And never forget all bodachs people standing up with these signs pinned on them. We're supporting Bill Robinson. I was kind of shocked, but the word was out. The people from down in Poland, they're not going to support a Black guy. So this thing that's been cobbled together, it ain't going to work. But that was Bodak's way of saying to Begala and others, I did what I told you I was going to, because Begler more or less said this this thing here got to work. We want this to work. You make it work because your people are the ones most likely not to make it work.

Robinson: And they all had these signs saying, we're for Bill Robinson, Ninth Ward, we're for Bill Robinson. Look, what. The rest is history. And the first time Bodak ran for senator, I went to the ward chairmen with him. He asked me to go with him. I went with him. Of course, they already knew that I would support him, but he wanted me to go and to show that he had helped me. And we never developed any close working relationship after that. In fact, we probably started going in opposite directions. Snow: Did you? Robinson: You know, Lenny's from the old school, the real old school, and--I never felt comfortable with that, much comfortable with him. And I respect him for what he's done to take on a hard job of running the party. But he's an old line politician that in many ways is bigoted and out of touch and too much tied to Black politicians that are not in a position to take Black folks to the next level in terms of party politics. And I's probably too educated, too smart, too independent, too arrogant, too for them. And they found a way to get at me. In 1985, I left a back door open and they came right in and knocked me out of office.

Snow: It would have been really exciting, but also incredibly difficult time to be on City Council in Pittsburgh. With the downturn in the steel industry really becoming apparent, Robinon: right, Snow: with 1978. So much of the federal funding drying up, especially in the 80s. Robinsion: It was.

Robinson: The beginning. It was the beginning of the end of the dominance of the Democratic Party. It was the beginning of the end of the dominance of the Black Ward chairman. And they and they hadn't been around that long. They hadn't gotten themselves together that long and they had to fight some battles internal. There were White politicians that didn't want these Colored guys organizing and putting demands on them. It was the end of creating opportunities through federal programs and special funds for poor people and for Black people and poor White people. It was an era in which the average Joe and Jane was about to lose their grandkids future because they weren't going to have the jobs anymore. To put the money away to help these kids go to college or help them buy a home, they were going to be struggling just to survive themselves. And we see some of the aftermath of that now. Rising costs and thousands of our young people out of work. And the ones that are working, working at jobs at $5 an hour out there at the waterfront in Homestead with not a whole hell of a lot of future.

Robinson: It's a job. The decent jobs, the legal jobs, the honest jobs. But at five and $6 an hour, as we're going into the 21st century, I don't think so. Snow: Right. Robinson: You know, I don't think so. And so it dramatically affected the politics of the community. It made it possible for a Jim Roddy and Republicans to come in and dominate the county now. In the sense that they control a lot of the political power, they already controlled a lot of the wealth, but now they're coupling it with getting people in position and imposing their will politically on almost hapless Democratic Party. That sort of, we got the numbers, but we can't get them out to vote. We got a lot of internal problems we have not seriously addressed, addressed the race problem, the sharing of resources. The old Democratic coalition is coming apart at the seams. Blacks and labor are going their separate ways. Women in labor, women and Blacks have some problems. And then you got all these people who are being infused into the mix from other countries who are coming here looking for opportunity. It's a grand mess.

Snow: How did you see that playing out in city council when you were there?

Robinson: I think there was still recognition that you represented an ethnic or racial grouping whether you wanted to or not. I think I was seeing that even when I ran citywide as being the Black representative, I represented the Colored people. And there were some people who represented the Irish and some represented the Italians. And I remember doing a study one time, a little quick study of people's ethnicity and their religions and all that kind of stuff. And I've always said part of the difficulty African-Americans have had dealing with Italians and Catholics is I mean, Italians and Irish, is that the Italians and Irish are reading out of a different book. Their Bible is different than the Bible of African Americans are now. We're basically reading out of a Bible that doesn't have a lot of the books that are in the Catholic Bible. I never forget when I was in college, first time I realized Catholics were reading out a different Bible. I looked at this Bible, from a kid across the hall, was a devout Catholic, and we were talking about something and he's telling me something and try to make some point. I'm saying no man. Said [the boy] yes here in the book. What book? He goes and gets his book and said [Robinson], Where'd this just come from? Maccabees and all this other stuff. Judith, I ain't had none of this stuff. The hypocrisy. It's not in, it's not in the Protestant Bible was taken out. There's at least 11 books, maybe more. And I think that that is part of the challenge. And then we get to our Jewish brothers and sisters. They're not using Jesus Christ as a standard. They're using a list of maybe 640 do's and don'ts. So how does the Cyrillic come into a Black church and relate? Because he is not, by his own admission, a very religious person.

Robinson: So he ain't going to church very often. What happens when he steps up in a Black church? What does that really mean other than the political implications? What happens religiously? What happens procedurally when you step up in there? And he got into some trouble with-with, at least one Black congregation because they felt he had disrespected them. And my advice had been to Cyril and his handlers do not pander to Black preachers and the Black church. It's a mistake. And they said, why, I said, he's a Jew. They're Christian. And he's a very aggressive Jew. He's a very secular Jew. Don't get fooled. This is a new day. 30% over the last 30, 30 years, the Black middle class has tripled. Tripled. I even wrote a letter about this. Tripled. It's different, man. It's different. They're not the same Colored folks you're used to dealing with. And they're not the same people, when you went to high school with Hop Kendrick or Herman Reid or Bernie Jones. They're different Colored folks and they're not impressed. They're not impressed with you. So don't make that mistake. But he now he probably said, who the hell is Bill Robinson? And ran on in there. And I think Jim Roddey was able to beat him partly because of that and I think partly because suburban Whites, a lot of union people went to the polls in the rain in their Mercedes and their Cadillacs, and they voted for Jim Roddey, plain and simple. New, fresh face, silver haired, silver tongued. And he didn't bring Johnnie Cochran in here.

Snow: Are you referring to the incident with Petra Ministries and the development of the East Hills Shopping Center?

Robinson: And there was another incident unreported at Ebenezer Baptist Church where he--spoke of vulgarity in church and there was a deaconess sitting in front of him. He became impatient and said, like, When's this shit going to be over? And another case when he used a word, I think motherfucker or something. Just a couple of little things that people heard. And he just was doing a lot of damage to himself. I had said to some folks, Don't take Cyril into the Black churches. They looked at me. I said, don't pander. I just think you're going to lose it. I just had a feeling, you know, it's like with Johnny Cochran. Yeah, bring Johnnie Cochran here. Bring him early. Cyril brought Barry Scheck here. Barry Scheck is the one that turned O.J. Simpson loose, not Johnnie Cochran. Barry Scheck developed the evidence that turned him loose. If the glove don't fit, you can acquit. That came from Barry Scheck, not from Johnnie Cochran. He was just a messenger. Okay. So, you know, and my thing is, if you bring Johnnie Cochran in here, bring him early. Take him to the Black churches. But don't take Cyril. Let him get up and talk about growing up in rural Louisiana and the hell his family went through there and the hell he went through in California.

Robinson: Let him talk about being on the cutting edge of this whole racial profiling issue of getting California's law changed so the police officers wouldn't choke Black folks half to death. You know, let him talk about it. Let him talk about his family. And tangentially. I'm for Cyril, I said, because who was he going to impress coming up in here? Black folks. He had a good history in the church. Use that. Don't have him. And he came late and he came into the community and people didn't know he was there. And he came in his purple suit and his white car and the race was close and the rest is history. So now Johnnie Cochran gets credited with causing Cyril to lose the election. Nah, Cyril's handlers, in my opinion, in my humble opinion, they lost. I think they simply paid the Johnnie Cochran card wrong. You know, he was coming here to do something in some White suburban community to raise some money. Fine. Take him out there with a few White people. Let them raise the money. Run it through some of these Black churches. You want to have a little motorcade running through the Black community? You know, gets all worked up, sell a few books, and then he can say, I'm for Cyril.

Robinson: Cyril is my man. That's just Bill Robinson talking. I just thought that was played wrong. I debated this with his campiagn sales-- campaign manager, Diana Wentz. For a long time. She was totally against Johnny Cochran coming here. She felt it was going to end up the way that it did. She said, People on the north side, like my mother and others, are not prepared to greet Johnny Cochran. Don't do this to Cyril. I saw her today, Cyril Cain. And I said, Diane, I said, I see that you made arrangements for-for Johnny. But I could tell where she was standing physically. She was out of it. And she just looked at me and she said, this was not my idea. She said, I still think it's a bad idea having him here. This is going to blow up in our face. And I said, I think it's a bad idea he's coming so late and I think it's a bad idea. He's up there with Cyril. And then I went up there, of course, because I was part of the show. I was invited late, but I just said, this ain't going to take us very far. It's terrible. And the media got him. They just crucified him.

Snow: Let me back up some to your days on city council.

Robinson: 78' through 85'. Snow: Right.

Snow: That would have been Dick Caligiuri's administration. And it's sad. Almost everything that's been written by academics, political scientists, social sociologists and historians has been about renaissance, too, and the rebuilding of downtown. But he positioned himself as the mayor of the neighborhoods, too, Right. I was just wondering how that. Well, what he did for the neighborhoods, because it's just it's a blank for me. I just don't see.

Robinson: I think the reality is that Dick Caligiuri was no more successful than Murphy has been or any other mayor in America has been. As I can see in doing downtown development and neighborhood development. It's almost like they're mutually exclusive. Snow: Okay. Robinson: Many mayors, Black, female and White, have hailed the revitalization of their cities. And there's plenty of examples of cities that have come back. And I think Pittsburgh, to a large extent, can say that. But these are cities that have what I call have perfected the Monday night football effect. You turn on the lights for Monday Night Football and the town is glittering. It looks great after you turn the lights out and you walk out in the neighborhoods, you can see that this progress, this growth hasn't got there yet. Staples Center is a prime example. You go look at the Staples Center on TV. It looks beautiful. Say, God, Staples Center, the Lakers, they're doing it. Go look at it and see the neighborhood it's in. It's been dropped in the neighborhood. And you look all around. You say, I see another Atlantic City, another Philadelphia, another Cleveland, another Pittsburgh. So I think Caligiuri was unable to do both. There weren't enough resources to do both. And even Murphy came out of that whole I'm for the neighborhoods. But I think once you get downtown and once you sit down and really think in terms of what's going to turn your city around and what's going to make it competitive, if you want to be in the big leagues, you do the downtown, glitzy Monday night football projects. And then if you get a chance, you go into the neighborhoods. Murphy's fortunate. He's-- [tape abruptly ends]