Robinson, William Russell, February 7, 2002, tape 3, side 2

Michael Snow: The center of the-

William Russell Robinson: District has shifted. I'm not quite sure where it is, population wise. I must admit I haven't spent a whole lot of time worrying about that, thinking about it. But at some point I need to really look at it. I could see the base right in the middle, you know, sort of coming apart. Not sure, sure where the new population center is.

Snow: Was there a relocation agency that was helping these people?

Robinson: Public housing has a relocation component. Some people were relocated to other public housing. Some left the area. Some may have even gone out into the county. Some may have left the city, some, some passed away. But I've asked the question, where do these people go? I got the impression that public housing didn't track them, but I think they did track them. They just might not have all that stuff cobbled together. I think that's a good question. Where do those people go? Are they still with us or are they elsewhere? And I think the answers I've given you is basically what happens. Someone here, someone there. Some will come back, some won't. Yeah.

Snow: Are the plans being formulated with those people in mind for redeveloping?

Robinson: There was a component of the HOPE VI and related programs that dealt with people coming back into the community if they could afford to, if they wanted to. And there's a process to do that. A lot of people leave a community and they don't come back because they don't want to move back, physically. Some don't come back because they're priced out of the community. Some do come back because they're in a position to come back. But the community is basically going to be different. Oak Hill is not Aliquippa Terrace. The name change. It's not going to be the same. The demographics are not going to be the same. Crawford Square is an example of what can happen to a community when it's rebuilt. And it becomes diversified in several ways. When you have tenants and homeowners, when you have mixed housing, it's different. There are people I see walking through Crawford Square that 20 years ago probably wouldn't have been there, but 50 years ago, they may have been there because 50 or 60 years ago this community was a lot different. There was a time when this community had a lot of Arabs and Jews and Syrians.

Robinson: There's a picture over at the Children's Museum. It may still be there. They have a market set up and it's supposed to show Pittsburgh and there's a street shown and you look all the way up that street. And I looked at that picture one time and I said, That's Wylie Avenue, because I know some things. And I asked someone, they said, Yeah, it's Wylie Avenue from the bottom, looking up. The street from the bottom, you go to the bottom of Wylie Avenue today and look up. It's different. There are, there are, there are houses. There are houses on the east side, Crawford Square, and you come up and there's some more houses and there's the Kay Boy' Club. But that, in that day there were a lot of shops and buildings all up the side and the market was down at the bottom. You go down the bottom and now there's no market, was at the bottom. Now is the parking lot behind the civic arena. How far down did Wylie Avenue go? It probably went all into town.

Snow: Probably.

Robinson: So this community ten years from now will be different. And no doubt in my mind it'll be different. You know, I probably won't be the state representative. Hopefully I'll still be alive, but in ten years I'll be 70. I'll be as old as Bernie. He died at 70. I hope to still be, My dad died at 70. I hope to still be here, but I don't have any burning desire to be in the legislature. I think the worst thing that can happen to a elected official is die in office. I hope I don't experience that, but I'd like to go on to a third career, a third life, to really be able to talk about having been there, having done something. And having people evaluated good, bad or indifferent, seeing a new person sort of second guessing them maybe, or even saying, Well, man, I wish I had stayed another couple of years, but to go on to something else instead of just sort of staying here and, you know, sort of taking your bread, giving an analogy and slopping it in the syrup and just keep slopping and slopping and slop keeps saying, give me some more, sir. Just keep slopping. At some point. It gets back to my point about, like, the Enron thing.

Robinson: Come on, how much syrup? You know, just don't make your stomach hurt. Go do something else. Go away. You know, and I have some friends and associates who smile at me because I say to them, When you think I've had enough, tell me to go somewhere and sit down. I think about it. But you got to tell me because I don't think I can just walk away. I think I'll be too immersed. I mean, I'm 60. I feel like a 35 year old man. I'm in good health mentally. Otherwise, all my body parts are still here. Except tooth was extracted when I was 13. I got my fingers, I got my toes. Got my eyes, my ears, my heart, my liver, my pancreas. Man, if I feel like I'm 35 now, what happens in 2 or 3 years? Maybe I'll be thinking it. But people look at me saying, God, God, don't get it. Snow: [Laughter] Robinsion: Go away. Go retire. Give somebody else a chance. Give somebody else's child a chance. I won't be able to walk away, and with a smile on my face. Like I went to Harrisburg, you know, and just drive off from the capital, go somewhere.

Snow: Are you grooming someone?

Robinson: No, I tried that a couple of times. Didn't have any success. Couldn't find anybody who could stay long enough to want to learn enough. People submit. They're in a hurry. They got better ideas, better things to do. They're smarter than this one. Couldn't find anybody. And, uh, uh, I would like to have done that. But there's a danger in grooming somebody. And the danger is you're grooming your replacement. I mean, literally. They may get the bright idea, they can do a better job than you can. There's some horror stories about that. But I've tried a couple of things. I couldn't find anybody that was interested enough in politics and government to position, in my opinion, to position themselves to move historically in the black community. What has happened is when a person dies, there's a replacement or when a person leaves office like my predecessor did, there's a replacement. There is no process of creating--black political leadership where a person could say, I'm involved in this or I'm involved in that. And at the end of the day, I'm closer to being a judge or I'm closer to being a magistrate or I'm closer to being a councilman. Certain things obviously you can do as an attorney that I wouldn't do that. You say there's a chance of me being a judge, but more likely you're not going anywhere. Most of the black attorneys in this town who are probably doing well or working for the government, they're employees.

Robinson: Assistant city Solicitor, County Solicitor, Jacqueline Moore is the city solicitor. There may be a magistrate. We got a couple judges. We have fewer black judges today than we had 20 years ago. At the county level. So there is no process. Valerie McDonald As I said, I take a lot of credit for that, unashamedly. I wrote the letters, I wrote, I raised the hell I stomped around. I helped create a set of circumstances that allowed others to come in and say, maybe it's a good idea. But I was stomping around before--when Tom Lamb, when Mr., When Mr. Cohen died, I was stomping around. Michael Cohen died, and the Gene Barry issue came up and some people criticized me for supporting a Republican. I said, Hey, it's in writing. My concern is that an African-American have an opportunity to be county officer and say anything about their party affiliation, this ain't about party. It's about after 214 years, African-Americans having an opportunity to serve this county at the highest level. Unashamedly I'm for that, unashamedly. And if that means that white people don't select me to be mayor or something else, I have to live with it. It's not like I woke up one morning and said, I'm going to do this. I sort of planned this, Snow: Wow. Robinson: but I played my part. I played my part in this. What I think I can do best, creating the atmosphere, shaping the issue, pounding, getting the loud speaker and hoping that there are others who hear my voice and take action.

Robinson: And that's exactly what happened. And when I was at her swearing in, I was happy as anybody there who would pound the pavement for her or cobbled something together with white row officers and raise money. I felt as much a part of it as anybody there. I saw myself as the guy that lit the match. And whenever you light a match on a battlefield, you're going to draw fire. Snow: Right. Robinson: And that's what I drew, fire. She's the recorder of Deeds. Fine. Someone said to me, What's the next thing? I said, the next thing is mayor, either mayor or county executive. Not so much for myself. But it's time, not just for somebody to say they're running. It's time to really work on it. But you have to have someone who's prepared and in place who wants to do it. And timing is everything. There should have been a black person running for lieutenant governor. Some people were talking about it two nights ago. With all due respect to the people who are talking about it, it's too late. In my opinion. It's too late. And while I can understand why they want to run, it's based on them feeling that the system was inadequate in addressing their concerns. But that historically is kind of the way we as African-Americans get involved in certain things. Oh, we weren't recognized or, or we didn't have an opportunity.

Robinson: Okay, that's valid. But. When you start talking about something as big as lieutenant governor, you're talking about now going out into all 67 counties, most of whom--have no history--supporting colored folks on anything. Just ask the students who go to those state system schools out in those rural areas. So now you're talking about running seriously running for lieutenant governor. Now, if you've got something else on your mind that you want to do with this, fine, let's talk about it. But if you're actually serious about impacting, you got to realize that you're late. You come in late to the party. Snow: Right. Robinson: The party is already going on. What are you bringing to the party this late? That folks really need at this, you know, at this late stage. Again, it's probably not much other than yourself. That's okay. Come on in. But no one's going to take you real serious unless you can come in and say, I got something, It's going to really change this party. And it's got to be more than just black and saying, I'm going to get black people to be for me because black people are very sophisticated. They've proven they don't vote for you just because you're black, because there are other relationships and other dynamics that dictate against them just voting for you because you're black, because they have, they have other alternatives now. They have white candidates who say, we'll help black people, just like historically you had white candidates who would say publicly, we won't help black people.

Robinson: I read a book by, about Bill Clinton written by Dr. Hanes Walton Jr. First book written about Bill Clinton after he left office called Reelection. And he talked about the rise of southern white politicians to the presidency, Johnson, Carter and Clinton, and how they utilized the African-American community to make it happen. And none of these guys had a sterling record of helping black folks. Snow: True. Robinson: But they were able to build upon this black constituency base that was basically Democratic. And essentially it's, it's either me or the other guys. And you know them other guys don't give a damn about you. I'll take you. So Bill Clinton is able to waltz through black churches playing his saxophone and wearing his sunglasses while he is literally devastating the black community with his policies. But that's not far different than what he did in Arkansas. And he had a nice cadre of black people around him from Arkansas. I take nothing against them. I voted for Bill Clinton twice. I wasn't going to vote for the other guy. And I respect those black people that work for him who felt that he was, he was the best candidate. But in a larger picture, what he did was to devastate basically black people. Some made it, some got it. But the overwhelming majority, they didn't get help. And I'm concerned about the overwhelming majority because that's our future. That's our history.

Robinson: Why leave that job for future generations to take care of them people? Two thirds of the African-American community is devastated economically, psychologically. The other one third, thank God I belong to it, We're doing pretty good. Not as well as we should be, but we're doing pretty damn good. What are we going to do? Randall Robinson wrote a book called The Reckoning: What Blacks Owe to Blacks. He also wrote a book called The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks. You put those two books together and you find the solution to the color problem in America. Will it be easy? No. Will it be pretty? No. Do we need to face it? Yes. And are there resources available to make some corrections? You're darn tootin. You're darn tootin. If I could have got 25% of the money that Ken Lay walked off with and put it with 25% of the money that Michael Milken walked off with, you see where I'm going, and put that in a fund for colored folks. We'd be having a different conversation today, you may be talking about me-to me about my campaign for governor or lieutenant governor. Suppose I got in on an Enron deal and had been able to get out of there with 2 or $300 million? And I said, guess what? I want to be governor of Pennsylvania. And it was all legitimate money. Or I'm going to be mayor of Pittsburgh. It'd be a different conversation.

Snow: Oh, and it's not even an abstract, because Moammar Gaddafi had offered the Nation of Islam the $1 billion development fund. So you could have had that major investment.

Robinson: Right. Right. You're absolutely right. And that's when the linkages and the political stuff starts coming. You say, do I reach for the money? If I reach for it, what happens? I mean, who starts calling? Who starts? But no, I mean, he came right up front. He understood what that's all about now, maybe that's why that bomb was dropped on his house. More so than him being a terrorist. [laughter] $1 billion. That's a lot of money. Snow: Yeah. Robinson: A lot of money.

Snow: Is there anything else from your state record that stands out that we haven't covered? I'm sure there is.

Robinson: Probably is. You know, it's still evolving and--you know, it's still evolving and I think I'm still evolving. I probably feel today I'm in better position than I've ever been psychologically, physically, mentally, politically. To achieve and to measure that achievement, to really stand behind what I believe in and understand my limitations. As Clint Eastwood said, a man's got to know his limitations. And always try to work to the outer limits of mine to push the envelope, as some people would say. And so there are a lot of things that I'd like to see happen. I'd like to see the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus shape an agenda. That could be presented to our colleagues, to our white colleagues, as what we think is important for Pennsylvania and what we think is important for African-Americans in Pennsylvania. This was done in the United States Congress by the Congressional Black Caucus. Every year they come up with an alternative budget. It doesn't get much publicity, but it has been a unifying force. It's sort of kept them together, giving them a chance to use their expertise and talent to create some alternatives, to give them some issues. We have not perfected that approach in Harrisburg. I think we're still in what I call protest mode. We're still handling the complaints, the kind of obvious stuff that happens, and then we try to spring into action.

Robinson: I think we'd be better served if we put together an agenda that related to the distribution of the money in Harrisburg and how we would like to see that money distributed. And to do it in such a fashion that the expertise and interest of each member could be maximized and then find a way to fold that into the overall budget. I know we would be able to accomplish more as a group. Individually, you can always accomplish certain things. But a cube of ice--melts very quickly in a glass of coke. A chunk of ice-- chills a glass of coke and makes it, very delectable to consume. Most people would prefer a cold glass of coke, not a glass of coke with a chunk of ice in it, because it wouldn't take long for the chunk of ice to melt and you don't even know it was there. That, I mean, that cube ice, that chunk of ice. The glass gets cold, the coke gets cold, the ice stays cold, and you feel refreshed when you drink it. So I would like to see us do that. That's a big chore that relates to personalities, vision, sacrifice. We got a few miles to go on that one. Identity theft. I talked about identity theft, didn't I? That's a big issue for me in Harrisburg.

Snow: You talked about how you tried to enforce it after having it stolen from you.

Robinson: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm still on that identity theft. Eminent domain. I'm very, I'm very interested in higher education issues.

Snow: Which I haven't even. Yeah, we haven't covered.

Robinson: Yeah. One of my-One of my political, I spend some political capital on the whole notion that Pitt and Penn State should be required to play football every year as a condition of getting their state appropriation. And I even threw in Temple and Lincoln. My rationale was that college sports is big business and millions of dollars are being generated by these universities, these same universities that raise the tuition of our constituents, who tell us all the good things they're doing for the Commonwealth, and who asks us for millions of dollars. And they tell us that these millions of dollars that they make out of sports and athletics are used to sustain the programs and they're not really making any money. One, I don't believe them. And whatever accounting systems they have, while there's integrity in those systems, I don't believe they're not making money. And I think how they allocate the money certainly is their business, but it's our business how we allocate money to them. And I think there is a direct connection between stimulating good, healthy sports competition in this state so that more dollars stay in the state. State of Ohio figured it out. Ohio State plays other schools in that state, and Ohio State University gets roughly the same amount of money as the Pennsylvania State University. If Ohio State can play Bowling Green in football, Penn State can play Pitt. Notwithstanding Joe Paterno, I tend to think when Joe Paterno finally leaves and it looks like they're going to have to drag him out there, there may be more interest in this.

Robinson: He seems to be the sticking point. But I honestly believe that if we began to look at this new sports tocracy that's been created in America, Dr. Michael Jackson at Temple University coined that phrase. If we look at this new sports tocracy, sports is dominating American life. The owners of sports teams are the new kings and queens. Well, the presidents of these major colleges are the new dukes and duchesses. And they're using the luxury boxes, too. And they're interested in generating revenue. They're interested in controlling the use of their logo, their use. They want to control the venues on campus where food and clothing and stuff is sold. Why? Make money. Make money for what? To continue the goals of the university. My point exactly. And if there's something bigger than basketball or football on a college campus, tell me what it is. Because I don't know what it is. It's certainly not bringing 20 Nobel laureates on campus. That ain't doing it. The applications of Penn State went up seven fold when they won a national championship. Why? Because they have an outstanding chemistry department? No, because they had an outstanding football team. Why did Bill Robinson pick Ohio State University? Because they had an outstanding football team. Now, that's a hell of a reason to pick a school, but it still goes on. And that, when I picked Ohio State, that was before football was as big as it is now.

Robinson: I thought it was big then. It's even more huge. Ohio State is expand the stadium now up to Old Stadium, expand up to like 107,000 people. What a game over. The man what-what went like this. I had my little radio and I was going to listen to the game. And when the lady sitting next to me, she says, Last winter, not this winter, the previous one, she said, What are you going to do? I said, I'm gonna listen to the game. She said, Not in here. I had to turn my radio off. I couldn't hear anything. Snow: Oh, my. Robinson: I couldn't hear with the crowd. It's like almost like a ball. It's almost completely enclosed. People were screaming and hollering. The field was dropped 18ft down. And then they, you know, and built in more seats. So they pushed the the fans literally are pushed further back. You're further from the field. They dropped it down to accommodate more people, make more money, and stand at the scarlet in the gray, you know. So I spent some political capital on that. Some people thought I was crazy to do that. But I said to them, Hey, ten years from now you'll say Bill Robinson was right. Because if you don't find a way. To get these college universities to be more responsible, more accountable to us around their money. There's not enough money in this state to keep paying them. This year the governor says, look, we don't have much money for higher education or basic education.

Robinson: We got to make ourselves safe and secure. From who? Osama bin Laden. Can't find him, right? You mean you can't find him. He offered 25 million. You mean you can't find him? Can't find him. So now we're scared of everybody. Everybody take off their shoes. Everybody empty their pockets. Okay. All right. So we need more money for that. We're hiring a new director of homeland security for Pennsylvania. To do what? To do what Tom Ridge is doing? Tom Ridge leaves being governor to become a public relations man. So we hired another public relations man at the state level. Fine. Now let's get back to the money. The college universities have said we don't get the money from you. Where else can we get it? The students. So the tuition is going to go up. Tuition is going to go up at Pitt, Penn State, Temple, but tuition has gone up at Pitt, Penn State, and Temple every year for the last 29 years. Penn State more so than-regardless of what we've given them, they're going to jack the tuition up. Several reasons for that. So the tuition goes up. Who catches the hell? The legislators and the governor. How come you didn't stop it? My thing is, one way to stop it, say is, that it may be little solace, but Pitt and Penn State are going to play and they're both going to play in those facilities. And Temple in those facilities.

Robinson: We put a lot of taxpayer dollars into it. I want to get some of our money back. And we don't care what kind of football team you have. Army and Navy play every year. This year, Army and Navy had two of the worst football teams in America. They played to a packed house. Who got the money? Army and Navy. For what purpose did they get the money? Well, you know. Okay, fine. They made the money. Who controlled the concessions? Army and Navy. You know who controls the concessions over at Three Rivers? Who controls the concessions up a beaver state. How much money are they making? Well, just enough to sustain the track team and the women's disc because, you know, we got to expand all these women's programs. I understand all that. I understand all that. Now, let's get back to this money. We can't account for our money going in-in these-in these Pitt and Penn State and Temple. There's no tracking system, the money going in. So how do we know we're getting our money's worth? We don't. We depend upon them to send us a report at the end of the year to say we spent the money wisely. That's fine. But as far as I'm concerned, that report is useless in terms of us adequately projecting what those schools really need from us. Now, there's not a lot of support in the legislature from our position. I think there's support to Pitt play Penn State, but I don't think the support that we do it legislatively.

Robinson: I don't think there's a great deal of support for the notion that Pitt and Penn State and Temple need to give us more upfront information. I don't think there's momentum there. I think it's, it was related to the issue of accountability. What are we giving the money for in the first place? Why are we giving them money anyway? Why not just let them play football and generate all the money they want? I mean, we give them maybe 20% of their budget, which they can go out and quadruple. Easy. They use our money for leverage. If they didn't get a penny from us, we'll be the net result. And this year is a prime example where they're not. Are these schools going out of existence? No, they're increasing the tuition, 7 to 10%. How much is this per student? 6 or $700 a year? If we force Penn State to play, maybe we could offset tuition increase at those two schools. Especially in a good year when they both have good teams or like it was two years ago when Pitt beats Penn State and Penn State is down and there was a lot of enthusiasm. Penn State didn't get a crack at Pitt the next year, and Pitt didn't get a chance to beat them again. That-that wouldn't have been a place big enough in America to hold it, the next game. And all I would have wanted was the concessions on souvenirs.

Snow: Wow. [laughter] So it is a good idea.

Robinson: It'll be back.

Snow: I've run out of questions, so.

Robinson: [laughter] Okay.

Snow: I have a couple of forms. Robinson: All right.