Herbert W. Robinson Jr., a longtime Memphis educator and Shelby County Grand Jury foreman, was a civil rights pioneer who broke racial barriers as much through steadfast perseverance as through activism. Mr. Robinson — who died May 30 at 87 — refused to recognize there were places in his hometown where all citizens weren’t welcome. In the 1960s, he and his wife, Lamaris Robinson, converted to Catholicism and became the first African-Americans to join St. Louis Catholic Church. Shortly after the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. Robinson moved his family from a modest black community near Mendenhall (since replaced by commercial developments) to a two-story home on Yates Road, effectively integrating a well-to-do East Memphis neighborhood and demonstrating the growing economic and social influence of the emerging black middle class. In a case later cited in an NAACP report on housing discrimination, the Yates house was acquired with some subterfuge. Mr. Robinson made an offer on the home at the asking price, and was told the offer would be considered. The next client, a white friend of Mr. Robinson’s, made an offer at $10,000 below the asking value; his offer was accepted immediately. In fact, the friend was working as a representative of Mr. Robinson, and Mr. Robinson was able to acquire the house. Nicknamed “Strawb” by friends for his freckly reddish complexion, and “Little Rob” by students for his smallish stature, Mr. Robinson could be humorous as well as stern when necessary. He was famous during his Memphis City Schools career for herding delinquent students to class on the back of the motorcycle he rode on campus. A graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, Tennessee State University and Memphis State University, where he earned a master’s degree in education, Mr. Robinson was born in Memphis. He began his teaching career at Manassas High School, and his first position as a principal was at Caldwell Elementary. That job was followed by stints as high-school principal at Douglass, Memphis Tech and East. His commitment to education extended to his family: His children earned degrees at such institutions as Northwestern, Princeton and Harvard University Law School. After retiring from city schools in 1982, Mr. Robinson served for years as foreman of the Shelby County Grand Jury. In 1997, Mr. Robinson’s grand jury panel made national news when it refused to open a new investigation into the assassination of King, after considering evidence submitted by Memphis lawyer Jack McNeil and two private investigators. “There was not credible evidence presented in this matter to warrant an investigation by the grand jury,” Mr. Robinson said in a letter to McNeil. Mr. Robinson served as treasurer of the St. Louis Catholic Church Men’s Club for 25 years, and was made a Knight of St. Gregory by Pope John Paul II, in recognition of “service to the Holy See and to the Roman Catholic Church,” particularly in the area of human rights. When his wife of 55 years died in 2005, Mr. Robinson moved to California, to be closer to some family members. He died after a brief hospital stay in Rincon, a city on the east coast of Puerto Rico, where he was living with one of his five children, Lawrence Robinson. He also leaves two other sons, Herbert Robinson III of Memphis and Jeffrey Patton Robinson of Seattle; two daughters, Teresa Moss and Michelle Robinson, both of Memphis; and four grandchildren. Private services will be held at Memorial Park Cemetery. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in his memory to the United Negro College Fund.
Posted on: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 03:40:45 +0000
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