Randall Robinson

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Randall Robinson (b. 6 July 1941, Richmond, Virginia) is an African-American lawyer, author and activist noted for his actions against South African apartheid and mistreatment of Haitian immigrants via his organization, TransAfrica. His parents are Maxie Cleveland and Doris Robinson Griffin, both teachers. He is a brother to the late ABC News anchorman, Max Robinson. He is a graduate of Virginia Union University and Harvard Law School.

Robinson founded the TransAfrica Forum in 1977, which-according to its mission statement-serves as a "major research, educational and organizing institution for the African-American community, offering constructive analyses concerning U.S. policy as it affects Africa and the Diaspora (African-Americans and West Indians who can trace their heritage back to the dispersion of Africans that occurred as a result of the Transatlantic slave trade) in the Caribbean and Latin America." He served in the capacity as TransAfrica's president until 2001.

During that period he gained visibility for his political activism, organizing a sit-in at a South-African embassy in order to protest the Apartheid era government's policy of segregation and discrimination against black South Africans, a personal hunger strike aimed at pressuring the United States government into restoring Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power after the short-lived coup by General Raoul Cedras, and dumping crates filled with bananas onto the steps of the United States Trade Representative in order to protest what he views as discriminatory trade policies aimed at Caribbean nations, such as protective tariffs and import quotas.

One of his main political activities in recent years has been a crusade for wide-scale reparations aimed at redressing what he perceives as centuries of discrimination and oppression directed at African-Americans. He has even written a polemic arguing for the enactment of race-based reparations, which he considers restitution for the high proportion of incarcerated black citizens and the differential in cumulative wealth between white and black Americans.

In 2001 he authored a book "The Debt: What America Owes To Blacks," which outlined his beliefs on this subject in-depth. Although some reviewers praised Robinson for delving into a controversial topic that had not been addressed in the mainstream media, others criticized him for reverse racism, and asserted that his own personal success contradicted the dire portrait he portrayed of the conditions faced by African-Americans living in the United States.

In the same year that this book was published Robinson quit his position as head of TransAfrica and decided to emigrate to St. Kitts-where his wife was born-a decision chronicled in his book, "Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man from his Native Land."

His self-imposed exile-he still keeps a home in the state of Virginia-is caused by what he describes as his antipathy towards America's domestic policies and foreign policy, both of which exploit minorities and the poor.

In September of 2005, Robinson wrote in a Huffington Post blog blasting the Bush Administration's handling of the Hurricane Katrina crisis, "It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive." This was so outrageous that even his fans couldn't defend him, and he was forced to issue a retraction, before leaving the Post. [Huffington Post]

[edit] Bibliography

Defending the Spirit Plume, (1999), ISBN 0-452-27968-2
The Debt - What America Owes to Blacks Plume, 2001, ISBN 0-452-28210-1
The Reckoning - What Blacks Owe to Each Other Plume, 2002 (Reprint), ISBN 0-452-28314-0
Quitting America - The Departure of a Black Man From His Native Land Plume (Reprint),(2004), ISBN 0-452-28630-1