He Was Not Afraid: Dr. Akinyele Umoja On Alfred 'Skip' Robinson

***About Dr. Akinyele Umoja***

Dr. Akinyele Umoja

Associate Professor and department chair in the
Department of African-American Studies at Georgia
State University (GSU). At GSU, Umoja is responsible
for teaching courses related to the history of people of
African descent in Georgia, the Civil Rights Movement
and other Black political and social movements,
courses on the enslavement of African people in the
New World, African religion and philosophy, and 19th
and 20th century Black political and social movements.

Dr. Umoja was instrumental in bringing Alfred 'Skip'
Robinson to California and also worked with him via his
organization the United League of Mississippi on
several campaigns in Mississippi...


"Robinson, who serves as president of the organization he founded, establishes local chapters of the United League upon request by local citizens. In a community requesting help, Robinson holds workshop meetings in each black neighborhood, where problems and needs are identified and strategies planned for addressing them. An ongoing community organization continues to meet after Robinson leaves to guide blacks of the community in resolving problems and meeting needs. Where the Klan is active and discrimination is practiced, the United League advocates demonstrations, business boycotts, and armed self-defense. The policy of armed self-defense has been particularly effective in countering Klan violence against blacks. In those communities where blacks have met Klan force with armed self-defense, the Klan has backed down."
~Jet May 25, 1978

Tha Artivist Writes: What do you get when you mix Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and Robert F. Williams together? The answer is Alfred 'Skip' Robinson...

So how can a gun-toting, handsome, charismatic and dynamic leader with a silver tongue who led a 70,000 member organization (the United League of Mississippi) which effectively took on the Ku Klux Klan and the White Power System in the heart of the Mississippi Delta in the 1970s and 80s be forgotten about by history and by those who he tried to liberate from oppression? How can a person who was an in demand orator and whose courageous exploits (which included shootouts with the KKK, protesting police brutality and effectively boycotting White owned businesses that discriminated against Black folks) headlined major newspapers and who was the subject of dozens of mainstream media interviews and profiles and who won a prestigious internationally recognized award (the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award) for his innovative revolutionary work seemingly vanish from the annals of American Civil Rights Movement and Black Liberation History?

Some 25 plus years after his questionable death by 'car accident' (he allegedly ran into the back of a semi-truck on Dec. 18, 1986, on Highway 78 near Holly Springs, MS), W.E. A.L.L. B.E. seeks to answer that as well as resurrect the legacy of this extraordinary human being via his own words and by the words of those who actually worked with him...We are going to revisit his legacy of grassroots activism via his incredible United League of Mississippi and include his prophetic address from the Distinguished Visitors Program lecture at UMass on Nov. 2, 1978, where he accurately addressed concerns that have already come to pass and that we as a people are currently dealing with...

I wasn't aware of Alfred 'Skip' Robinson until July 2011 when I visited the Ida B. Wells Museum in his old stomping grounds of Holly Springs, MS, where I was informed by the volunteer tour guide, Charles Richmond, of this unsung legend...But since that day I could never forget him and neither will you...

Category:

Education

Tags:

• alfred skip robinson
• akinyele umoja
• black history
• american civil rights movement
• ku klux klan
• racism
• white supremacy
• mississippi history
• black power

[nuafrika]

Thanks for posting this program. I will circulate and use in teaching.