BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
The Ronald B. Saunders Project
The James S. Robinson Jr. Project
The Saunders Family Archives
Pittsburgh PA
December 17, 2010
(BBNS)
The following letter was received by Ronald B. Saunders from Nate Smith, Chairman of the Board of Operation Dig/Careers, Inc. on April 21, 1987.Operation Dig/Careers, Inc.
Annual Awards Dinner
130 Larimer Avenue....... Pittsburgh PA. 15206 * 412-361-6200
April 21, 1987
Mr. Ronald B. Saunders
ChairmanThe National Black
Political Caucus
Pittsburgh, PA 15230
Dear Mr. Saunders:
It is an honor and a pleasure to inform you that you have been selected to receive the Operation Dig/ Careers Inc. 1987 Humanitarian Award. Your outstanding contributions have made Pittsburgh a better place to live.
We wish to publically honor you on Saturday, June 13, 1987 at the Pittsburgh Hyatt at Chatham Center. Please let me know if you can join us in this communal celebration of excellence.
I love you, admire you and respect you.
Your Black Brother & Friend
Nate Smith
*Review the blog post titled Teacher, Pioneer on Civil Rights on June 30, 2010 at http://blackbuzz.blogspot.com/
Mr. Smith credits my dad James S. Robinson Jr. for getting him started in the fight for Civil Rights.
I recall my dad stating that Alma Illery, and Daisy Lampkins and other leaders of the Black leadership class were talking about negotiations with the City over the integration of Highland Park pool when colored kids and patrons were being brutally attacked on August 22 1948.
My dad was employed by the Hill City Youth Municipality and Mayor Lawrence with the Chairman of Hill City.
My dad said Mayor Lawrence told him that he was in negotiations with the NAACP, and important members of the Negro community.
My dad said he asked the Mayor how were those negotiations going to stop the colored kids from being brutally attacked by the bigots? According to my dad Mayor Lawrence said well maybe they would stop and my dad informed the Major that he was going out to Highland Park pool and settle the matter his way. And Mayor Lawrence said "you know Jim that I don't trust too many white police officers to handle those riots." My dad further stated that he informed Mayor Lawrence that colored people pay taxes in the City of Pittsburgh, and they are entitled to use all the public facilities, which includes all of the pools.
According to my dad the white cops let or permitted the coloreds to be attacked, and as matter of fact in some cases they encouraged the whites to attack the coloreds.
My dad informed me that when he arrived on the scene at Highland Park pool that the Black kids were being threaten, and intimidated and attacked while in the pool. My dad said he shut the pool down and told the fathers to be in the city if the colored kids and adults can's use the pool then nobody will use that pool.
My dad further stated that if those colored kids and colored patrons were attacked after the pool opened up that we would personally come looking for the attackers. Don't believe all that fiction that has been written about the integration of the Highland Park swimming pool.
"Nate Smith correctly stated that Jim Robinson put his life on the line for Black people that summer, and he dared the whites to attack the coloreds when the pool reopened.
All the City fathers knew that Jim Robinson meant business, and so did the Italians and other whites who lived in the East Liberty, Homewood and the East end..
This is the same Jim Robinson that led a several truck loads of armed Black men from the Soho District of the Hill to defend the Black residents in the East Liberty Section of the city that were being attacked on and on-going basis in the late thirties. You won't read about those stories in the White media and some of those stories didn't even appear in the Courier but they did in fact happen.
What type of individual would attack innocent Colored kids, Colored patrons who just wanted to swim in peace in a public place operated by the City of Pittsburgh other than a low down cowardly bigoted savage.
Yes those folks who attacked the Coloreds at the Highland Park pool were unadulterated savages just like those savages that attacked and murdered those four (4) little colored girls in 1963 at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama.
Also note that there were intense racial confrontations in the 1940's 1950's and 1960's over the use of Blacks swimming at the Paulson pool on Paulson avenue in the upper East End, and at the West Penn pool in Polish Hill.
Sully Pool in South Park was finally integrated on Memorial Day, 1964.
* I have asked John Brewer Jr. the Owner/Curator of the Trolley Station to give me the exact dates that James S. Robinson Jr. was nominated for The Pittsburgh Courier's Man of The Year Award. It is my understanding that my dad was nominated for the Courier Man of the Year Award in 1945, , 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1950. John Brewer is the custodian of the Pittsburgh Courier Archives.
There are many important items that have been stolen from the Family Archives in Slippery Rock PA, and at the family home , which was located at 524 Francis Street in the Hill District section of Pittsburgh PA.
* My dad's heroes were Chief Crazy Horse, Geronimo and Nat Turner. Desert often talked about Chief Joseph and his compromising with whites after he had beaten them in three out of five major battles.
My dad's father's family was known throughout the greater Richmond Virginia area as the fighting Robinson's. I will be writing about blog post about my dad's mother and father who the family called pop and big mama at a later date. That blog post will be about 8,000 to 10,00 words or more.
* Hop Kendrick said in the Pittsburgh Courier in 2002 "How can you have a Civil Rights Memorial/Museum( Freedom Corner) in Pittsburgh and not include Jim Robinson in the Memorial?
The late Roland Saunders no kin to me said "Jim has helped more people on the Hill than anyone past or present.
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