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User:Anders.Warga/sandbox/Randall Robinson

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For the cameraman, see Randall Robinson (cinematographer).

Randall Robinson (6 July, 1941- ) is an African-American lawyer, author and activist, noted as the founder of TransAfrica. He is known particularly for his impassioned opposition to South African apartheid, and for his advocacy on behalf of Haitian immigrants and former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.[1]

Early Life & Education

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Robinson was born in Richmond, Virginia to Maxie Cleveland[2] and Doris Robinson Griffin, both teachers. The late ABC News anchorman, Max Robinson, was his elder brother. He started college at Norfolk State on a basketball scholarship. [3] He graduated from Virginia Union University in 1967 [4], and earned a law degree at Harvard[5] in 1970.[6] Mr. Robinson was drafted in 1963[7] and served as an infantryman in the United States Army.[8]

Career

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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 analysis concerning U.S. policy as it affects Africa and the African 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." [9] He served in the capacity as TransAfrica's president until 2001.[10]

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.

In 2001 he authored a book "The Debt: What America Owes To Blacks," which presented an in-depth outline regarding his belief that wide-scale reparations should be offered to African-Americans as a means of redressing what he perceives as centuries of discrimination and oppression directed at the group.[11] The book argues for the enactment of race-based reparation programs as restitution for the continued social and economic issues in the African-American community, such as a high proportion of incarcerated black citizens and the differential in cumulative wealth between white and black Americans. [12] 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.

Exile

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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 he believes 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." Subsequently, the online publication censured Robinson -- compelling him to issue a retraction of the out-of-context implication. [13]

References

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  1. ^ "Randall Robinson, Author of An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President". Retrieved 2007-11-21.
  2. ^ Citation tbes
  3. ^ name=bookrags, "Randall Robinson Biography". Encyclopedia of World Biography. Retrieved 2007-11-21.
  4. ^ name=bookrags
  5. ^ http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/1475/TransAfrica_founder_Randall_Robinson___
  6. ^ "HLS: News: Randall Robinson to Discuss His New Book..." Harvard Law School. 2002-01-15. Retrieved 2007-11-21.
  7. ^ name=bookrags
  8. ^ Robinson, Randall (2007). An Unbroken Agony. New York: Basic Civitas Books. p. 230. ISBN 978-0-465-07050-3. ...my own experience as an infantryman in the United States Army
  9. ^ http://transafricaforum.org/mission.html
  10. ^ http://www.progressive.org/mag_intv1005
  11. ^ http://www.progressive.org/mag_intv1005
  12. ^ http://randallrobinson.com/debt.html
  13. ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randall-robinson/new-orleans_b_6643.html Huffington Post

Publications

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Category:1941 births Category:Living people Category:African Americans Category:African American non-fiction writers Category:African Americans' rights activists Category:American human rights activists Category:Non-South African anti-apartheid activists Category:American lawyers Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Virginia Union University alumni Category:People from Virginia Category:Saint Kitts and Nevis people

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