Background
Ruby Robinson was the daughter of John Thomas Smith, an independent mover and Baptist minister, and Alice Banks, a beautician. She grew up in the working-class neighborhood of Summerhill, which was changing racially from white to black.
Civil rights activist administrative secretary
Ruby Robinson was the daughter of John Thomas Smith, an independent mover and Baptist minister, and Alice Banks, a beautician. She grew up in the working-class neighborhood of Summerhill, which was changing racially from white to black.
Ruby's parents valued education highly and enrolled her at age three in a church-run kindergarten. She entered the first grade a year later. In 1958, Smith enrolled at Atlanta's Spelman College. In May 1965, despite her work with SNCC and the demands of married life, Robinson received a B. S. from Spelman College.
Ruby Doris Smith Robinson grew up in the working-class neighborhood of Summerhill, which was changing racially from white to black. At thirteen, she watched news reports of the Montgomery bus boycott. She then realized that something could be done about segregation, that it could be fought. When word of the sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960, reached her, she rushed home to see the televised accounts. Later she was among the first wave of Atlanta students to engage in sit-ins to desegregate the city's restaurants. She attended the April 1960 meeting at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, that led to the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). On the eve of the first anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins, student protesters in Rock Hill, South Carolina, who sat at a segregated lunch counter were arrested and jailed. They issued a call for other students throughout the South to join them in demonstrations and in jail. Smith and three other SNCC volunteers traveled to Rock Hill, where they were arrested for seeking service at a lunch counter and sentenced to jail. They participated in the first "jail, no bail" stratagem and spent a month in jail. Smith reflected later that during her prison term, "I came to think of myself as an individual, as opposed to what whites might have thought of me as a person. " In May 1961, the "freedom riders, " organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), requested reinforcements to test the federal ban on segregation in interstate transportation. SNCC volunteers, including Smith, continued the freedom rides from Birmingham to Jackson, Mississippi, United States. There they were arrested for trying to use the white rest room and were given a two-month suspended sentence and a $200 fine. Rather than pay the fine, they elected to go to jail. Smith shared a four-bunk cell in the Hinds County Jail with as many as twenty-three others. After two weeks, they were transferred to the maximum-security unit of Parchman State Penitentiary, where conditions were worse, and there spent forty-five days. Upon her release, Smith returned to school and was elected to the SNCC Executive Committee. She turned her attention increasingly to SNCC and attended classes sporadically. In the fall of 1962, she became administrative secretary of SNCC, one of the youngest full-time staff members in the Atlanta national headquarters. In April 1963, Smith coordinated the third annual SNCC Conference in Atlanta. She later became the organization's personnel officer and made a concerted effort to recruit southern blacks for the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. In September 1964, with ten other SNCC leaders, she visited Guinea for its independence-day observance. The SNCC contingent was impressed by the sight of black people governing themselves. Under the tutelage of Guinea's president, Ahmed Sékou Touré, they began to appreciate the economic as well as the racial dimensions of exploitation. Smith already had developed reservations about the civil rights movement, which had accomplished little for poor blacks. In November 1964, Smith married Clifford Robinson, a mailing clerk in the Atlanta SNCC office. After SNCC's transportation officer was arrested and imprisoned in Mississippi, she took on additional responsibilities as manager of the Sojourner Motor Fleet. The fleet owned and leased cars and light trucks that were essential for SNCC workers in southern rural areas; it also operated a garage in Atlanta for which her husband was a chief mechanic. In May 1965, despite her work with SNCC and the demands of married life, Robinson received a B. S. from Spelman College. Two months later, she gave birth to a son, whom she named after the president of Guinea. She endorsed the call for "black power" in June 1966, during the James Meredith march through Mississippi, although some SNCC veterans voiced strong reservations. For her, there was a crying need to empower poor black people and to move from civil rights legislation to fundamental socioeconomic change. A fiercely proud woman, Robinson resented the male chauvinism within SNCC. She insisted that black women historically had to play strong roles for the very survival of their families. In 1964 she formally protested the limited roles allotted to women in SNCC. She yearned for the day when a just society would no longer make her own role necessary. Robinson died in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 7, 1967, after a ten-month bout with cancer.
Baptist.
Robinson endorsed the call for "black power" in June 1966, during the James Meredith march through Mississippi, although some SNCC veterans voiced strong reservations. For her, there was a crying need to empower poor black people and to move from civil rights legislation to fundamental socioeconomic change.
Ruby Robinson yearned for the day when a just society would no longer make her own role necessary.
Robinson was a wiry, talented, hardworking, efficient, courageous, determined but soft-spoken person. A fiercely proud woman, Robinson resented the male chauvinism within SNCC.
Quotes from others about the person
An office worker recalled that Robinson "maintained a strong nationalist line but insisted that staff members demonstrate a willingness to work rather than sit around and talk about white people. "
Robinson yearned for the day when a just society would no longer make her own role necessary. Wiry, talented, hardworking, efficient, courageous, determined but soft-spoken, Robinson was "the heartbeat" of SNCC, according to Sara M. Evans, a Regents Professor Emeritus in the history department at the University of Minnesota.
The writer Alice Walker noted in 1976 that Robinson's life inspired her novel of the civil rights era, Meridian.
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, an American journalist, revealed that Robinson was a standard by which she measured her own impulses as a journalist and a black woman.
In November 1964, Smith married Clifford Robinson, a mailing clerk in the Atlanta SNCC office. In July 1965, she gave birth to a son. Kenneth Toure Robinson, named in honor of the president of Guinea.
